PC Critic Reviews

It is wonderful to see such a difficult and unwieldy idea executed so brilliantly. It has been a pleasure to go on this weird trip back to the crucible of PC gaming culture. You don’t have to be nostalgic for the period of fuzzy FMV and splatterhouse gore to appreciate Forbidden Solitaire – it works as a brain-teasing card-battler in its own right. But if you were playing games 30 years ago, when interactive horror meant bad acting, looming purple skies, pixelated images of decapitated heads and stories inspired by pulp fantasy fiction, Forbidden Solitaire is a wildly self-aware, multi-textured treat. Enter if you dare.

Forbidden Solitaire turns a simple game of patience into a surprisingly clever horror card adventure with dungeon-crawler DNA. Not every battle hits hard, but its musty ’90s CD-ROM charm works brilliantly.

Vivid, strange, clever, and haunted, Forbidden Solitaire runs on dungeon master theatrics, online folklore, and a morbid affection for bygone eras, even if it doesn't do enough to make the many, many games of solitaire you'll play particularly interesting or tense.

Forbidden Solitaire is at its best when it’s being a new old game, perfectly capturing the look and feel of a spooky, experimental FMV horror game made for PCs in the 1990s. It’s at its worst when it’s trying to be a metatextual tribute to creepypasta-style storytelling. And in the middle, there’s a pretty good take on Tri Peaks solitaire that uses modern roguelike-style mechanics without just being another roguelike. And as a bonus, the story about business and creativity clashing in the middle of the cheeky horror and meta stuff is much better than the stuff it’s sandwiched between. With a pitch-perfect runtime this experience doesn’t come close to overstaying its welcome, and ends up being one of the more memorable games of its ilk as a result. If you like card games and horror stories that play in the bizarre, and you’re sick of roguelikes and everything being 30 hours long, Forbidden Solitaire is a bullseye.

A unique and solid experience that blends solitaire with FMV and horror. Great for anyone looking to get into the card game or bring some freshness to it!