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The first new card I found in Forbidden Solitaire’s new DLC The Discarded gave me the power to throw a card like a knife at whatever horror was trying to kill me. Although nothing warranted such a desperate move, I fear it won’t be long before I find myself out of options now that I’ve seen the devilish new tricks the developers have dealt in the DLC’s first hour.
I’m lucky I just spent the last week playing through the base game because The Discarded offers no help: From the moment you double click the DLC executable on the game’s ’90s-inspired PC interface, you’re on your own. It’s not quite enough to understand how to play solitaire; you need to know how to play Forbidden Solitaire, a haunted version of the classic card game where you must change your approach based on the modified cards the developers throw at you.
Some cards might be locked away until you play the right suits. Others might be surrounded by bones, requiring them to be played twice before leaving the board. Your deck will run out quickly if you don’t strategize around these factors and try to knock off as many cards as you can in one turn.
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Thankfully, you can cheat… by jamming gems into your flesh. The eyeball in the wall that compels you to mutilate your hand for power is back. This time, you can even sear glyphs into your skin, too. Each unholy decoration gives you bonuses that can help tilt the balance in your favor, like an increased chance to deal extra damage during combat—oh yeah, there’s combat.
(Image credit: Tyler C. / Grey Alien Games, Night Signal Entertainment)
Right away, The Discarded’s enemies don’t play around. In the original game, you’re taught to pay close attention to whatever horrible thing a monster plans to do once you finish your turn. This can be simply an attack that drains your health or a variety of curses that warp the cards. The beast at the start of the DLC can block you from playing cards by covering them in wet paint, and later you have to deal with marbled cards that don’t contribute to your combos—and thus your damage.
I never knew solitaire could have so much depth until I played Forbidden Solitaire, and The Discarded sprinkles even more challenges that change your approach to what is otherwise a pretty straightforward game.
It also helps that there’s an entire mystery to unravel as you go. You play the new DLC as Robyn Cierra, a character digging through Forbidden Solitaire, the in-universe 1995 CD-ROM game, in search of their sister. There’s another character sending you texts with images and fuzzy FMV clips that detail all the bizarre events surrounding the development of the game, back in the early ’90s. And if it’s like the base game’s story, I don’t expect things to stay relatively normal for long.
Forbidden Solitaire is easily one of the best indie card games I’ve played since Inscryption and The Discarded DLC feels like a spooky encore. If you missed it, I recommend spending the two to three hours it takes to finish the base game first. That way you’re prepared for whatever horrors await in the DLC’s 30 new levels.
Forbidden Solitaire is currently $11.51, a few bucks off of its normal $16 price for the next week, and you can grab The Discarded DLC for $8.
