Any developer can take exploring an abandoned space station or mysterious small town and make it scary. It’s interesting to see a concept for a horror game that’s equally ominous, but with a much more unexpected start. Forbidden Solitaire is an upcoming game from Night Signal Entertainment that asks a simple question: what would you do if you purchased a game of Solitaire, only to find out it was haunted?
The game’s Steam page sells this premise with a simple, three-line summary: “It’s 2019. You brought home a strange yet familiar 1995 CD-ROM game from the thrift store. You vaguely remember seeing ads for this game, and some kind of controversy, but you never got the chance to play it. Until now.”
It’s hard to imagine how solitaire gameplay can be scary, but I also wouldn’t have expected basic poker mechanics to make a banger of a roguelike in Balatro. The developer previously worked on Home Safety Hotline, a tech support simulator with some delightfully devilish writing and scary segments, so I have high hopes. Players will have to survive “bloodletting solitaire gameplay,” purchasing upgrades between rounds from the “friendly eye that watches you from the walls,” and discovering “a variety of game-changing Jokers, some helpful, some malignant.”
According to the Steam page, an average run of Forbidden Solitaire will take between two and three hours. Night Signal Entertainment has yet to share a release date, but I’m interested to see the developer’s take on a double period piece, depicting a gamer in 2019 playing a game from the ‘90s.
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