Microsoft Solitaire Collection

App Store Editors’ Notes

Generally great app, only issue is that quite a few star club games are glitchy

EDIT: I’m an idiot and these games are 4 suit. I wasn’t paying attention and the games didn’t label them as 4 suit so I didn’t realize. Disregard. A weird number of Spider Solitaire games in the star club packs are consistently glitchy in a very specific way I haven’t seen in any daily challenge, event, or regular games. The cards just don’t act right—random cards will not act like they belong to any suit, so while you have a red 3 on a red 4, for example, the game won’t let you move these cards together. But putting that same red 3 on a black 4 will also not let you move it. This glitch makes probably 20 games or so completely unplayable, which is unfortunate, because I like to complete challenges and packs and seeing these star club packs unfinished leaves me a bit unsatisfied. That being said, this is by and large the best solitaire app in the app store. Lots of ways to play, and lots of incentives to keep it interesting. It does seem that they changed some things about the daily challenges to make it easier to earn the monthly badges, which I’m not a huge fan of. Just seems weird to be able to get a diamond badge after completing less than half of the month. Doesn’t affect gameplay at all though, just a small thing.

Not Really a Fan Anymore

So I have been playing this game for many years, ever since I got my first laptop which was over a decade ago. I was very happy to play this game on the go, whether I had connection or not. Then as the game modernized, it started requiring Internet play as well as showing ads. I kept playing the game because I love the fact that all the card games were in one app, and keeps up with what levels I’m on in the different games. However the app seems a bit outdated at this point. With other games, when they show ads(for those of us who don’t want to pay for ad free play), it normally runs for about five to ten seconds before having a “fast forward” button to let us skip the rest of the ad. After 3-5 more seconds and we can ex it out and play the game we want. With Microsoft Solitaire, you have to stay for the whole 45 seconds to a minute along with waiting for the X to pop up too proceed to the game. And the ads are always about the same thing now. “Royal Match,” the game with no ads. Having to watch these between every game I play gets very annoying, especially since I have to sit through this terrible actors demonstrating the game or either the game itself trying to force me to swipe the screen. I always get fed up and go play some other game. I have dedicated so much time and energy to this game though and would hate to have to start over somewhere else, but it looks like that’s what I’ll have to do.

Great gameplay, buggy infrastructure

This is the best gameplay, most attractive and satisfying graphics and interaction of any solitaire game out there by far. That’s why I keep playing it. I just wish the Microsoft underneath didn’t cause so much suckage. The game is obsessed with your internet connection, even though it really shouldn’t need it to play a card game!! It takes forever uploading and downloading... nothing, before you can play it, and after each game, and if your connection has changed, like from WiFi to cell, or to a different WiFi, it doesn’t cache the data and try on the new connection - no, it freaks out and won’t save your score and won’t let you continue playing. It also downloads some unnamed “new content’ constantly, then forgets it the next time you open the app, and downloads it again! And the themes- apparently what it’s supposed to have downloaded (you get to dismiss two messages every time it tries!!) are still screwed up every time you play, and when you fix them (which usually only lasts 1 session) it wants to download then yet again! Wow. So after writing all this down it’s clear I need to play a less visually slick solitaire game that isn’t so annoying. Again, the gameplay is the best, but the annoying bugs ruin it.

5* for the game itself/2* for the online experience

The games are fine, the graphics are good, the art is decent, there’s a good breadth of art. The problem is that I like to play competitions and too often I’ll be in the middle of playing and the game will dump me out or freeze. Case in point the anniversary games. I got not quite a third of the way through the whole thing, finished a klondike game and the screen froze as I was waiting for my score to be counted and the next game to show up. This has happened too damned many times, and it’s super frustrating, especially when I’m doing well and bam! I’m locked out. My choices are wait and wait to see if somehow the glitch fixes itself (almost never happens), close the game, reopen it and then have to replay the game I just finished, or just give up. Lately I’ve been choosing just give up on it completely. What’s the point? By the time I get back in and replay my last game it doesn’t matter how well I’ve been doing, the time lost gives me an insurmountable handicap. It’s especially painful when it’s a very long match with a lot of points like the anniversary game play was. I am beginning to think there’s no reason for me to keep my premium membership on the site when I get shafted by it so often. It’s too bad because this is the game I play the most. I really enjoy it—when it works.

Issues

#####Don't know who did this review under my Apple password but it's time to stop. My review: For weeks now I have been knocked off the server during game and, like today get error 101, which seems to be ongoing. When I went to Microsoft sight to see how to correct this issue, found the solution instructions were for Xbox. iPad not Xbox. I have played this game for years and would like to do so for many more. Get this fixed NOW!!!!!##### I have playedIn the last couple of weeks the game has started to stall and close in the middle of a game, dailies and daily tournament. The worst thing lately are the new full page ads for auto litter box, auto pet feeder and Facebook. I have to physically close the game as the close function and even the access site button do not work. I sometimes wait hours for the ad to disappear so I can't play. Additionally since the last update after only playing one or two games the system crashes. I literally have to restart the game. My connection is just fine so unless you are intentionally making my device obsolete with your upgrades, I suggest find a fix soon. I have been playing your game for a couple of years and is the best solitaire game, but the frustration is getting to me. Time to find a replacement app. I don't have issues with any of my other apps. Have never liked Microsoft and now I never will. Thanks for nothing.

Amazing Game, But Newest Update for Bonus Game

I think this is an amazing app platform to play solitaire on, as I have been playing on it for years now. Though, with the newest update that allows you to play a bonus game after achieving a certain level, I have been running into the issue of the game crashing and the app closing as soon as I've completed the bonus game. Then as soon as I open the app again, it says I have to resume the game and puts me back a few turns. After the first two times it happened, I thought it was maybe just an issue with my device and tried to restart it, but then it continued to crash, even after switching to another mobile device and even my desktop computer. This needs to be fixed. I've been a loyal player on this app for nearly six years now and I've never been so disappointed with the app before until this newest update. Please fix the bug that crashes the game and app so more players can enjoy it to its fullest extent. Thank you for your time and thank you for an amazing solitaire platform!

Addictive fun, but could be better.

I love this app and play it every day, but it has some issues that are a huge drawback for me. The daily Events are ranked by play time, but there’s no option to pause. So if I’m in the middle of a game and have to answer the phone or something, the timer just keeps going, even if you leave the app. The only way to stop the timer is to back out and quit the game and start over later. Not only do you lose any progress toward solving it, but the failure also counts against you. This issue is huge for me, I’ve frequently had something come up where I forgot to quit the game and ended up with a play time of several hours, completely tanking my place on the Leaderboard. With a pause feature or an automatic timer pause when leaving the app, this would absolutely be a five star game. There’s also been an issue with lag recently that’s super annoying, I’m hoping there will be an update to fix that soon. Lastly, and this is minor but still worth mentioning, you earn coins by playing the Daily Challenges, but I can’t figure out what you can spend them on, or what purpose they serve. One of the selling points of the premium subscription is earning more coins, but if they serve no purpose, what’s the point? Anyway, it’s a great game, and I recommend it, but the timer issue is huge.

Solitaire time out

Love playing solitaire only problem I have is with the timed games. I can’t tell you how many times that the service can’t connect after I finish a game. It’ll take an extra minute or two and this extra time becomes part of your total time. Example you finish a game in say 2 minutes and it takes 2 minutes to finally connect so your total time is 4 minutes so this is totally not fair. Apparently Microsoft’s developers haven’t figured out how to eliminated this extra time due to there servers being overwhelmed by users. Sometimes after waiting for more than 5 minutes I quit out of the game and become frustrated so then give up playing for a while and go about my day. I then return later in the day and when I finish the game I had quit out of discover that even though I haven’t been using the app my total time ends up being the 2 or 3 hours I was doing other things. I even had it be over 8 hours for a game. I’m using an IPad an obvious competitor to the Microsoft surface tablet, funny bet those connect all the time. Otherwise I give them a 5 star review. I’m imagining that their developers will never read this but oh well.