Solatro: A Solitaire Roguelike by NotExplosive

[raw]
made by NotExplosive for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

I love Solitaire but I hate losing. What if you could power up your cards to make the game easier to win?

Solatro is Klondike Solitaire with a few small tweaks:

  1. Adding a card to the Collection gains points equivalent to that card's rank.
  2. When you get enough points, you can upgrade one of your cards, and then start a new round.
  3. Upgrades add new ways to move and place cards.

Controls

You do everything with the mouse. Right click will move a card to the next available spot if there is a valid move for it to make.

Credits

Programmed and Designed by NotExplosive Face Card art by soumyasauce Music and sound effects by quarkimo (not made during the jam) Additional Art and Sound Effects by NotExplosive

Ratings

Overall 367th 3.55⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 155th 3.75⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 393th 3.25⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 748th 2.675⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 636th 2.95⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 574th 2.5⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 374th 3.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

rhewid
Oct 06th · 15:02 UTC
Cool spin on Solitair, would be cool if you went even crazier with it. Also I noticed that some icons are like showing to different patterns, is that intentionally? ![wtf.png](///raw/0b3/21/z/6d64c.png)
spacecadet
Oct 06th · 15:03 UTC
Cool game and feels really polished. It starts out really slow, which is solitaire problem but it gets more interesting as you start to stack up the upgrades. There is a bug that you can click the ace on the victory row until you have the required points to advance to the next level.
🎤 NotExplosive
Oct 06th · 16:31 UTC
Thanks @rhewid and @spacecadet -- I fixed both of those issues!
lectvs
Oct 06th · 23:56 UTC
yooooo Windows Solitaire just got a kickass update! Very smooth implementation of solitaire, and the upgrades can be pretty cool when I remember to use them :sweat_smile:
Theothervc
Oct 07th · 02:14 UTC
Fun Game, Amazing Sound Design. I Keep getting Really Unlucky Though :(
Debaser
Oct 07th · 10:11 UTC
Awesome game! The card numbers and symbols are a bit pixelated and hard to read when you play in windowed-mode. Maybe it would look better if you scale the cards as a whole? Overall great concept!
Lefinno
Oct 07th · 11:15 UTC
it's weirdly addicting
Lefinno
Oct 07th · 11:15 UTC
i need my 2 hours back
celia14
Oct 08th · 03:55 UTC
I didn't expect to play very long - I felt like I was squinting at the cards the whole time to see the card symbols, I kept losing, and I felt lost on how to use the upgrades - and then I played for two hours and beat it. :D It was actually really fun to figure out how to use the upgrades (the one where you can play on any card of that suit is so nice) and very addictive to try again when I got stuck. Also, the card shuffling animation and sound is really nice! So satisfying to get to the point of winning and seeing all the cards fly into the stacks.
Le Don
Oct 08th · 21:24 UTC
Great game! I think the cards could be a bit bigger and there is some empty space. Maybe you could use that space to show which upgrades have been unlocked so far.
stephenwhoskins
Oct 11th · 03:34 UTC
I really loved this. I played the crap out of it. I want to do a card game myself now, lol. Also, it seems completely solid, which is much appreciated. With a large variety of different upgrades that you can get every time you win, it further keeps you engaged. Great job, great game. =)
prisma
Oct 11th · 04:06 UTC
Very clean sound effects and card animations! The board felt a little small and I couldn't make out the numbers/suits as well as I would have liked but overall very cool idea and implementation!
Rol
Oct 11th · 16:11 UTC
Surprisingly addictive! Really like the idea and it’s executed quite well, especially the sound effects, which make Solitaire more exciting than ever. Maybe it will be better if the early upgrades can be more impactful, maybe giving players some upgrades withimpactful effects in first level to emphasize the progression.
InMyArmsTonight
Oct 11th · 16:18 UTC
i played twice and it all stuck at the begining(qxq)
marks
Oct 12th · 18:44 UTC
I love playing Solitaire... a lot. The twist fits so well it really freshens up the gameplay. Was blown away by the amount of polish, amazing work!
zactyl
Oct 17th · 07:45 UTC
Thanks for uploading! Had to stop myself before I sunk hours into it! I like the idea of it and think it would be really interesting to see all the different ways you could go crazy with the upgrades! It took me quite a while to actual get into the habit of using the special effects though - for a while I was mostly playing it as normal solitaire. There also might be an issue with the deck order when re-stacking. Sometimes I would notice that when my deck got smaller, if I put one card down (not the last one in order), the last card would be different sometimes. Definitely appreciate the risk free retries, I got pretty unlucky a few times (that, or I'm just pretty bad at solitaire).
Lyssa
Oct 18th · 06:29 UTC
![Screenshot 2025-10-18 012352.png](///raw/549/53/z/6f754.png)
I have been playing this for HOURS now and will continue to play it, I really loved how all this came together, its chill and not stressful and feels nice to play.
If I would suggest something I would like to see a key or legend for what the different power ups, it was a bit hard to differentiate them after playing for a while. The only minor issue I had was when the cards would fly off to be counted for the score any card with a powerup wouldn't be taken and I would have to manually move it
Either way! fantastic job! I would love to see this expanded upon
LDJam user 372012
Oct 18th · 10:17 UTC
Nice entry guys! Please consider adding web version for your jam entries so that more people can check the game out
ursagames
Oct 18th · 18:14 UTC
![Victory.jpg](///raw/fbc/1/z/6f77d.jpg)

Aw yeah! Victory! I could see a lot more modifiers to cards and even maybe other options. I could see this also hitting a pretty wide audience, like my mom would enjoy playing this on her tablet. The only thing that I wish it did was either not automatically grabbing all my cards up to the Ace piles or letting me drag cards back down from there. Ran into a couple runs where it broke some of my plans by grabbing a card I was going to use in another move before moving up to the top.

I also wish a game didn't auto end but you just racked up points for your stack for when you end a game. Not having the points go down on a reset seems like it would let you feel like you are progressing even when you lose. Could see getting card modifiers that like triple points etc so you put it on Kings for mass points or lower cars for more consistent points per round. Tons of options really! Could definitely see this doing well on mobile.
Matthew Rose
Oct 18th · 19:19 UTC
Cool concept, would have been nice to get more of the power ups in between each round as I just felt I was playing regular solitaire most of the time. Great work!