Review: Pysol

Solitaire for Linux

December 20, 1999 -- Review by J.t.Qbe

One of Loki's recent releases is Eric's Ultimate Solitaire. I've never seen it, never played it. Instead, I've been spending too much time lately on a free solitaire game called PySol. PySol is a good example of the Unix approach to games. PySol uses common Unix tools--it is written in a programming language called Python and uses a general purpose graphics toolkit called Tk. It runs under the Unix X Window GUI, but you can also download PySol for Windows or Macintosh. As long as you have or can get Python and Tcl/Tk, you can run PySol. How's that for compatibility?

In the features department, PySol puts most games to shame. The current version of PySol contains 111 different solitaire games. Sure, it'll play Klondike and Freecell, and many other games you've never heard of before. I'd describe them, but I've been hooked on Yukon for weeks. If you think you've mastered one version of solitaire, just try out one of the other games included in PySol. Before you know it, you'll have wasted several more of your sleep hours.

Little things go a long way toward making you comfortable with a game. PySol has those little things, features such as multiple cardsets and backgrounds, unlimited undo & redo, load & save games, player statistics and log files, hint system, demo games, support for user written plug-ins, integrated HTML help browser and lots of documentation. And did I mention that it's free?

It's hard to think of any gripes about the game. It takes longer to load that Windows Solitaire or Freecell, but it has far more playability. Sometimes it seems too picky about where I place the cards, though maybe I'm not putting them in the right place--at 1 am, who can remember?

Any complaints about this game would be minor. This is quality software. If you enjoy solitaire at all, check out PySol. If you ever have a few minutes to kill, check out PySol. All it'll cost you is download time. Plus the many hours you'll spend playing it. . .

You can find PySol at The PySol Home Page.