The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection

You're here for Fortune's Foundation. You don't know that yet. You see a collection of solitaire games that you can easily access and spend some time with. You get it, scroll through the games, and balk at the 4/5 difficulty on the only game in this collection that is exclusive to it. You say to yourself you'll win each other game at least once, for the sake of it. You play an improved version of Klondike that doesn't make you jump through whatever weird hoops and advertisements Microsoft is making you go through for what was once upon a time a basic feature. You'll play a matching game that's okay but pales in comparison to the game that it's from, a statement that's more praise for Opus Magnum than dismissing what's on offer here. You'll play several unique and fun stacking puzzles, a kind of boring math puzzle, and the excellent Shenzhen Solitaire which in its own right would justify the purchase here. And then you start Fortune's Foundation. And Fortune's Foundation starts teaching you. You're probably going to lose a lot early, but it teaches you every time. You learn the elegance of its restrictions, the beauty and curse of its flexibility, the nuance of its exceptions, and the value of patience. As you get better at it, Fortune's Foundation untangles your mind, weaves a basket from it, and asks you to see how much water you can hold in it before spilling out all over. I don't know if Fortune's Foundation is always winnable, I don't think it needs to be. It's certainly not unfair, it's always technically solvable to whatever degree before you even make the first move, but it won't simply give you what you want either. You're asked to take your time, plan out, identify how many moves you can see ahead until you run out of either options or, more likely, capacity to track more and more moving parts. It's big and contemplative and beautiful, a phenomenally designed game in an already excellent collection. The seven other games are going to justify the purchase for you. But you're here for Fortune's Foundation. Rejoice, the future is bright if you choose to see it.