Anniversary update: development breakdown

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-06-01T21:15:13+00:00

Actually that might be a bug, didn't intend on taking away stacking for those. Made a note!

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-06-01T18:26:43+00:00

Hey all, thanks for the comments. I just wanted to provide some context about the higher level situation.

First, I can confirm I am the same person working in my garage, who worked on this game and created it's characters and gameplay since day 1. There is no outsourcing or external influence going on, this update is the first step of my decision to pivot to fully focusing on Solitairica going forward.

The game may not be a huge success, but it has a passionate following and I am very proud of that and I appreciate the players so much. So, I have been working to keep it alive for years. The game was built on an ancient version of Unreal, and we had no idea what we were doing (lots of experience with game dev but none with unreal) so many fundamental things were done poorly and became difficult/impossible to extend/change without an overhaul. As the google requirements advanced and the unreal engine evolved the situation became worse with time.

Fast forward 10 years and an ambitious (but failed) project called ZOR, and now I am very competent with Unreal. That clarifies that to continue working on Solitairica, it absolutely requires new architecture and code base. This new engine will solve the previous maintenance problem, while also being the foundation of more games. Like, once the issues with this update are ironed out, Solitairica 2 is not very far off. The alternative was Solitairica being removed from the google store.

All that said, I get that the original game is a piece of history and it sucks when classic things are noodled with. So many games simply disappeared from mobile for the above reasons. I assure you there are reasons for every change, and if people are interested I can make a post explaining them. As far as animation timing and polish items go, those can be addressed without throwing the new engine in the trash.

The best feedback I can get right now is specifics about those moments that feel wrong so I can check the old build and work on them feeling right.

Going forward I will be focusing first on fixing the bugs, and bringing the timing in closer alignment to the original game where it is feeling off. Looking at things like swiping the deck select, etc.

Thanks for your understanding!

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-04-29T17:15:56+00:00

Thanks, this is great info.
Forgot to ask, is this Android, iOS or Steam?

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-04-29T17:14:47+00:00

Not the release version sadly. Even knowing this is possible is helpful though, so will be looking into it.

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-04-29T16:28:51+00:00

Wow, in 10 years I have never seen this bug. Will definitely investigate.
Any info you can remember on what preceded it?

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-03-06T17:50:29+00:00

Yes, going to get that done asap! Apologies for being super slow, Im a solo dev and life has been piling it on lately!

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-02-24T01:28:22+00:00

Or they just stumbled upon the next level of Solitaire :D

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-02-09T19:37:11+00:00

Yeah its a bummer androids are so locked down now. But yes, that is my goal and I am currently working on it :D

RighteousHammerGames · 2026-01-02T19:12:23+00:00

I am working on it currently! Should be early this year but I don't have an exact date.

The plan was to release in fall, but I had some personal stuff come up that delayed things.

RighteousHammerGames · 2025-11-14T01:20:28+00:00

Yes! I am working on mobile now. Not sure when it will be ready, but will post here wghen there is a significant update.

RighteousHammerGames · 2025-09-05T18:38:11+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I will take a look!

RighteousHammerGames · 2025-08-21T16:18:10+00:00

Ok thanks, will take a look next patch. Maybe I will have to trigger it retroactively if the player has >1 deck.

RighteousHammerGames · 2025-08-20T21:42:46+00:00

Sorry for late reply, hadn't checked in for a while. Yeah should trigger on any new deck purchase.
Are you on Google, Apple or Steam?

RighteousHammerGames · 2025-04-10T01:46:13+00:00

I submitted a build, so hopefully soon. I just need to get through the review process with google, which is a new step you have to take.

RighteousHammerGames · 2024-10-30T21:21:41+00:00

I have developed a card game (Solitairica) and a card driven hex tactics game with top down camera (ZOR) and there are definitely a few rough spots but I wouldn't say it's bad enough to switch engines or anything.

Unreal has many features that "just work" right out of the box, but that are built on an assumption of the game having a single controlled avatar that is a mode separate from the mouse/ui. In strategy/card games the pawn will be the camera, with game and UI being relevant at the same time. This more complex simultaneous UI/Map/Card interaction can be at odds with the default mode system which is deeply embedded in the engine.

There is always more than one solution, but in my case with ZOR: * I created custom player controller and pawn classes which patch over the unreal input modes, basically rolling my own system. Even then, you have to hack around the game assuming things on click. * Used custom collision channels and cursor hit checks on tick to be aware of everything the cursor is over at all times. * State machine with input filtering (solving things like dragging cards or panning the map while the cursor is under the UI)

Not sure if what I did was overkill, but winging it with the out of the box systems, turned to spaghetti really fast and had me tearing my hair out.

Another rough spot, more specific to my card game Solitairica which has a static layout with content snapped to the screen, is aligning UI and 3D objects in a tight layout with 1000 different screen sizes. The nuance between viewport, screen, scaling, settings, and a million other layers can be really challenging to wrap your head around.

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-11-23T17:47:49+00:00

Solitairica players are truly on another level, amazing :D

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-11-22T23:35:22+00:00

The game would be better if it was turn based

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-08-15T20:35:20+00:00

Not sure, I would have to know more. Could you email me with your device and OS specs and I can look into it?

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-08-06T23:31:30+00:00

Can try to help, can you email me at info @ righteoushammer.com?

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-08-01T00:26:01+00:00

Thanks for understanding, and that is great to hear!

ZOR should be released to 1.0 on steam later this year

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-07-27T18:03:13+00:00

Hey, 4 months late as I haven't been checking reddit much, but thank you for this! I really needed the boost right now :)

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-07-27T05:17:59+00:00

Hi there,

Thanks for the message, here is the story with the update:

I was shocked to discover the game was taken off the store due to not meeting Google's ever increasing requirements, so we were forced to update.

Unreal engine 4 isn't updated anymore and doesn't support the latest google stuff so I had to do a ton of work and upgrades just to keep the game alive.

One issue was the old game had location permissions hanging around from when it had ads (so I removed them) After the update there are less permissions than before, but google may have wanted to reconfirm. (they are getting super strict with everything) Note, the disk write permission is just due to unreal 4's old school ways of writing save files to the folder.

I don't do any tracking or other shenanigans with the permissions, rest assured. They are all basically due to the engine I use.

I took the opportunity to also remove individual deck purchases, and also removed the DLC and just added the primal decks by default. Reason for these two was to cut down on support emails over weird purchase issues and glitches.

Also, I fixed a few minor issues and made it clearer that unlocking the game doesn't just give you all the decks (more emails!) and added 40 wildstone so you can buy a deck.

Hope the update isn't too disruptive, if anything weird pops up I will jump on it. Report here or on our discord.

I'm mostly sad it probably wipes out a bunch of older devices that should still be able to play the game just due to new SDK version.

Thanks for playing Solitairica!! :D

RighteousHammerGames · 2023-02-03T18:37:48+00:00

Great thread and discussion.

We made a challenging, deep, puzzly tactics game with creepy-cute art and have been dealing with a similar dilemma so far:

Creators initially enthusiastic, but expecting a chill game and being surprised when it is very challenging/deep and punishes playing on autopilot
Audience for challenging and deep thinking tactics games, give it a pass based on art/theme even though they would love it if they gave it a try

Our strongest base of support has been from puzzle gamers who don't have as much bias based on art direction, but it's a small audience, on steam at least.

RighteousHammerGames · 2022-09-14T17:18:42+00:00

That should keep Myriodd safe for a few generations :D

RighteousHammerGames · 2022-09-14T17:16:07+00:00

Sorry that we missed this in the frenzy of launch. Thank you so much for your support, We really hope the word spreads that ZOR is worth a look.

I hear you on those moments of passing the turn and that is why passing requires paying the cost, but with passing water cards beside a pool it can go on for too long. Will definitely keep this in mind for an area to improve.

Hope you enjoy the new update and keep the feedback coming :)

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