You go to war with the app you have, not the app that you might want.

January 23, 2016 5:53 AM

Have you ever wished there was a way to play solitaire while still viewing inspirational wartime content of Winston Churchill? Do you have an iPhone? Well, has Donald Rumsfeld (best known for such previous non-mobile hits as the admittedly buggy Iraq War) got the game for you!

With such taglines as "One Man Never Doubted Victory," attached to swelling crescendos, it's hard to keep from wondering if Rummy is trying to make some statements about his own legacy as well.

"You can make a mistake very early on that can prevent you from winning a hand that should have been winnable," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "And that is also true in life."

posted by corb (19 comments total)

You know those people who are utterly impervious to irony? I just added this to my gift list for every one of them regardless of their political views.
posted by Etrigan at 6:12 AM on January 23, 2016 [7 favorites]

I tried the Kim Kardashian game, and I can try this.
posted by box at 6:29 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Favorited for the title.
(And also the first post tagged with both iraqwar and iphone)
Now to try the game...
posted by MtDewd at 6:34 AM on January 23, 2016

What is the deal with neocons always jackin' it over WWII? They either weren't alive or weren't old enough to fight when it was going on, and by now they have plenty of their own military adventures to reminisce about glowingly. Don't you want to inspire us with the chest thumping missives of true Great Leaders like George W. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld?
posted by indubitable at 6:39 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

I have no idea what the Rumsfeld foundation does but I'm not contributing a penny to a war criminal's too little and too late efforts to do good after all.
posted by dis_integration at 6:52 AM on January 23, 2016 [9 favorites]

For those who (understandably) don't want to give him money, you can try it free. They charge you for undos, shuffles, and for unlocking "Campaign mode", where you play as a cadet going to school with Churchill.
posted by corb at 6:58 AM on January 23, 2016

I like how Member of Parliament and Prime Minister are just 2 more rungs on the ladder of military ranks you can advance up.
posted by dazed_one at 7:13 AM on January 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

I mean, I'm not going to give him money, but it's not a terrible game. Both prettier and less shill-y than I was expecting. UI could be better, especially after you start to get a lot of cards on the board. I suspect that some of the people in the target audience will have to use their reading glasses.
posted by box at 7:14 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think the world has heard entirely too much from Mr. Rumsfeld already.
posted by darkstar at 7:23 AM on January 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

It looks (from the screenshots) like something I've played in PySol (sourceforge link) but I don't remember the name. Two decks, move cards to a stack instead of free cell type cells, build down in single suit, build up on aces.
posted by Death and Gravity at 8:01 AM on January 23, 2016

I'm holding out for Clive Candy Solitaire. Or maybe Clive Candy Crush Solitaire.

"Solitaire starts at midnight!"
posted by lagomorphius at 8:27 AM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

But are there known unknowns?
posted by Eikonaut at 8:29 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Finally, an app that targets an under served demographic.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 9:05 AM on January 23, 2016

I'm going to let other people comment on the merits of the game or Rumsfeld himself, but I would love it if more octogenarians led application development.

"...“Churchill Solitaire” is likely the only videogame developed by an 83-year-old man using a Dictaphone to record memos for the programmers...

...“We need to do a better job on these later versions. They just get new glitches,” reads one note from Mr. Rumsfeld. “[W]e ought to find some way we can achieve steady improvement instead of simply making new glitches.”"

This is marvelous. And my water heater gets the water too hot, could one of you write an app for that.
posted by doctorfrog at 12:14 PM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

Does the game start with a very short discussion of whether you should play or not? Does it overwhelming decide for you that you are going to play even though you think it's a bad idea? Does it have involuntary in-app purchases that drain your bank account? Does it turn out to be a terrible idea to have played after a seemingly endless game that turns your iphone/android into a smoking ruin?
posted by double block and bleed at 1:28 PM on January 23, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think it's hilarious that a man who will be remembered as an abject failure, and his singular defining project as an unmitigated bungle (perhaps one of the most costly of the 21st century), decides to make a card game about Churchill. Churchill, famously, had his own little whoopsie, but was able to get back into history's good graces with his command of the British efforts in the Second World War. Rumsfeld is an old man, all but dead, and he will be remembered as nothing more than a failure. His stupid little game seems to be the most feeble grasp at greatness which he will certainly never achieve. Pathetic.
posted by codacorolla at 11:09 AM on January 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've been playing it a lot, and there's something creepy about Rumsfeld creating mechanics where to stop playing you have to "surrender" and the Churchill quotes that pop up when you "surrender" all seem like quotes Drunk Rumsfeld could tell himself in a bar. The latest, "Success consists of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." NO RUMSFELD MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP FAILING.
posted by corb at 6:32 PM on January 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Donald Rumsfeld Was Shady as Hell on The View Today
posted by Etrigan at 11:13 AM on January 27, 2016

Well I got the app just to learn the rules, which I couldn't find anywhere else.
It does not work well on the iPhone, but at least they tell you up front that the iPad experience is better.
Also, and this is my bad, I didn't know my phone was accidentally set to 'Orientation Lock: On', so after a certain point in the game I couldn't play any more. Lost the first 20 games that way. Not going to graduate from cadet any time soon.

Annoying things about the app:
-Rumsfeld's part in it
-Churchill quotes (at least you can turn the voice off)
-Constant requests to upgrade to the paid version
-In several places, referring to 'regular' solitaire (presumably Klondike)
-Bugs- a couple of times I could not play a valid card to the top. (One was an Ace, so I know it was a legal move)
-Yelling- "YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!              (OK, it was really only 1 exclamation point)

But I was only interested in the game, so I got out real cards yesterday to try it outside their limited shuffles.
...it's not a terrible game
Pretty sure I disagree there. I think it's worse than most solitaires.
Now, I did lose every single game (at least 20), so I may be bitter, and maybe I was not playing very well.
But as far as I could tell, the best strategy is to have a lucky shuffle- get all the tableaux uncovered and the foundations growing early. Always a good 'strategy'.
It's not as though there are no decisions to make, but it's pretty limited.
The 'Devil's six' was devilish, but in the kind of way that gave me a playable game about 1 out of 8 times. Once there was a 3♣ under both 5♣'s, so that I knew right away to start over, but a couple aces buried or kings on top makes for a crappy experience, and you can't do anything with them except play them on the foundation.
A nice idea is that, in dealing from the stock (which you do across most or all of the tableau), you don't put cards on top of piles that start with kings.
If you can't get the kings to empty spaces, it can get as messy as a bad game of Spider, but with none of the options that make Spider so playable.

There just are not a lot of choices. 👎
posted by MtDewd at 4:58 PM on February 1, 2016 [1 favorite]