Gaming

How Forbidden Solitaire brought solitaire games to the forefront

Aug 17, 2026 | 5 min read

Its success has allowed Grey Alien Games to reach out to more Steam players than ever.

The popularity of Microsoft Solitaire—the very salve for bored office workers everywhere—can't be overstated. The staple game that's been pre-installed with Windows since Windows 3.0 in 1990, it has since become synonymous with the genre of solitaire, a family of card games that comes in many variants. Microsoft Solitaire, specifically, was based on a version called Klondike. At first glance, solitaire doesn't seem like the sort of card game that's particularly enticing to the average Steam consumer. It's typically a meditative affair, a genre that's more at home within the market of free-to-play casual games than the Steam storefront.

Yet, Forbidden Solitaire managed to seize enough attention among these players with its tantalizing, 90s-era analog horror presentation. The game even saw 880 concurrent players at one point since its release in April. In contrast, other solitaire games by developer Grey Alien Games, such as Regency Solitaire II and Shadowhand Solitaire, only saw 98 and 20 concurrent Steam players at their peak. Moreover, Forbidden Solitaire's commercial success—the game sold 10,000 copies in 48 hours—meant that Grey Alien Games and its co-developer, Night Signal Entertainment, are able to consider a sequel soon after its release. "It's taken awhile to get used to the game's level of success, because we're not used to this game coming out and doing so well," said developer Jake Birkett. "But it has come at the right time, because we did work hard."

Solitaire has become something of a niche for Grey Alien Games, even though Birkett pointed out that it isn't the only genre of games they have worked on. "[Forbidden Solitaire] is our seventeenth game by the way," he said. "We made 16 other games, [including] seven match-three games, seven Solitaire games, a city builder [and] some other things." That said, the studio's affinity for solitaire is obvious; it's a genre of games they're good at making.

Most solitaire games are free-to-play casual experiences, with most simply offering straightforward interpretations of the genre. Players clear stacks of cards through repetitive rounds. Not Grey Alien Games' games, however; their creations typically include mechanical variations or wrinkles you may not expect at first glance. Take Fairway Solitaire, a game that Birkett worked on as a contractor for Big Fish Games in 2007, which Kotaku described as "not just another boring free solitaire game for iPhone;" its solitaire game is mired in golf mechanics. Meanwhile, Eurogamer has praised Regency Solitaire for its "playful, on-the-nose pastiche of the novels of Jane Austen".

Then there's Birkett's love for the genre itself, having made his first solitaire game in 1995. While working in a computer shop, he became hooked on Microsoft Solitaire, playing it whenever he wasn't building PCs. He then created a version of the game on his Commodore Amiga, even sending it to a publication in hopes that it would be included in the demo discs that were bundled with game magazines at that time. Unfortunately, he never got a response, although that did little to douse his passion for game development. Birkett decided to set up Grey Alien Games, quitting a stable job in business software development in 2005. Subsequently, his wife Helen Carmichael joined the studio in 2015; she suggested that they make a solitaire game set in the Regency era. "We already were trying to make games for the casual market back in 2013," said Birkett. "The type of solitaire games that we ended up making—there were some of those around, and they were already quite popular—but no one had done this theme that Helen came up with, which was Regency Solitaire."

A voracious reader of Regency novels, Carmichael was familiar with the leisurely pursuits of the upper class during that era, which are predominantly gambling and other parlor games. She realized that the period would make a suitable setting for a solitaire game, and it didn't hurt that the duo were history buffs. "Helen's read the books, I watched the films, we [would] go and visit stately homes and gardens and things, so it was fun for us to do, and we enjoyed it," said Birkett. At the same time, Carmichael noted that many casual players were older women, and a Regency themed game could have plenty of appeal to this audience. She then wrote the narrative, tying together other elements of Regency Solitaire that were atypical of solitaire games: in-game shops, decorations, and power ups.

These inclusions, in a way, became a blueprint for Grey Alien Games' future solitaire games. Rather than the Klondike variant popularized by Microsoft Solitaire, Regency Solitaire—and Forbidden Solitaire—employed the tri-peaks or golf rulesets instead. "It lends itself to sort of fast, arcade-y gameplay, I would say, where you can build combos and have fun, whereas Windows Solitaire is a bit more slow-paced and basic as you build those stacks," he said. To the studio, these seem like a more appealing style of gameplay, akin to a sense of tidying things up. "When you play solitaire, specifically the type in our game, you tidy up, you clear the layout, it's gone," said Birkett. "Hopefully you get a big combo along the way, and then you move on to the next layout."

As it turns out, Regency Solitaire was also the first game Grey Alien Games sold on Steam. Previously, their games were only available on casual gaming sites like Big Fish, Game House and iWin; Birkett acknowledged that Steam players weren't their core audience then, but they uploaded Regency Solitaire to Steam "just to get some bonus sales." To their surprise, the game sold a bit better than expected. A suggestion by Positech Games' Cliff Harris to make a more Steam-compatible version of Regency Solitaire then led to Grey Alien Games developing Shadowhand, a solitaire game with distinct RPG sensibilities, such as turn-based combat and equipment. This was further refined in their next solitaire game, Ancient Enemy, where combat consisted of more RPG-esque abilities, like wielding elemental attacks and spells. "There is this path through our various games, and we think Forbidden Solitaire is the best iteration of that combat system," said Birkett.

Grey Alien Games have always taken a measured approach to game development. Birkett professed that he tends to collect plenty of data on his games' performance. Thus the success of Forbidden Solitaire, while extraordinary, wasn't quite out of the blue. The game began as a one-page proposal by Night Signal Entertainment to craft a spooky spin on solitaire that harks back to the kitschiness of ‘90s FMV horror games; Night Signal would create the visuals, audio and writing, while Grey Alien Games could focus on the game design and programming. Birkett and Carmichael were charmed by the idea, but opted to sleep on it to see if they would still like the concept the next day. Turns out they did—and, in fact, took to it so much that they cancelled their ongoing development of Regency Solitaire 3. "We were right between games when they emailed us, and one of my logical decisions was well, at least a horror version of this Solitaire engine can't sell worse than Regency Solitaire 3, just because we knew that Steam is the kind of marketplace where horror games are doing quite well, and we didn't think it could do worse than a sequel to our existing game," said Birkett.

Nonetheless, Grey Alien Games wanted to know how feasible the concept was, and the two studios released a teaser trailer in the early stages of Forbidden Solitaire's development. "We'd started the game design and we started messing around with a few things around the edges about how it would look and what the story would be, but we absolutely did not have a game," said Carmichael. "We did not have anything to show in terms of actual complete gameplay." It went viral. Forbidden Solitaire made it to 7,000 wishlists on Steam overnight.

That's how Birkett and Carmichael knew that they had a burgeoning hit in Forbidden Solitaire.

That said, the studio still credited part of the game's success to Night Signal's following, many of whom were fans of their cult hit Home Safety Hotline, and were drawn to their next offering. The solitaire loop, along with the kitschy, found media aesthetic, is what made them stay. "They weren't necessarily there for the solitaire, but they'd give it a go, and then they found they liked it because our solitaire is good," said Birkett. "We just knew it needed to reach a wider audience, and this has helped us do it."

Whether solitaire games will take off among Steam players remains to be seen, although Grey Alien Games has seen more of their older titles being sold; Birkett said that Ancient Enemy, in particular, has received "an obvious bump" in sales. However, the realities of indie game development mean that there are concerns about being pigeonholed into making solitaire games, and the success of Forbidden Solitaire may have solidified this. For a while, Birkett felt that they have been, in a way, "trapped" in making solitaire for their audience, a safe bet that lets them "make a certain amount of money and survive to make the next game". The success of Forbidden Solitaire may have cemented that, but he still hopes that it will inspire players to seek out more solitaire titles.

"A lot of the reason people talk about [Forbidden Solitaire] is—some of them obviously love the story, some of them love the vibe, but some people really like the gameplay, and they were surprised at how fun solitaire was, and what twists we've done," he said. "I wouldn't have made [Forbidden Solitaire] if it was a really gory, scary horror game, that wouldn't have been my type of thing, but it's a funny one. Even our Regency Solitaire games [are] slightly hammy. They're not deadly serious, and that's kind of the way we roll."

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Source: Khee Hoon Chan · https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/how-forbidden-solitaire-brought-solitaire-games-to-the-forefront