UBJ3D is certainly one of the most versatile and diligent game development studios out there. They’ve created a memory board game for kids, a blackjack game for grown-ups, a cool football game and many other games for Android, iOS, and even Windows and Blackberry.

Developers like UBJ3D make sure, that the app stores are truly fully packed, which makes it very hard for the users to separate the wheat from the chaff. Do you also struggle to find the best games for your smartphone? Do you also wish for some simplicity in your life? Then you’re at the right spot here, because UBJ3D’s latest release brings us back to the time, where we’ve all played just two games: Minesweeper and Solitaire.

Back to the Past

After downloading, installing and seeing “Ultimate Klondike Solitaire” for the first time, I immediately had this 1993-feeling of playing Solitaire on Windows 3.11 – and I mean it in the best sense. Solitaire (or Patience) games are true classics, evergreens, beyond any doubt. I don’t even feel like I should tell you anything about the goal, the rules, the gameplay of this game. You all know what it’s about, so I just share the unique selling point of this version with you:

Ultimate Klondike Solitaire isn’t just an adaptation of an old classic, it’s also made for classic players and isn’t softened and simplified for the modern taste. There is no undo function, no auto-complete feature and you won’t get any hints (and there are no helping tools, quite different from playing Words With Friends). Skilled players only.

A typical scene from Ultimate Klondike Solitaire.

Back to the Future

Now that you’ve seen the screenshot, you know that this game isn’t just a 1:1 copy of the old Windows Solitaire game and there is even more to it: Ultimate Klondike Solitaire comes along with two game modes, a quick game single player and an online challenge, where you can compete with players from all over the world – in ELO-rated duels.

Also, the graphics are definitely up to date and future-proof. The animations are sleek and smooth, the backgrounds are appealing and beautiful – and you can even use an own picture from your gallery, which is a nice extra feature.

Present Problems

There is just one thing UBJ3D should definitely consider for future updates: The zooming. As you can see in the screenshot above, the app doesn’t display the whole game board and some of the cards get cropped, but the games doesn’t allow you to zoom in or out with your two fingers. Bad side effect: If you drag a card from the deck, you also drag down the notification bar, which can be a bit annoying. I think adding a second zoom step will do wonders here.

Do you wonder, if you should download this game? You don’t have to. It’s free, it’s fun and I hereby invite you to ruin my ELO score by challenging me. So download the game for Android or iOS.