Forbidden Solitaire: Eye Popping Card Play

It must have been the random ResetERA thread title “forbidden solitaire is out now!” that got my attention: a solitaire card game that’s verboten, bring it on! Especially since I covered many classic card games last summer, the Forbidden Dungeon easily lured me in. The fact that Grey Alien Games collaborated with Night Signal Entertainment to coat the solitaire variant with a nineties horror full motion video vibe made the entire package even more enticing. Into the dungeon we venture, in the hopes of finding that secret to immortality.

The trailer showed promise and set certain expectations that were more than met, but also dictated the tone mechanically speaking. Yet at the same time, the video didn’t reveal their entire hand of cards: it had plenty of jokers left to play. One of those is the fact that Forbidden Solitaire is not just a solitaire variant: it’s a pre-rendered 3D scenery (think Myst) horror game from 1995 that you, Will, find and boot up in 2019. The game boots in a fake Windows environment that has you start the actual game in a fake DOS prompt—spinning disk sound included. A big grin and an hour of tension later, I learn that the game slowly reveals another layer of game as instant messages from your sister pop up and pause the game, drip-feeding you information about the so-called mysterious development of the 1995 game—in-game. Very Inscryption-esque indeed.

As for Forbidden Solitaire, it is said that the secret to immortality is hidden deep beneath the crypts of the Forbidden Dungeon. A white-haired wizard portrayed in a wonderfully low-res FMV cut-scene is seen entering—that’s you. At least, inside that game: Will is playing as that deadly card slicing fellow. As you slowly but surely descend into the dungeon, you’ll encounter all kinds of dreads, although the jump-scares are kept at a minimal and it’s more goofy than scary in general.

The core gameplay loop is very simple: the solitaire variant is simply stacking cards in order. Say you’ve turned an eight. Then you can click on a nine or seven to put these on top. The goal is equally simple: clear the table. But as you progress, you’ll gain more powers and access to powerful jokers that completely alter the battlefield: think fireballs that blast away cards, card manipulation jokers, the ability to shuffle or redraw, … The puzzles (there are 60 “levels” in total) are either explorative (find the secret by clearing them all) or battles (each card you pull off the table does one damage). You might encounter a skeleton that suddenly lunges at you. Fend it off and reduce it to dust only to find a key you have to use in a creative way two hallways down.

Meanwhile, your sister digs into the history of the game and finds out that Forbidden Dungeon involves a cult and weird deaths by people playing the game: their eyeballs exploded. Eye popping card play? The layering doesn’t stop there; the cult gradually takes a backseat to reveal that Heartblade Interactive, the so-called developer behind the game, is not being honest with their staff. And thus Forbidden Solitaire can also be seen as a critique of the cutthroat game development industry of late. I think I already spoiled too much, but in short: it’s brilliant.

What’s less brilliant is the way the ending falls a bit flat but that might be a personal preference. I would have liked to see all the meta story lines to be properly handled. Also, while everything revolving around the game is extremely well done—the atmosphere is amazing—the core game remains quite simple. That can be good or bad, again depending on personal preference. After five hours with the game and seeing the credits roll, I’m content and am not yearning for more card play (but for more story closure).

Forbidden Solitaire is not an endless time sink like Balatro can be and in my book, that’s good. Yet if I ever do want to go back to its type of solitaire play, there’s no way to (re)play in a new endless mode like Inscryption offers which is a bit of a missed opportunity. Maybe this might get patched in later? This does give me an incentive to go back and check out Grey Alien Games’s older solitaire-like games like the 2024 Shadowhand Solitaire or Regency Solitaire II I never heard of before. There are so many hidden gems in the small indie dev space out there, it becomes more and more difficult to spot them. I’m glad ResetERA brought this one to my attention. It might become one of the best I played in 2026.

If you’re into nineties FMV/pre-rendered adventure stuff (although there are no true puzzles to solve here) or like games within games within games or if you just want a classic card game but with a horror twist, this one’s for you.

Be sure to get out alive. Or get your eyes popped. You’ve been warned.

Edit 18 June 2026: Forbidden Solitaire received a patch enabling replaying of individual levels, thereby effectively nullifying one of my bigger complaints. I’m altering the score from 4/5 to 5/5, this game is brilliant, don’t sleep on it!