A Solitaire Mystery
A downloadable Deck for Windows, macOS, and Linux
A collection of 30 mysterious solitaires, with more potentially being added in the future. The solitaires included vary from fairly standard cardgames to funky reimplementations of other games in solitaire form.
How to Run the game on Mac:
Double click zip file to extract
Cmd+Space and type Terminal
In the window that opens, type cd Downloads && xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ASM_nosteam.app then press enter
In Finder, navigate to your Downloads folder
Drag ASM_nosteam to the Applications folder
(Thanks to grenlith for providing these steps!)
Solitaires designed and implemented by Hempuli, Hazelstorm and Knexator
Programming by Hempuli, Hazelstorm and Knexator
Double-sided Solitaire programming and design by Kusane Hexaku and Lennard "X_Sheep" Sprong
Card and title art for Gardening Solitaire by Kaldhen
Other art by Hempuli
Linux build compiling script by Mathias Kærlev
Luasteam library by USPGameDev
Music by Hazelstorm: https://hazelstorm.bandcamp.com/
For sound & other credits, please see the in-game Credits section and the license texts included within or outside the game.
Game implemented using Löve2D
Purchase
In order to download this Deck you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $9.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Version 1.5.10Aug 17, 2025
- Version 1.5.9Aug 01, 2025
- Version 1.5.8Jul 27, 2025
- Version 1.5.7Jul 26, 2025
- Version 1.5.6Jul 20, 2025
- Version 1.5.5Jul 19, 2025
- Version 1.5.4Jul 18, 2025
- Version 1.5.3eJul 16, 2025
Comments
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Hello, I bought the itch version some months back for 9.99usd. Now I wanted to play it, and found there is a steam version with achievements and cloud save. I did not know that back then, since I had this on my wishlist here for much longer. Is there any way to get a key or achievements/cloud save to work with the itch version?
I would really enjoy the cloud save feature and achievements, since I use multiple platforms.
Or is the only way to buy it again on Steam?
Loving the game so far!
(But it's hard q-q)
This seems impossible according to the rules. I did try 5♥️ as the murder weapon and given the victory, but then only one guest account about the weapon is inaccurate (guest 6 saying it's even; Disgrace is 5♠, Nightmares is 7♥️), and the instructions say it's supposed to be two.
Hmm, thanks for the report! I really need to implement a way to turn on an indicator for "does the game think this statement is true/false" for debugging purposes...
Is it a bug that stacks lock down in Single-Card even if they have additional groups below the 7-to-1 at its top? It's basically a softlock when it happens (forcing Undo, that is) and feels like it adds nothing but frustration to finishing up a solve that by all rights should have been won. Or is this a skill issue?
This was changed because it felt to me that it was a bit too easy to interrupt the slot-locking by just placing a 2-1-2 stack at the end of a 7-6-5-4-3 pile. I do agree that it adds to the frustration and isn't *that* difficult to work around, but I think it's still a slight improvement over the previous implementation.
Hi,
Amazing game, the solitaires are incredibly creative. Can you in the future maybe implement a text size option? Thanks
BABA IS BEST
HEMPULI IS BEST
Congrats!
Babataire is currently broken. When using +5 or Opposite to turn a number into an ace and then stacking it ontop of something else, the card will often not revert to its original value when the rule is broken apart. I've also had suits fail to return to normal in similar circumstances
Thanks for the report; this is a known bug but I haven't yet had a moment to properly investigate it.
Am I missing something with time travel solitaire? it feels like it's near impossible to play without abusing undos given the rng aspect to it. Yet it's only one star. Are there secret strategies I'm not figuring out? The only thing I know for sure is that a card you need to return back can be substituted with a guaranteed future pull of the same card, which is helpful but does not make winning that much more reliable.
hint: if you must return back a card next turn, what would future you do?
Hi Hempuli,
many thanks for your great game A Solitaire Mystery.
I bought their game on itch.io.
it is possible to get a Steam key.
Many thanks for your help
Any plans for an android version?
I'm also hoping for an android release! Or at least switch.
is it available on switch? if not, are there plans for a switch launch? i loved the game and wish i could play on the bus to work
Is it possible to bring back the old rules for Hanoi Solitaire under a different name or as an option? Back in Version 1.1, which is the version I started with, Hanoi Solitaire was one of my favourite games in the collection; while it was a very easy game, I found it fun and relaxing with its satisfying rhythm of shifting stacks of cards back-and-forth to get them all in order. The new version of the game is much more challenging and, to me, not as good since it loses the satisfying rhythm the original version had.
I agree with this (even though there is really no strategy needed to beat this one, its still fun) but remember that older versions of the game are still available for download and usable for this purpose. Inconvenient but works. I tried splicing them together for this purpose but I was completely unable so using old downloads is the best solution I'm aware of.
How do you download the older version? Do you have to purchase the 1.1 version to download it?
Click on where it shows the most recent update, then scroll down and click the update you want and look for downloads
When I scroll through the development log and go to version 1.1, this is what it shows me: There isn't a download, just a "Buy Now" button even though I've already bought the game on itch.
That's weird. If the page were loaded properly that would be a download button, I don't know how to fix that
Is there a way to turn itch ownership into steam ownership? I doubt it but want to make sure
NVM I bought the game, ten is cheap anyway for this quality
I tried to install the game on my Mac by following your instructions. After I entered the command in the Terminal, I received this message:
no such file or directory: Downloads.
The file was indeed in the Downloads folder (and unzipped) so I am not sure what the problem could be.
Hello, maybe your folder isn't called 'Downloads' but is translated into a language other than English? As for me, I installed the itch.io application on my Mac, then installed the game through the application. I didn't follow the instructions as recommended. I click on 'Launch,' the game crashes, and a Mac OS message asks me if I want to relaunch. I click on 'Relaunch,' and the game starts!
My computer is set to English. Lesson learned--don't buy games for the Mac on itch. Mac computers don't like apps that aren't in the App Store, and this one doesn't work. If I'm still motivated, I guess I'll buy it again through Steam.
Unfortunately Apple has made it very difficult to release third-party programs on their platforms; I'm not sure what the exact issue is with your initial report (haven't received such a report before), but my hunch is that it's related to the "this program is from a third party and thus can't be trusted" set of hoops Apple requires developers to jump through. If you're still interested in giving it a go, when you try to open the game and whatever error appears, go to your computer settings, then to the security tab, and scroll all the way down; it might be that the program is listed there as having been blocked by Gatekeeper, and you should be able to say "Run Anyway" to permit the game to be run.
It worked--thank you!
Hey, I have an issue to install the game on linux.. can you help me ? Have you an email adress for support ? Thanks !
Hello! Great game, well done, it's a little gem! Is the Itch version the same as the Steam version? Thanks, see you!
Yup, the versions are identical except for Steam Cloud & achievements!
Thanks :)
I would love the option to be able to change the soundtrack per game. Stacktronics plays for a good chunk of games back to back on the menu. Very minor issue, but it would be nice to hear Royal Flush Solitaire in other levels, for example!
I need to adjust the way this works, but are you sure you can't put the stack back? You'll need to right-click on the card the 9 of clubs was forked with instead of left-clicking.
I can definitely confirm that they can't put it back. I just ran into a similar situation.
Ah, darn. I wonder what's up with that, then...
So, you can't fork with cards that don't have any card on top. For example, if what they had in the picture was a spades of some kind, they wouldn't have a valid move because each one's alone or part of the beginning fork. That's pretty much what happen to me. For them, the place where they originally forked from, probably the 2 of clubs or 13 of clubs, can't be forked with again as a new move because they're behind a fork currently. So neither of us have any valid moves in either example, forcing us in this position.
In the most recent versions I've made it so that you can fork with a stack that has a fork down the line if the move would just undo you picking up an entire fork branch; I'm wondering if there's a bug with that or if there might be a misunderstanding here.
Am I going crazy or does this not add up? There are 85 cards on the piles to the right (96-11), and 17 cards on the field, which is only 102. How am I missing two cards?
Hmm, there have seemingly been some rare bugs with cards going missing after undoing. This seems like such a case, but I haven't gotten consistent enough reports to track the issue down.
Finding a few bugs on 15.3.e with Fork solitaire.
Firstly, I can get softlocked if I pick up a stack without a valid place to move it to.
Also, the game crashes sometimes when I detach a fork. I'm not sure of the exact condition of the game when it happened, but it's happened twice in a row now:
```
Error
modules/fork_data.lua:430: attempt to index a nil value
Traceback
[love "callbacks.lua"]:228: in function 'handler'
modules/fork_data.lua:430: in function 'pick_card'
modules/fork_data.lua:220: in function 'mouse_left'
input.lua:171: in function <input.lua:169>
inputsystem.lua:16: in function 'input'
inputsystem.lua:153: in function <inputsystem.lua:146>
[love "callbacks.lua"]:154: in function <[love "callbacks.lua"]:144>
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
```
Fork Solitaire should be a bit less buggy now.
Hey! I'm loving the game. Had no issues untill now, but I can't do anything in fork solitaire is it borken or am I just not understanding the rules properly?
It should work a bit better now!
I had a blast playing the game pre-1.5, but now I can't figure out if it's possible to transfer my old save file to the new version. Also I noticed there’s no Steam key included with the new versions. I was wondering if that’s intentional or if one might be offered in the future?
If you're on Windows, you can go users/yourusername/AppData/Roaming/ and change the folder "ASM" into "ASM_itch" to retain your save data. For now I've thought that it makes more sense not to offer a Steam key with Itch purchases because the Itch users got the game for much cheaper before the Steam release.
I see. Thank you for the advice and info!
Incredible game. I've only played a couple of the games so far, but I'm loving it. Small feature request: can there be a way to disable the "streak" count?
Sure!
hashtag blessed. this time travel game is incredible, truly a delightful little trick.
Is there any plans to bring this to mobile? This is the kind of game I'd LOVE to play on my phone!!!
It'd be cool; the main obstacle would be my own ability to handle the porting, haha
The most difficult aspect would be to rework all the controls to function with just a touchscreen, which means there's no mouse hover and no right-click
The Linux version appears to be missing an icon for the taskbar.
Single-Stack Solitaire should be 1 star. I’m really not sure why it has 4 stars. It is trivially easy to complete, only marginally harder than Hanoi Solitaire.
Edit: Hanoi Solitaire got updated and I see that there’s actually a restriction on how the stacks can move. That means Single-Stack Solitaire is actually far easier than Hanoi Solitaire (which really should be rated higher now, unless I’ve missed something in the short time I’ve played it). It’s unironically the easiest one I’ve played. Single-Card Solitaire, Binary Solitaire, and Tabula Rasa Solitaire (which also has 4 stars, somehow?) are all also trivially easy, but they at least require some degree of card management to ensure you don’t get stuck. Single-Stack Solitaire is pretty much impossible to lose no matter how sloppy you are. Just follow the below image. Put a QK of different suits on top, and then stack A to J on the bottom.
Feedback for the Murder Mystery solitaire: When a clue refers to a card by name, can you also denote its suite & rank next to it? Unless memorizing the suite-rank of a card is part of this game.
The idea is that the card hints don't tell you the exact identity so that you may need to delve deeper into the stacks to figure out which card is which. But I could update the logic so that the clue adds the suit/value next to it once you have the card revealed?
That would be a good adjustment. It's obnoxious to have to move the cursor to hover over half the deck to find the desired name.
Been loving the game since before the Steam update and decided to play it again now that it’s been updated, and…
I took a peek at the Steam screenshots and was curious. Apparently, if you only have one move left, it defaults to giving you the ace of clubs, which is actually an invalid move…
On a similar note, you’ve probably been told that the undo button doesn’t work if you have a card in your hand, and it feels reasonable that right clicking would mean “actually, put this card back where I took it and don’t make this move,” as long as you have undo enabled.
I also realised I hadn’t updated to 1.5.2 yet and, while I didn’t try it for the last card so I could actually get my win, the bug appears to still be there.
Ah, thanks for the report!
Love the game. Couple questions about the detective one:
1. It's an intended joke
2. This should be clarified - it means the columns; there's a specific word for the holding slots. It also doesn't update after you first get the message.
Maybe I'm being silly or I downloaded something wrong or something but the Mac download of Version 1.5 seems to still be labelled in-game on the top left corner as 1.4d!
Yeah sorry, the Mac build system is a bit more cumbersome so the versions come with a delay; I should've clarified that.
All good! Is there a way to tell when the Mac version has been updated to 1.5 or further versions?
I meant to do it already but fell asleep... I'll get it done today and post a devlog indicating as much.
Thank you muchly!
Hello, I'm encountering a bug in Tap Solitaire-- I was playing as per usual and used the undo function (I say this because I think it's related?), and at some point realized that the game was only allowing me 2 tapped cards rather than 3. So, I undid a couple more times until I had no tapped cards, at which point I was only allowed to tap 1 card at a time, as shown below. Rip! Also, this was in Version 1.4d. I'm reporting this bug because I didn't see anything about a Tap Solitaire bug being fixed in 1.5... Apologies if this issue doesn't exist in 1.5. Also Also, I'm on a Mac, if that's relevant. Good luck debugging!
Thanks for the report! I suspect that the bug is in both 1.4d and 1.5; will have to investigate
Is there a better place to report bugs than the comments page? I'm sure it's working well enough but I bet many slip through the cracks with it being like this!
I get an Itch notification for each comment so it should work *reasonably* well even this way, I hope...
Found another bug, though this might be an oversight if anything.
In transmutation, if you fuse two cards, then leave the fused card there, put two new cards in the fuse slots, and then click the already fused card with no valid position to place it, you soft lock because you can't put down the card where you took it and there's nowhere to put it. Only solution is to press escape and lose all that progress.
Loving the game so far though!
Hi, I'm encountering this error:
Please advise? Using the Windows download on Windows 10, 64-bit.Sorry; this should be fixed now; a silly oversight
Thank you very much! Games fun!
Seems like there's some bugs in Baba is Solitare. Cards like to not revert to their previous state after being put in the right side and then undoing. For example, if I do "Baba is +5", then use the Baba 6 that turned into a Baba Ace to fill the right side, then undo to the point where before I set the +5, that card will still be a Baba Ace.
This should be fixed now!
I want to try it, but I get this error now when I attempt to launch the game!
Augh, sorry; this should be fixed now
Both are fixed, thank you!
I'm playing Tear solitaire and where is the 3 of hearts? I can only count 51 cards that got dealt.
It'd probably be helpful to provide the seed that caused this in order for the matter to be better investigated. Cards not appearing seems to be an issue that happens rarely enough that Hempuli hasn't been able to replicate it. Giving the seed that causes the issue, however, would really aid in nailing down the problem. If it happens again, just exit the solitaire game you're in by pressing esc, go to settings, and copy the seed there before you try a new game/another game. Paste that seed here.
Oh yeah, the seed would help a lot! Pressing Control + C copies the current seed in all solitaires.
Oh, I've had a missing card issue as well, although I forgot to take a screenshot the two times it happened... I suspect it's an issue with autostack, as for me the missing card was always actually existing but just in the right pile, invisible. So I suspect the 3 of hearts is there in knutaf's screenshot, just invisible on top of the 2 of hearts. But yeah, two times in Tap Solitaire, I've pressed autostack and then thought one card was missing, but it was just not visually showing on the right pile. And it's always on the right pile that they're invisible... Maybe this is a different issue, but still, hope this helps! (also this is on Mac and 1.4d)
Thank you all for the suggestions. I did indeed use autostack during that run. I didn't know how to get the seed but will include it next time.
Pressing control + C will store the seed, then you can just paste it anywhere :)
Hey there! I’m having an issue trying to run the game. I’m greeted with this error every time:
Which is rather odd since luasteam.dll is present, but not luasteam.lua.
I solved by adding a manifest manually. Hempuli, please add this too:
In the root dir of a-solitaire-mystery/ create .itch.toml with:
[[actions]]
name = "play"
path = "ASM/ASM"
I think the Itch launcher's default heuristics in choosing an executable when a manifest is missing are bad - reported here.
Didn’t work. The executable itself seems to have the problem. I even downloaded the ZIP file and extracted it manually and it did the same.
Hmm, are you on a 32-bit machine? The build is 64-bit only; I could set up a 32-bit-friendly build if that's the case.
I use Windows 11. 64-bit. Don’t know if the Lua installation via Scoop is responsible.
In that case I've no idea why the luasteam.dll isn't working... I had a bug similar to yours during development and in that case it was an issue with one of the dll files being 32-bit instead of 64-bit.
Then again, the Itch version doesn't require steam-related assets, so in the next update I'll just remove that from the Itch build entirely, which should fix the issue anyway!
If you run "./ASM/ASM" manually while in the root "a-solitaire-mystery" directory, do you still get the error with the same error? (I don't.)
I only get the error while running `/bin/love ASM/ASM.love`, which is what the itch launcher tries to do.
EDIT: Sorry, I missed that you're apparently on Windows.
Anyway, the Linux build still requires the manifest file to run correctly from the itch launcher.
Nice
Nice!
Apologies Arvi, but I have played about a 100 game win streak on Single-Card Solitaire and I can confidently say that the game can be consistently won*.
*Assuming that it isn't possible to start with too few 1s
In the version you played it actually was possible to get too few 1s; that at least should be fixed now. As for the other issue, I tried to fix a similar problem with Hanoi Solitaire and maybe it's ok for 2 solitaires out of 30 to be consistently solvable...?
Just wanted to report that at least so far have had no problems using this on Linux. Just need to open the command line in the folder where I unzip the game and run
Thank you very much
I like card games and love the visual style and general vibe of the game, but I must say the rules are quite hard to understand (I think visuals hints besides just the written rules would go a long way).
Also, while I understand that the whole point of the game is "weird unconventional solitaires" I would appreciate one or two more traditional games :)
As a bit of a solitairehead when I need something to do with my hands while thinking about other stuff, this pack rules & owns.
Also it runs perfectly on Steam Deck, fyi, with minimal fiddling. Just extract, add the EXE to your steam library, tell it to run on Proton Experimental in the settings (I'm sure other versions work as well that's just my go-to) and then set the game to fullscreen and the steam input controls to a mouse config. It has been the perfect thing for relaxing with on the sofa. :)