idea: new game-categoy

[hajo4]

named something like 'good chance of being solvable' (say >90%),
but doesn't have to mean 'easy'.
Maybe the demo-autopilot should be able to get some wins in about a dozen games...

Some (handpicked) candidates for this category:
Freecell, Double-klondike, Dial,
Maverick, Poker Square (2 Reserves)
the tile-puzzkes, memory- and matrix-games,
Hanoi-Puzzle-4, and a few selected mahjongg-layouts.

Maybe wtih sub-categories like >95% >90% >85% etc..

I think there already was a suggestion for an option 'only generate solvable games',
but cant find it right now, and implementing that would be much harder.

[joeraz]

The option to only generate winnable deals has been requested many times, but I don't think a dedicated issue was ever created for that here. I described my thoughts on that at #355 (comment)

But as for the request, one item on my wishlist is similar to this, but goes a step further, in that it would tag a difficulty from "Very easy" to "Very hard". Other solitaire apps have this, but it was never part of PySol for some reason. Though with over 1,200 games, identifying a difficulty level for all of them would be an undertaking, even with the help of sources like solitairewinrates.com.

Plus, there are some anomalies, like Accordion. A really good Accordion solver can play millions of deals and win every one (so it's more winnable than FreeCell), but a human player or the demo will likely lose a lot. So one could justify calling Accordion "very easy" or "very hard".

[hajo4]

My intent is to have a category for games that are enjoyable, low-frustration,
so it should present very few unsolvable games.

It should also be a showcase of the different games/layouts/cardsets, in one place.
No more then about 1-2 dozen entries, preferably one good example of all major kinds of game.

Needs a catchy name, maybe something like recommanded/nice/friendly games.

The difficulty of mahjongg depends very much on the layout - Altar seems a good choice.

[joeraz]

For a showcase of the different types of games, the "Popular games" category serves that purpose. Though those games are mostly the most well-known or classic games for each type, as compared to games that are easier to win.

Still, assessing the actual difficulty of games is not easy. Going based on the odds of getting an unwinnable deal is not enough, as that does not necessarily translate to being easy for a player to win. Best example is Accordion, like I said above. Four-suit Spider rarely gives unwinnable layouts, but it can't really be considered easy.