Today is a big day: the full release of Sparrow Solitaire is out now on itch and Catalog! This game has been a labor of love and was in a longer development cycle than it had any right to be. But we think it was worth it and are proud of what we’ve accomplished. I mean, just look at the size of this changelog! Not only did we manage to squeeze in everything we promised, we implemented (I think) all the community suggestions and bug reports we received.

As you can see, the game is also out on Catalog now. The Catalog build is not any different from the update you can download on itch, so if you already own the game, do not worry! The biggest impact of Catalog is that we had to change the game’s bundle ID in the backend, which affects where the itch version saves are located too. This means your saves will not automatically carry over to the new update. At the bottom of this page, see a short how-to on migrating your data.

With that out of the way, on to the changelog!

=== Changelog for v1.0 ===

Additions

Gameplay

• 190+ new layouts to bring total over 200
  • Several layouts based on other Playdate games
  • Traditional layouts from the original Shanghai game
  • Shisen-sho layouts
• Several new beginner friendly layouts, including a set of three used as a tutorial
• Layouts now support “blocking” tiles which can’t be removed and allow for more varied designs
• You can now hold B to autoclear a Classic layout if all remaining tiles are free
• Undo/Redo:
  • Added sound effects
  • Added an available option for using the crank to undo/redo
  • Stack size (history) for undo is now unlimited
• Classic mode layouts are now guaranteed to be solvable by default

Layout Select

• Added scrolling list layout select UI
  • Supports pages: navigation with Left/Right, or jump to top/bottom with hold Left/Right
  • Supports sorting by name, num tiles, num plays, or not completed
• Added thumbnail previews for each layout
• Each layout shows plays, high score, and num tiles
• Added detailed info page for each layout, see Stats

Modes

• Added 2P head to head mode
  • Each player takes turns clearing tiles in a limited time frame, whoever clears the most wins
  • Time limit per player is customizable
• Shisen-Sho mode (a.k.a Rivers variant)
  • Alternative way for matching tiles, see the in-game manual for help and examples
• Daily Layout mode which generates the same deal for everyone each day
  • Share score and attempts after each try via QR code
  • Attempt multiple times until cleared
  • Tracks streaks for both days played and wins

Layout Editor

• Create new layout from scratch or copy existing layouts
• Function to shift all tiles
• Function to toggle block placement on/off
• Function to toggle grid cursor snap degree (full or half positions)
• Save and Save as… functionality with keyboard input
• Create Classic or Shisen-Sho layouts

Stats

• New All-time Stats page displayed when pausing on the Layout Select screen
  • shows most played and most won layouts, in addition to total time played and percentage of layouts cleared
• New scoring system that incorporates percent of layout cleared, time taken, and hints used; see wiki for details
• Layout select Info page now shows top 5 local scores per layout
• Line graph with score history for each level
• Streak system for wins

Assets

• Two new tilesets: Games (based on gaming icons) and Handy (based on an Atari Lynx version of mahjong solitaire)
• Many new backgrounds to bring total to 25 (and replaced a few older ones)
• New song for level select
• New song for level editor
• Three new songs for use in gameplay: “Starry Dish”, “Nekoneteru”, and “Small Universe”
• Support for custom background and tileset loading without modifying source code, see instructions on the wiki

Options

• Added ability to mark tilesets, backgrounds, or music tracks as favorite (this is used in any random shuffles)
• Added new ACCESSIBILITY section:
  • Added “ensure solvable deals” toggle, which defaults to on
  • Added option to use B button for zoom instead deselecting last tile
  • Added option to have zoom always toggled on (automatically jumps to 1x during menus, and back to 2x for gameplay)
  • Added option to “Preserve Zoom state” which locks the current zoom setting until B or Crank is used again to unzoom
  • Added option to show the current tile layer on the cursor
• Added “shuffle” or “sequence” music auto-play options; shuffle pulls from all tracks unless you have some favorited, in which case it only uses favorites
• Made the “random theme” option more prominent, which lets you randomly change music, background, tileset, or some combination of those each time you start a new layout; the randomizer pulls from favorited options
• Added option to change the top right indicator between tiles remaining or time
• Added tooltips for the various options

Other

• New trailer by Andrew Gant TinyYellowMachine!
• New website: sparrowsolitiare.com
• New launch sound
• New initial game load transition
• New bundle id: com.vogelscript.sparrowsolitaire
• A couple new fonts (and many tweaks to the old ones)
• Added in-game help manual (can be accessed from system menu)
• Added credits screen (can be accessed from layout select system menu)

Changes

• Changed the default cursor mode to “grid”
• Changed the default tileset to “emoji”
• The tile deal method now guarantees four tiles of every suit are dealt (layout tile numbers must always be divisible by four)
• Made the “shake to continue” indicator more clear
• Tweaked some tile designs in the sports, emoji, and alnum tilesets
• Changed the font on the launch card
• Adjusted volume levels of some music tracks
• Logo changed from Stern to Garamond: “think different”

Fixes

• Fixed major slowdown caused by switching backgrounds a lot
• Fixed grid cursor not snapping down properly in some situations
• Fix grid cursor wrap boundaries updating too early
• Fixed invert background option not persisting when background is changed
• Fixed poor readability of button prompts
• Fixed crank docking position lying on an angle that toggles zoom
• Improved shadow visibility on dark backgrounds
• Fixed shadows covering up the tile corner details
• Improved performance in list view menus
• Improved tile deal performance
• Cleaned up directory structure
• Minified data json
• Backgrounds are now an imagetable and load faster
• Reduced match sound volume a smidge
• Fix cursor repeats not stopping during pause
• Level name not showing on pause when just cleared layout
• Removed early access tag

=== Migrating Saves ===

In the early access version, the only data worth migrating might be your stats, which are compatible with v1.0. So if you’d like to transfer those over to the new build, you can follow the support article here.

• The old bundle ID in the Playdate’s data folder should look something like user.XXXX.sparrow or com.solitaire.sparrow
• Copy the data in this folder (or just the stats.json) to the new folder ID, which looks like user.XXXX.com.vogelscript.sparrowsolitiare. Note that the new folder will only appear after you have booted v1.0 at least once. If you have any trouble with this, comment below.

Thanks for reading, and have fun playing!

• Mac & Matt