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Awesome puzzle game now available for almost any mobile device.

On Tuesday, Digital Gamecraft released both Demolish! Pairs 1.0 for Android and Demolish! Pairs 1.2 for iOS. This pair of releases represents a recommitment to this product that is enjoyed by game players on a daily basis.
Demolish! Pairs 1.0 for Android is the first release on the Android platform, after numerous requests, and it runs on 99.7% of Android tablets and phones.
Demolish! Pairs 1.2 for iOS is a long-awaited update release that adds support for the latest iOS devices, including the iPhone X, and resolves compatibility issues with iOS 11.
The goal of Demolish! Pairs is to remove pairs of adjacent, matching blocks until the entire board is cleared. Each time a pair of blocks is removed, the blocks above (if any) drop down and empty columns are filled by pushing the remaining columns together.

Release Date

The release date, September 11, is significant, if somewhat coincidental. (We decided to release the Android version on that date, and the Apple approval of the iOS version just happened to arrive later on the same day.)
Demolish! Pairs began life as a secondary project in the early years of Digital Gamecraft. After many years of discussing the idea, we started actual game design in August 1999, and we completed the first playable (Windows) prototype shortly thereafter. A couple of years later, we made the decision to proceed with Demolish! (as it was known at the time) as a primary development project, and we were making good progress for a few weeks.
The original design theme was an actual building that was being demolished brick by brick, and the gameplay was fun. However, the events that occurred on that date 17 years ago suddenly made the idea of tearing down a building very disturbing, and it became clear immediately that the game could not continue along the same path. We initially renamed the project to Diminish, making the destruction as abstract as possible, before finally shelving the whole thing for almost a decade.
In early 2011, we picked up the project again, deciding to continue with the abstract design and target mobile devices, but to return to the original name. We had a number of different play mechanics that we were implementing, but determined that the one with selecting only pairs of blocks was both unique and the most obviously skillful, so we focused on that particular mechanic. Demolish! Pairs was born.
The dramatic history of this game does not end there, but this post does. 😉

Public Service Announcement

If you are currently using Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition, whether purchased from the Mac App Store or downloaded directly from Goodsol Development, we recommend waiting for the next update before upgrading to macOS Sierra (10.12).

Do Not Upgrade (yet)

Apple is scheduled to release macOS Sierra, the next version (10.12) of their operating system (formerly: Mac OS X) today [September 20, 2016]. As of the final beta version, there is a change (as yet unidentified) that breaks Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition. We are actively working on a solution, and we will publish an update as soon as a fix is available, but in the meantime, we suggest keeping El Capitan (Mac OS X 10.11).

This version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition adds another 25 games, for a total of 575 games, and the full version has 75 bonus games. The main menu interface was also changed to make the game search/filter box easier to find and use.

The 25 new games in PGSME 3.1 are:

Acey and Kingsley

Anno Domini

Assembly

Box Fan

Cell 11

Crescent Fan

Double Aces and Kings

Five Stacks

Forwards

Forwards and Backwards

Free Parking

Grandmother’s

Idle Aces

Lucky Thirteen

Maze

Pyramid Clear

Quadruple Russian

Racing Aces

Red Hand

Ripple Fan

Solid Square

Spaces and Aces

Speculation

Twin Queens

Unusual

Goodsol Community

Along with this release, Goodsol has now created two new places to discuss Solitaire games in social media, to supplement the Goodsol Forum. The first is the (quite active) Goodsol Solitaire Community on Google+, and the other is the Goodsol Solitaire Group on Facebook. These are great places to get help with a specific deal number for one of our games, to find a challenging deal number (and maybe help somebody else), to get recommendations for games, or to discuss Solitaire topics in general.

The next version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition will contain 600 games, but you can buy now, have fun right away, and still get that version as a free upgrade!

We finally finished this extensive technical update.

This version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition contains 550 games (50 more than the previous version), and the full version provides access to another 75 bonus games. The interface also contains many user interface improvements.

From a technical perspective, this is a major upgrade, as it represents a complete conversion of the program from Carbon libraries (used since version 1.0) to Cocoa frameworks, an effort imposed by Apple’s diminishing support for the former. In the process, numerous features were reconsidered and reimplemented, so there are various improvements throughout the program. One thing that we lost in the process was support for (much) older versions of Mac OS X; the current version requires Snow Leopard (10.6).

What happened to 3.00 and 3.01?

As is often the case with major technical changes, there were a couple of teething problems. In the first release (3.00), we discovered a race problem with the Cocoa system, where 5-10% of our users had systems that were sending messages to objects that had already been disposed, causing the program to crash when run on these systems. (Of course, none of the test systems exhibited this problem.)

The second release (3.01), as well as the first, was discovered to have a critical error with menu handling, namely, that card sets could not be switched (properly) using the ‘Preferences->Card Set’ menu. Unlike the first issue, this one was always reproducible, missed entirely by our testers, and completely my fault. Oops… 🙂

Once the current version proves stable, we will be adding quite a few (probably 25) more new games and making more interface improvements, including the most requested feature, an ability to sort results and high score tables. This, of course, will be a free upgrade for all then current PGSME customers, so buy now!

The BEST iPad Solitaire game has been improved even more.

Pretty Good Solitaire Touch Edition now contains 550 games, hundreds more than any other iPad product available. These are the games you have come to know and love on Windows and/or the Mac, playable from the comfort of your recliner. Act now and you will receive an extra 75 bonus games, a total of 625 games, as well as free future upgrades.

In addition to the 50 new solitaire games since the initial release, this upgrade also includes easily selectable favorites, position snapshots, a third card set (Tropical Card Set), and a number of bug fixes to make this app as robust as possible.

Too much honesty…

Just for the readers of my blog, let me lay a little bit of truth on you. The fact is that developing an extensive app like this for the iPad is very time consuming. Additionally, the price on the iPad ($9.99 US) is quite low for such a large collection of solitaire games, and Apple does absolutely nothing to promote updates, even ones like this which add major new features and games. All of these factors are working in combination to jeopardize future work on this project. As much as we LOVE solitaire, we cannot afford to indefinitely invest time and money into a product that does not provide some positive return.

What can you do? In order make sure that PGSTE remains viable, you can help us by spreading the word, linking to this post, following Goodsol on Facebook and sharing posts with your friends, and most of all rating and reviewing the app on the App Store. We have a very loyal core of iPad customers, but if we cannot reach critical mass soon, then we may have no choice but to disappoint them and discontinue the project. 🙁

My favorite game in the latest batch is Lower 48, similar to Forty Thieves, which is almost always winnable, but usually quite challenging. I have won all of the first 100 deals (so far).

It provides relaxation during less interesting activities (such as watching Nigeria versus Iran in the World Cup).

The programmer just got hit in the forehead by a fallen tree and could use any sympathy and support that he can get. [*]

It is FREE (for one day only)!

As promised, to celebrate this anniversary, Demolish! Pairs 1.11 is completely free for TODAY ONLY. There are no strings attached, though when you do take advantage of this special offer, it would be nice if you would rate and review it on the App Store.

Also, for those who already have the free-to-play version, Demolish! Pairs FTP 1.0.1, all in-app purchases are free for today only as well.

[*] Medical Update: The injury was not at all serious, causing no extra brain damage. 🙂

Another update to our challenging puzzle game is released.

Digital Gamecraft has published Demolish! Pairs 1.11 on the App Store, where you can buy it for only $3.99 (US). This is, of course, a free upgrade for all existing customers, downloadable from the ‘Updates’ tab on the App Store.

Demolish! Pairs 1.11 is an upgrade that simply lowers the minimum version of iOS to 5.1.1, making it (again) playable on the original iPad. For more information on the game, please visit DemolishPairs.com.

An update to our premier arcade/puzzle game is available.

Digital Gamecraft has published Demolish! Pairs 1.10 on the App Store, where you can buy it for only $3.99 (US). This is, of course, a free upgrade for all existing customers, downloadable from the ‘Updates’ tab on the App Store.

This version is our initial (and, perhaps, terminal) entry into the mobile free-to-play marketplace. We would truly like to see this fun game in the hands of as many players as possible, and if we can recoup something for our efforts (on a simple game that took more than a dozen years, during which time half of the development team died), that would be nice, too. Seriously, it is important to us to get this product as widely spread as possible for the integrity of the data/results, which I intend to (mostly) share on this blog.

Download and Enjoy… and then please Rate and Review it on the App Store!