Casual Explosion's My Game Space page: Explosionville!!!
7.2 excellent
I always said if I could go back in time and invent two things, they would be the game of solitaire and the TV sensation Survivor. I could have been a gazillionaire, for want of a time machine. Well, Spintop Games has mixed the two together to form Mystery Solitaire: Secret Island. (What kind of person names an island Secret Island, anyway? Probably someone extremely furtive, with mysteries to hide.)
To keep you company on Secret Island, you have your trusty deck of playing cards and a huge variety of solitaire layouts. Click on pairs of playing cards with matching face values (ignoring suites) to remove them from the screen. If the cards you remove are on top of any face down piles, you'll automatically overturn the top card of the pile. Then maybe you can use it to make another match. And so on. Sometimes the layouts are all fancy pants and removing one card will overturn the top cards of three or four piles. Solitaire fans, you know what I'm talking about.
There are special cards to help you.. and to get in your way. Some cards are locks, and they can only be matched with corresponding key cards. Once unlocked, they remove themselves from the screen. How does a three dimensional key fit into and unlock a (mostly) two dimensional playing card??? It boggles the mind, but I swear to you I saw it happen in at least four of the levels I played in this game.
Another special card is the magnet card. It sits off to the side, and when you click it, it will attract the card of your choice away from wherever it sits. That lets you temporarily bypass a stubborn card that is perhaps sitting atop a nice pile you want to start working through. It doesn't remove the pulled card from the game, however, you still must deal with it. Interesting observation: all the cards must be made of some sort of metal to be attracted by magnets. Be careful when playing with (rare earth) neodymium magnets! They are very strong and can severely pinch your skin. For example, don't ever hand someone one neodymium magnet, and then say, "Here, catch!" while tossing them a second magnet. You could break one of their fingers!
The third special card is the joker. It gets rid of all visible cards of a certain value on the screen. So you could click on it, then on a deuce, and all visible deuces would be removed.
Playing solitaire on the beach was so fun, I almost forgot that I wanted to find my way home. Until I saw the creepy underwater shipwreck. Scattered about were thirty or forty random objects, like Tiki torches (from Survivor) and snowglobes (from a Christmas movie, I suppose). I had to find six random objects in order to get a clue to help me find my way off Secret Island. If you are wondering, there was no explanation whatsoever how finding these objects resulted in me obtaining a clue. The clue turned out to be a piece of a map. There are twelve locations like this on Secret Island. Spintop Games says these hunt-for-the-object minigames are "enjoyable" and "addictive." I say Spintop Games is "on drugs." Maybe some people will enjoy looking for objects, and find themselves addicted, but I think other games have done this sort of thing better.
The music in Mystery Solitaire: Secret Island is excellent. A bit repetitive, also repetitious, but catchy and fun to listen to. Perhaps it's a bit dramatic for solitaire, but you have to remind yourself that this isn't regular solitaire for your grandma... this is solitaire on the desperate lonely beach of Secret Island. I wanted to run a sound capturing program in the background and record the music to listen to later.
And I did.
The most impressive thing about the game is the vibrant playing cards - simple but easy to discern, and the incredible card layouts available in the 60+ levels. All the superfluous trappings aside, this game handles solitaire well. You can undo moves, get hints, and it will tell you if there are no possible moves.
In tribal council, I'd vote out the fives. I'm basing my decision on what's best for the tribe. There were a few times when I really needed a five to match with a five I had overturned, but I couldn't make a pair because there was only one available. I even turned over cards from the pile and didn't get a five. It's nothing personal.
In conclusion, this game is for solitaire fans only. If you like solitaire, grab a volleyball and take a three hour tour on Secret Island.