Sakhmet Solitaire: A Pro's Guide

THE RULES

Solitaire is a card game that consists of 7 card piles (or the playing board), a draw pile, and an Ace pile. The goal is to get every card of every suit (Spade, Club, Diamond, and Heart—or, actually, Negg) into the Ace pile. I’ll more in-depth on how you’re going to do this—certain moves aren’t allowed and while the game isn’t too hard to understand, it’s important you perfectly understand the few rules.

When you place a card in the Ace pile, the card cannot be moved afterwards. Let me say this again for the ones in the back—once a card is placed in the Ace pile, it cannot be moved afterwards. So if you actually needed that 8, you can’t do anything about it except hope for another 8 to pass by or, basically, cry. It’s easy to ruin a game by too hastily placing cards in the Ace pile … play smart—not fast—for maximum points.

Red cards can ONLY be placed on black cards and vice versa, unless they’re going into the Ace pile (which they then go in consecutive order based on their suit). For example: a seven of Diamonds can only go on an eight of Spades OR an eight of Clubs, never onto an eight of Diamonds or eight of Hearts. Likewise, an eight of Spades can only be placed on a nine of Diamonds OR a nine of Hearts.

When putting cards into the Ace pile (the four piles on the top right that are blank? That’s where you’re trying to collect all the cards), they MUST be in consecutive order (A, 2, 3, 4, …, J, Q, K) of their respective suits (Diamonds stay together, Spades stay together, etc). You can’t place a 4 into the Ace pile until you first place a 3.

Don’t worry about accidentally messing up … if you try to move a card where it doesn’t belong, you’ll get a message telling you that what you’re attempting is not a legal move. It’s impossible to mess up a game by putting a card where it can’t go, because, well … it can’t go there!

Be warned now that it costs 50 Neopoints PER game to play. You may be thinking, “I have to PAY to play a game?!” but you can win up to 5,000 Neopoints, so you’ll make it back quickly. The Neopoints aren’t subtracted from your account until you make a move, so simply starting a new game won’t do anything.

After earning the 5,000 point maximum, you can continue to play for no cost! Of course, you won’t be earning Neopoints but you won’t be spending them either. They go towards your total points.

Winning the game is only possible by, again, getting every suit completed in the Ace pile—all the Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, and Hearts from Ace to King!

DRAWING CARDS

Before “officially” starting a game you’ll be asked if you want to draw 1 or draw 3 cards. Don’t freak out—this merely means how many cards you want to draw from the draw pile at a time. I’ll explain this as simple as possible without trying to cause too much confusing. Bear with me! The draw pile is vital to playing this game, as this is where you’ll be finding cards necessary for advancing gameplay.

Drawing 1. Drawing 1 card gives you 23 draws—meaning, you can only draw from that pile 23 times before you run out of moves. You’ll only be able to access the cards underneath if you move the card above it—for example: you draw a 4. You draw a K. You draw a 3. You move the 3, and now the available card on the draw pile is a K.

Drawing 3. Drawing 3 cards gives you 7 draws in 3 rounds—meaning, you can only draw from that pile 7 times before it cycles through again the second and final rounds. Moving different cards from the draw pile to the playing board or the Ace piles will affect the cards you see during the next rounds. Know now that the deck DOES NOT SHUFFLE. Each time you draw, you get 3 cards on top of the other—only the top card is visible, but rest assured that you definitely are pulling 3 cards at a time. I’ll give you an example:

You draw 3 cards—K, 4, 7. You can only see the King, but there are 2 cards beneath it (for the sake of this example, I’m telling you the card types!). You move the King; now you have 4 and 7. You can’t move the 4, so you pull from the draw pile, now giving you 6, Q, 8 (remember … you can ONLY see the 6, not the cards below!). It’s the end of the draw pile and you can’t move the 6, so you click the blank draw pile to go through another cycle. Since the cards lay atop each other, the 6 that was on top will now be on bottom. Pulling from the draw pile will now give you 8, 4, 7.

The cards pulled from here can go either to the playing board or the Ace pile.

I feel like I must stress that YOU CANNOT SEE THE BOTTOM 2 CARDS and that THE DECK DOES NOT SHUFFLE. It’s a huge misconception that plagues many new players, and having that drilled into your mind now will help you in the long run.

THE PLAYING BOARD

This is where most people get confused. The playing board consists of 7 card piles, each pile getting a bit bigger with 1 addition facedown card (the first pile has 1 visible card, the last pile has 6 facedown cards and 1 visible card). Knowing the goal of the game is to get all the cards in their respective pile (in order!), you have to move these cards. It’s necessary to advance the game, as they will reveal the cards beneath that may just be that 8 you were looking for!

Remember, black cards can ONLY go on red cards. The Queen of Diamonds can only be moved to King of Spades OR King of Clubs, and it’s the same regardless of card value.

There’s no limit to how long a stack can be, so don’t fret about “breaking” the game or anything, it’s not possible. But try to move the cards along efficiently.

To move a card, you simply select the card (it will highlight it, so you know which card you’re selecting) and then select the spot where you want it to go—if you want to move an 8 to the Ace pile, select the 8 and then the Ace pile. Similarly, if you want the 8 to move to a 9, select the 8 and then select the 9, effectively moving it!

Did you know you can also move stacks? You do this by selecting the top of the stack (if your stack is 6-7-8-9, and you want to move it to a 10, select the 9—it will highlight the entire stack—and then select the 10).

POINTS

Here’s a fun fact—each point you earn while playing is equivalent to 1 Neopoint at the end! If you finish a game with 100 points, you’ll earn 100 Neopoints (meaning you earned 50 Neopoints … go you!). Points are only awarded to cards in the Ace pile. It doesn’t matter if you cycle through all the draw pile and have a ton of cards on the playing board; if you have zilch in the Ace pile, you’ll earn zilch at the end. And the Solitaire Chomby gives you a real stink eye if you finish the game with 0 points, so try to end with something!

The points are divvied up based on card value. Each Ace is worth 20 points, every card 2 through Queen are worth 10, and the King is worth—wait for it—85 (!!!) points! Again, these points are only awarded if they are placed in the Ace pile, not if they are on the playing board or in the draw pile.

Like I stated earlier, points are awarded at the end of the game and each point is worth the same amount of Neopoints. You can win 5,000 points—or 5,000 Neopoints—before being capped, but you can continue to play for free, with the points earned going towards your total points earned.

Since each Ace is worth 20, each card 2 through Queen is worth 10, and each King is worth 85, that means if you win the game, you’ll earn 860 Neopoints! Not too shabby, right?

PRIZES

Here’s the part we all care the most about! There are two different types of trophies you can win: high score and “off the record”. The high score trophies are awarded to the player with the highest cumulative points—if you want this trophy, you’ll have to play all day every day for weeks … months … possibly YEARS to even place somewhere close. Thankfully the “off the record” (so called because they are awarded separately from the high score tables, and aren’t affected by the number of people awarded them or the day of the month) are much easier to obtain. Just like regular trophies, they are awarded in Bronze (win 2 games), Silver (win 5 games), and glorious Gold (win 2 games … in a row!).

Sometimes, you’ll be awarded a bonus item when you win a game—this could be a battle item, Lost Desert foodstuffs, or an exclusive shirt! How neat is that?

Unfortunately, there’s no avatar (… yet …) but who knows what the future holds?

TIPS

Remember that card games are totally random. It doesn’t matter how much time you invest in playing, you’ll still be held at the mercy of the deck … this could benefit your game or hurt your game, it just depends. Usually you can break even or earn Neopoints every time you play, but don’t hold me to this—as I said, games are random!

Remember to move cards around, because you can miss a great opportunity! Here’s an example:

In your Ace pile, you have an Ace of Hearts, 3 of Diamonds, 4 of Spades, and 4 of Clubs. You have a stack consisting of 5 of Spades and 4 of Hearts on a stack of facedown cards, and a 5 of Clubs by itself with no facedown cards. Some people might move the 5 of Clubs, but you should move the 4 of Hearts to the 5 of Clubs and move the 5 of Spades to the Ace pile, thus opening up a facedown card! You might find that card you’ve been looking for.

Always get Aces and 2’s off the playing board AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Think about it: Aces give you the foundation for adding the rest of the suit to the Ace pile, therefore there’s no reason for it to take up room and keep you from getting those points! 2’s are unnecessary as well because the only card that can be placed on them are Aces, and we now know that Aces aren’t needed on the playing board. Getting an Ace and a 2 into the Ace pile will score you 30 points alone!

CONCLUSION

That should be everything! I hope this guide was helpful for you and that playing this game is a bit easier if you were confused. Solitaire is extremely fun and a great way to earn some quick Neopoints and add some flair to your account with a shiny trophy.

Also, here’s something neat: each move you make refreshes the page. You can get a lot of random events, including faerie quests. I actually got a Fountain Faerie Quest playing this game, so there’s always that possibility!

So what are you waiting for? Go play some Solitaire and WIN BIG!