When Bithell Games announced The Solitaire Conspiracy, I had a similar response to the concept of “spycraft thriller meets card game” as I did to honey and red pepper flakes on pizza: It seemed like such a random idea. But then I started to process the idea of it—the flavor profile of hot, sweet, salty, savory, and doughy goodness. The more I thought about it, the more hyped I got about the idea; I could get behind it! And then, I tried it. 

You know all of those mind-blown memes? Imagine all of them here.

The Solitaire Conspiracy works exactly like that, and that's why I love it so much. It's an odd mix of familiar genres and game mechanics that shouldn’t work together, but it stitches them together in a harmonious blend of humor, cards, high stakes heists, and clandestine conflict.

If you are unfamiliar with the game, here is the concept: You're thrust into the role of Spymaster of Protego—the world’s leading spy agency. At least, it WAS the leading spy agency, but now the proverbial house of cards has folded after an attack by a shadowy supervillain aptly named Solitaire. Guided by Protego’s last acting analyst, Jim Ratio—who is expertly played by Greg Miller—you must put the pieces back together by gathering spy crews to your side, hopefully putting a stop to Solitaire’s schemes at all cost.

And this is where the gameplay gets interesting. Rather than working with simple suits, cards take on the colors and characteristics of different spy crews. While the aim is still to organize cards in the order of ace through king, the face cards of each crew have different skills that can be activated through play. 

Here's an example: One of the spy crews you work with is Drive Team Six. These guys are your go-to for extraction, for getting out of Dodge in tough situations. Let’s say you have your ace and two all nestled in their final resting place, but the three you need is buried deep in a stack. When you play a Drive Team Six face card on a card that matches the suit of the three, it will extract the next card in that suit needed for play from the pile and place it on top of the two—in this case, the three.

Or, take The Mantis Group, your demolition experts. Dropping a Mantis face card on a stack will cause that stack of cards to get randomly redistributed onto the other stacks on the table. 

Those are just two of the ten crews you’ll work with over the course of the game. When you take this interesting twist on a classic, throw in a story of intrigue, add multiple gameplay types, and place it all in a cyberpunk-like setting with atmospheric electronica, you get an experience that strangely works.

This is the magic of Bithell Games that I absolutely adore, and it's on full display in this game. The Solitaire Conspiracy subverts something as familiar and low-stakes as solitaire by leveraging the outlandish possibilities of imagination—just like the unusual pizza toppings.

Pick it up now on Epic Games Store.