4 ms·

https://FreeSolitaire.win https://FreeSolitaire.win is a successful PWA of mine. It’s a Klondike Solitaire game. It used to bring ~$500/mo of advertising reven

https://FreeSolitaire.win https://FreeSolitaire.win is a successful PWA of mine. It’s a Klondike Solitaire game. It used to bring ~$500/mo of advertising revenue, but that’s significantly down these days: I refuse to have a cookie/consent banner, so I refuse customized ads (in the UE, in some US states now, &c.) Players do add it to homescreen. There is a non-intrusive button prompting them to do so, at the end of a game. People like to be able to play offline. Apart from that, I don’t use much PWA/browser features; no notifications, etc. More info here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34483398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34483398 Happy to answer any question you may have! Happy to get some feedback too ;-)

toldyouso2022 2y ago
I'm really liking it, I've played multiple times and installed it. I will ask though: is it possible to remove the vibration?
- palsecam 2y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I understand your will to disable vibrations. But thing is, right now I can’t think of how to offer that option properly. For instance, adding a Setting menu+icon just for that would be lame. I’ll think about it more, tho.
  - toldyouso2022 2y ago
    A burger menu in the top right where you then see settings and help. Again, well done
raybb 2y ago
What ad network are you using?
- palsecam 2y ago
  AdSense.
jb1991 2y ago
I don’t know much about these kinds of apps, but when I visit your game page, I don’t see any way to actually add it to the homepage on my iPhone. Is this something that iOS doesn’t allow, or is there another way to do it? The game looks pretty cool though :)
- nefarious_ends 2y ago
  In Safari hit the share button then scroll down and hit Add to Home Screen.
  - palsecam 2y ago
    This. Safari (and Firefox) does not have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInstallPromptEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInsta... So you can’t have a custom button/way to prompt players to install. However, they can install a PWA manually, by themselves; there is the option somewhere in their browser menu.
    - jb1991 2y ago
      That’s interesting, thanks. I just did it successfully, I don’t think I’ve ever installed an app like this before. So I guess when I click it it’s just opening a browser window with no actual browser controls and then loading the site?
      - palsecam 2y ago
        Exactly. “it’s just opening a browser window with no actual browser controls”: yes, due to the `display` setting in the app manifest: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/display https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/displa... It’s similar to a `WebView` component: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebView https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebView
        jb1991 2y ago
nefarious_ends 2y ago
Hey great app! I really like the “undo until unstuck” feature, I haven’t seen that before. Is there an algorithm for that or did you come up with something yourself?
- palsecam 2y ago
  Thanks! The algorithm is described here: https://FreeSolitaire.win/strategy https://FreeSolitaire.win/strategy I came up with it by myself. “The strategy presented here is the basis of the computer algorithm of FreeSolitaire.win, which is used to select finishable deals, offer hints, and detect dead-ends. You also see it surface when you are told that The computer could do it in N moves at the end of a game. This strategy/algorithm is quite simple. It does not require to “count cards”, i.e. keep track of which cards were seen in the stock. It doesn’t require to make guesses on where such or such face-down card must be located. And the procedure is the same all along the game; there is no special treatement of the opening or ending. It’s stateless, a programmer would say. […]”
  - moralestapia 2y ago
    >I came up with it by myself. That is truly great, @palsecam. I love HN because of this!
jb1991 2y ago
I just discovered something interesting while playing your game: I’ve been playing solitaire incorrectly for my entire life, several decades! I thought maybe you had changed the rules but then I just looked up the rules and I see it’s I who have apparently been playing it incorrectly. When I was taught solitaire by my grandparents, instead of turning over one card when you are out of moves, you always turn over three cards. The only way to unlock those cards you passed over in dealing three instead of one is to play one of them which will change the sequence of every three cards the next time you move through that deck. This certainly makes the game harder to win.
- palsecam 2y ago
  Oh, you can play in “draw 3 by 3” mode too: https://FreeSolitaire.win/turn-three https://FreeSolitaire.win/turn-three ;-) (You can also choose the mode in the New Game dialog.) And yes, it’s indeed harder. The solving algorithm has a winning rate of 52% in “turn one” mode, but only 18% in “turn three”.
- danmur 2y ago
  That's how I learned it too.
morbicer 2y ago
Nice and clean! How did you get it off the ground and gather first users?
- palsecam 2y ago
  Thanks! Word of mouth, mainly. Posted it on Reddit back then, things like that. It grew organically from that. And, although it’s far from being on top results on SERP (search engine result pages), some people do find it that way. Also: because it’s so lightweight, it got included some years ago in the Moya app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nu.bi.moya https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nu.bi.moya), a popular messaging app in South Africa that is “data-free” for users (it does reverse-billing). Now half the players are South Africans!
metadat 2y ago
Why does it let you sort through the card deck one-by-one? Ime mkst solitaire offers the top of a set of three. Maybe it's just a different style of solitaire? This one seems too easy, though. Well done app, regardless - cheers! :)
- palsecam 2y ago
  There is also the “turn 3 by 3” mode! Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40726628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40726628, just below in this thread.
ttymck 2y ago
Your buy a coffee link was not clickable on Firefox Android
- palsecam 2y ago
  OK, finally found a fix: /* Work around Firefox Mobile getting the hit target (clickable area) of the game control buttons wrong, when the (bottom) navigation bar gets hidden (when scrolling down). See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1813213 and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70893056/mozilla-android-addressbar-conflict-with-sticky-button-on-bottom and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40733062 ← thanks @ttymck for the bug report! */ if (/Mobile.+Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent)) { self.addEventListener('resize', frameThrottle1(() => { document.getElementById('metagame').style.position = (window.outerHeight > window.innerHeight) ? 'sticky' : 'fixed'; })); }
- palsecam 2y ago
  Oh thank you for that! Could reproduce that bug. It’s because of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1813213 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1813213 I just spent a couple hours trying to find a clean workaround, without success… Will investigate more ASAP. Thanks again!
furyofantares 2y ago
I'm curious how many unique users you get daily/weekly/monthly?
casper14 2y ago
Love it, super smooth! Played a quick game https://freesolitaire.win/turn-one#25307 https://freesolitaire.win/turn-one#25307

toldyouso2022 2y ago

I'm really liking it, I've played multiple times and installed it. I will ask though: is it possible to remove the vibration?

palsecam 2y ago
Thanks for the feedback! I understand your will to disable vibrations. But thing is, right now I can’t think of how to offer that option properly. For instance, adding a Setting menu+icon just for that would be lame. I’ll think about it more, tho.
- toldyouso2022 2y ago
  A burger menu in the top right where you then see settings and help. Again, well done

raybb 2y ago

What ad network are you using?

palsecam 2y ago
AdSense.

jb1991 2y ago

I don’t know much about these kinds of apps, but when I visit your game page, I don’t see any way to actually add it to the homepage on my iPhone. Is this something that iOS doesn’t allow, or is there another way to do it? The game looks pretty cool though :)

nefarious_ends 2y ago
In Safari hit the share button then scroll down and hit Add to Home Screen.
- palsecam 2y ago
  This. Safari (and Firefox) does not have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInstallPromptEvent https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInsta... So you can’t have a custom button/way to prompt players to install. However, they can install a PWA manually, by themselves; there is the option somewhere in their browser menu.
  - jb1991 2y ago
    That’s interesting, thanks. I just did it successfully, I don’t think I’ve ever installed an app like this before. So I guess when I click it it’s just opening a browser window with no actual browser controls and then loading the site?
    - palsecam 2y ago
      Exactly. “it’s just opening a browser window with no actual browser controls”: yes, due to the `display` setting in the app manifest: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/display https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Manifest/displa... It’s similar to a `WebView` component: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebView https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebView
      - jb1991 2y ago

nefarious_ends 2y ago

Hey great app! I really like the “undo until unstuck” feature, I haven’t seen that before. Is there an algorithm for that or did you come up with something yourself?

palsecam 2y ago
Thanks! The algorithm is described here: https://FreeSolitaire.win/strategy https://FreeSolitaire.win/strategy I came up with it by myself. “The strategy presented here is the basis of the computer algorithm of FreeSolitaire.win, which is used to select finishable deals, offer hints, and detect dead-ends. You also see it surface when you are told that The computer could do it in N moves at the end of a game. This strategy/algorithm is quite simple. It does not require to “count cards”, i.e. keep track of which cards were seen in the stock. It doesn’t require to make guesses on where such or such face-down card must be located. And the procedure is the same all along the game; there is no special treatement of the opening or ending. It’s stateless, a programmer would say. […]”
- moralestapia 2y ago
  >I came up with it by myself. That is truly great, @palsecam. I love HN because of this!

jb1991 2y ago

I just discovered something interesting while playing your game: I’ve been playing solitaire incorrectly for my entire life, several decades! I thought maybe you had changed the rules but then I just looked up the rules and I see it’s I who have apparently been playing it incorrectly. When I was taught solitaire by my grandparents, instead of turning over one card when you are out of moves, you always turn over three cards. The only way to unlock those cards you passed over in dealing three instead of one is to play one of them which will change the sequence of every three cards the next time you move through that deck. This certainly makes the game harder to win.

palsecam 2y ago
Oh, you can play in “draw 3 by 3” mode too: https://FreeSolitaire.win/turn-three https://FreeSolitaire.win/turn-three ;-) (You can also choose the mode in the New Game dialog.) And yes, it’s indeed harder. The solving algorithm has a winning rate of 52% in “turn one” mode, but only 18% in “turn three”.
danmur 2y ago
That's how I learned it too.

morbicer 2y ago

Nice and clean! How did you get it off the ground and gather first users?

palsecam 2y ago
Thanks! Word of mouth, mainly. Posted it on Reddit back then, things like that. It grew organically from that. And, although it’s far from being on top results on SERP (search engine result pages), some people do find it that way. Also: because it’s so lightweight, it got included some years ago in the Moya app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nu.bi.moya https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nu.bi.moya), a popular messaging app in South Africa that is “data-free” for users (it does reverse-billing). Now half the players are South Africans!

metadat 2y ago

Why does it let you sort through the card deck one-by-one? Ime mkst solitaire offers the top of a set of three. Maybe it's just a different style of solitaire? This one seems too easy, though. Well done app, regardless - cheers! :)

palsecam 2y ago
There is also the “turn 3 by 3” mode! Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40726628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40726628, just below in this thread.

ttymck 2y ago

Your buy a coffee link was not clickable on Firefox Android

palsecam 2y ago
OK, finally found a fix: /* Work around Firefox Mobile getting the hit target (clickable area) of the game control buttons wrong, when the (bottom) navigation bar gets hidden (when scrolling down). See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1813213 and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/70893056/mozilla-android-addressbar-conflict-with-sticky-button-on-bottom and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40733062 ← thanks @ttymck for the bug report! */ if (/Mobile.+Firefox/.test(navigator.userAgent)) { self.addEventListener('resize', frameThrottle1(() => { document.getElementById('metagame').style.position = (window.outerHeight > window.innerHeight) ? 'sticky' : 'fixed'; })); }
palsecam 2y ago
Oh thank you for that! Could reproduce that bug. It’s because of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1813213 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1813213 I just spent a couple hours trying to find a clean workaround, without success… Will investigate more ASAP. Thanks again!

furyofantares 2y ago

I'm curious how many unique users you get daily/weekly/monthly?

casper14 2y ago

Love it, super smooth! Played a quick game https://freesolitaire.win/turn-one#25307 https://freesolitaire.win/turn-one#25307