The Far Kingdoms: Sacred Grove Solitaire

Review

Far off in a magical land, elves live on a beautiful and peaceful island, upon which a sacred grove has granted these elves magical powers. Until one day a massive earthquake destroys everything, wiping out thousands of years of buildings as well as the sacred grove. The elven queen wishes to restore the elven kingdom and the sacred grove to their former glory, and asks you to help rebuild the kingdom and grove by using magic cards.

The game is played like normal solitaire, depending on the card showing in your deck. You can place one of the overturned cards on the board to your deck if it is higher or lower than the card on show. The cards are laid out differently compared to normal solitaire, with a different number of cards each game.

There are fourteen buildings you’ll need to unlock and rebuild, and to do so you’ll need to collect crystals. These can be acquired as you uncover cards, complete an objective, and from completing a game. You start with five-hundred crystals and this will allow you to open the first of the buildings in need of repair. The buildings that are open to you are shown on the Map Screen in the bottom centre of the screen. Once a building has been opened you can start a game by clicking on play just to the centre right of the screen. To move on to the next building you’ll need to have enough crystals to open them. It may take several games to collect the number of crystals needed to open a new building within the kingdom.

Upon collecting enough crystals to unlock the next building, you’ll be greeted with a jigsaw puzzle. Completion of the jig-saw puzzle with fully unlock that building, allowing you to move on to the next. The jigsaws aren’t very big and are easy to complete. They consist of forty pieces; there’s no picture to work off but they do have the outline of each piece, so it’s not really that hard to figure out. Each time a new building is completed, you’ll be rewarded with crystals and something which may help you as you progress through the game. Restoring the alchemy laboratory for instance, will reward you with the Apparatus, which allows you to see hidden crystals.

Sometimes instead of collecting crystals you must find six hidden parts of a relic; collecting all six relic parts will allow you to combine them to create one item. These items can then be used to help you in-game, and can be activated once per game. The relic which you can use in-game can be found above your deck in the bottom centre of the screen. Either side of your deck you’ll also find an undo button which can be activated so many times per game. This will allow you to undo any card you’ve turned over back to the deck if you have missed a card which you could have used on the board. To the left of the deck there’s the current combo counter, each time you play consecutive cards, this will increase until you cannot play any more cards. Once this happens the combo score will add to the multiplier, found around the hints in the right bottom corner, and this will increase your overall score.

There are a few things which will stop you from progressing on the board, like ivy or locks, or you’ll need a certain combo score to unlock the cards. Finding an axe will remove the ivy, finding a key will unlock the locks (these can be found when you remove a card from the board). To help you through, you’ll have some wild cards; if you find any of these, they’ll be stored underneath the undo button. Should you find yourself in a pickle, they will come in handy, especially when you need to make a big combo to unlock cards which you need to proceed.

As you progress, you’ll need to find magic sparks which will be scattered around underneath a card somewhere. In total, there are ten sparks to find, and finding all ten sparks will bring magic back to the grove and fully restore its magical powers for the elves.

In the options you’ll find Music and Sound volume sliders, Full Screen, Custom cursor and Widescreen options. You can also choose from four different face cards and three types of back cards to customise the game as you please. Here you’ll also find the Grove, Main Menu and Continue.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!