win8 Microsoft updates Solitaire Collection - Fixes Pyramid!

[+devHead Subscriber²]

One of the major updates I noticed today was with the Microsoft Solitaire Collection of games, along with Mahjong and Minesweeper. Looks like many of the 'Coming Soon' features that were displayed for the Solitaire games are now available. Things like creating your own theme, where you can now choose the gameboard background image, even the image on the back of the cards, as well as a new feature - animations that display while you are playing.

Those cosmetic changes are all well and good; frankly I did create my own theme. But the biggest improvement is the fixing of the Pyramid Solitaire game. It used to be so frustrating when you went through your stock pile, you got re-dealt the pyramid stack too! Now it plays the way it's supposed to; you get 3 rounds with a stack so it's much easier to complete a pyramid. Before, maybe 1 out of 20 times you could clear the top, if that.

Other than that, it seems to start up a bit quicker. What do you all think? Any other observations?

[grayscale]

Finally, someone posted what the changes :p

I manually updated yesterday and the release notes has not been updated yet at that time. I have no idea what changed. How about the changes on Mail, Calendar, etc. There was also an update on it yesterday.

[+devHead Subscriber²]

Finally, someone posted what the changes :p

I manually updated yesterday and the release notes has not been updated yet at that time. I have no idea what changed. How about the changes on Mail, Calendar, etc. There was also an update on it yesterday.

Yeah, that's true. I rarely use the Mail app since the online version of Outlook.com is so much more powerful. I don't use Calendar at all. But maybe I will now, if it's been updated.

[zhangm Supervisor]

Finally, someone posted what the changes :p

I manually updated yesterday and the release notes has not been updated yet at that time. I have no idea what changed. How about the changes on Mail, Calendar, etc. There was also an update on it yesterday.

One change I've seen is that they fixed the Mail app not being able to look up your People app address book to autocomplete the To field when composing a message. There may also have been changes in how the Messaging app is able to run in the background.

[grayscale]

Yeah, didn't bother looking up for that bug. Great!

[Stoffel]

Mine sweeper changed for the worse.

When you do the Daily challenges it shows you a 30sec full screen add, which you can't skip

And it shows this every 4 or 5 games, I don't mind ads in free games but this is just to much

Also the mine sweeper standard games are displayed much smaller now, it says you can scroll to zoom but with my trackpad that doesn't seem to work, anybody got an idea?

You still can't scroll left and right using your trackpad either

[jhoff80]

I agree on the ads being way too often. It makes the Daily Challenge mode completely unusable, for all of the games (Minesweeper, Mahjong, Solitaire, and Taptiles).

[MadCabbit]

Anyone else not able to sign in to the Arkadium games? Other apps are signing in, but I can't get these to work. I can also sign in to xbox.com without a problem.

[pmrd]

ARM support yet?

[spudtrooper]

Don't see any of the Ms games on surface yet, hope they get them published soon for arm

[MadCabbit]

Anyone else having problems with the daily challenges? It periodically forgets I completed games, or worse yet, loses my score. Sometimes it lets me play the days again, and other times, it still thinks I completed them, but still cheating me out of my score.

[cork1958]

People actually play those standard games?

I don't think I've ever clicked on the games folder under the start menu in my life!! In fact, I just had to look to see if it is even installed on my Windows 7!!

[Brad555]

I miss the old Windows games, they did not lock and it could be played with other programs open in the background. This time, the games are slow to load and it locks up completely.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Don't see any of the Ms games on surface yet, hope they get them published soon for arm

It's pretty sloppy for them to not have Solitaire on Windows RT for launch but it again speaks to how rushed the development was.

[HawkMan]

As far as I know the Metro/Modern/RT apps are not platform specific and run on any platform and don't need special compiling, so the games should work on Windows RT, They are however not installed by default and you need to grab them form the store, for free.

[Shane Nokes]

As far as I know the Metro/Modern/RT apps are not platform specific and run on any platform and don't need special compiling, so the games should work on Windows RT, They are however not installed by default and you need to grab them form the store, for free.

Not quite. You still have to compile an ARM version. That's why apps state what platforms they work on.

[neo1911]

It's pretty sloppy for them to not have Solitaire on Windows RT for launch but it again speaks to how rushed the development was.

Not rushed but shows poor planning and failing to anticipate customer needs.

[(Account no longer active)]

Any screenshots?