Mystery Solitaire: Grimm's Tales

In Brief
Mystery Solitaire: Grimm's Tales is a solitaire card game based on Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel fairly tale.

It was originally given away September 29th 2018 where it received a positive 82% from 17 votes with 12 comments which you can read HERE.

Introduction:
Dive into the infamous, mystical and fairy tale world of Hansel and Gretel from the Brothers Grimm. Explore 20 locations from this magical world and earn tons of unique trophies. Levels of varying complexity provide several hours of exciting gameplay, and special Golden Cards add an extra layer of fun. Get rid of cards faster with jokers and increase the combo multiplier to earn more coins. Mystery Solitaire: Grimm’s Tales is an timeless solitaire classic that never loses its flavour.

Edited reference accessed HERE 29th Sept 2018, reposted 17th July 2021

The Game:
This is the third in the Mystery Solitaire games we’ve received this year (Mystery Solitaire: Black Raven 13th Jan 18 & Mystery solitaire: Arkham Spirits 6th Jan 18 plus other solitaire games that look remarkably like the above, i.e. Solitaire Legend of the Pirates and Solitaire Victorian Picnic.

You can access different card styles and help via the options menu. There are two modes of play Newbie and Professional. The Professional mode is locked until you’ve played the first pack in Newbie mode. If you choose to play the Newbie mode all the way through, you can replay any level whereas you must restart the entire pack in Professional mode. The game is divided into 20 area’s each with names that reflect the Grimm Tales of Hansel & Gretel for example Unexpected Fork in the road, Forest Path, Gingerbread House and Witch’s Cauldron. Each area is divided up into 10 solitaire rounds. Once you’ve played the first area you unlock the professional mode. If you choose to move to the Pro mode once unlocked, all points already gained and any special cards such as Jokers and shuffles are also carried over to the pro mode.

Each level in a stage is worth 8 points, with a total of 80 possible points from each stage. To unlock each stage, you must score a certain amount of points before the next stage can be unlocked. For example, you require a total of 57 points to unlock the second stage. As with all solitaire games the game mechanic works on the principle of a chain. A card is taken from the pack and placed on the space next to the unexposed deck. Usually the first card is already turned over for you. You can choose either a value one higher or one lower than the exposed card. Any suit can be used. If you cannot continue the chain you have to turn over another card from the unexposed pack.

The more cards you have in a chain the greater the length of the multiplier bar. This does decrease with time, but so long as you continue a chain, the higher the amount of bonus coins you will be awarded at the end of the level. You also get more money for removing each card as the chain grows. The multiplier bar can be found in the upper righthand corner of the board. Some cards are gold coloured and are labelled special cards. If you remove one of these, you will receive additional points. If you remove all the gold cards from a level, the level ends, you score maximum points for that level i.e. 8 points and then you start the next level. If you fail to get the required amount of points by the end of level 10, if you are playing the newbie levels you can replay any of the previous levels to improve any of the levels that scored poorly. If you are playing the professional levels, you must restart the whole pack again.

The money you earn from playing the game can be spent in the game shop, where you can buy extra Mulligans (cost 2500 coins) which allow you to undo any last action including using your bonus’s, the Shuffle card (cost 8000 coins) which puts all the cards back in the deck and deals new cards or the Joker which can change any open card into a joker (cost 5000 coins). Jokers can be removed by any card. There are 21 trophies to earn and include such titles as Ancient Tome: pass all levels in Newbie mode, which also gives 10 000 coins, All-Seeing Eye: pass all levels in Pro mode which gives 20000 coins, Decrepit Scroll: Maximum points for 12 packs in Newbie mode earning 25000, ancient Rune: Using shuffle bonus 10 times earns you 5000 coins and Mysterious Mechanism: buying 10 Mulligans earns you 10000 coins. You can find descriptions of all the awards via the main menu. If you wish to end a level before you’ve finished, click on the pause button. That takes you to the pause menu where you can then access the main menu, replay the level, go to the levels map, the options or the main menu. Any progress made in a level if you leave it (unless you go back via the continue button) will be lost.

Review by Whiterabbit-uk 29th Sept 2018, reposted July 17th 2021.

Videos of Mystery Solitaire: Grimm's Tales:
You can see a couple of gameplay videos of Mystery Solitaire: Grimm's Tales HERE & HERE.

Conclusion:
If you enjoyed the previous Mystery Solitaire games, you’ll like this one as well. The game play is the same, with the same bonuses, awards (though with different names to reflect the story they are following), the same scoring system and the same shop items and special cards. Apart from the graphics and title, nothing’s changed in this game. Personally, I get a little bored with these games after a short while. I’m surprised I go through to almost the end of the second stage then did some pro levels before I decided to come back to the review. For those who really enjoy Solitaire games I’d score this a good 8.5, from my point of view, because there is nothing new I’d only give it a 5 out of 10.

If you miss today's game giveaway you can always get the game via MyPlayCity 24/7 HERE; or If you prefer to purchase the game you can get it directly from Game Owl HERE

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and the scan found six hits from antimalware engines Jiangming, Kingsoft, MaxSecure, Panda, VBA32 & Zillya; this is probably a false positive due to the remnants of low level adware that was included with the non gamegiveaway version from MyPlayCity (MPC). This version has been stripped of the main adware; but, as mentioned above, non invasive remnants may still be present; this only opens your browser to MPC's home page once when you install the game and when you close the game down after booting it up. Also, a couple of shortcuts may be added to your desktop (these can be safely deleted once the game has installed). The installation does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to MPC's home page when the game has been installed, it earns MPC games some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/ebfe31ae8ca7c6d7beddc30723c308ec5c296f4dd811fc7539e2c87be18ae83d/detection