Klondike Pro

It was 1996 and I was sitting at my 486 with Windows Solitaire installed, a game I'd played to death. If I'd known back then that somewhere on the internet a card game on steroids with a gold rush backdrop was being created, I probably wouldn't have believed it.

Klondike Pro is a card game by Vagabondo Enterprises from 1996 that takes the classic Klondike Solitaire — you know, the one everyone's played while procrastinating at the office computer — and transforms it into a competitive multiplayer showdown. The Old West and gold rush setting is more than just window dressing; the whole game is built on the idea that it's not just about laying out cards, but beating your opponents in a race to the gold mine. Nine computer opponents, one table, one deck of cards.

The mechanics are based on double solitaire — each player works with their own deck, but they share common foundation columns. Whoever plays faster and smarter blocks the others and paves their way to victory. Sounds good on paper. In practice, a lot depends on how the computer opponents behave — and that's where some things have aged worse than those 60Hz flickering monitors. AI from '97 rarely surprises. Still, the basic turn logic works and there's genuine tactical depth for card enthusiasts.

For tech nerds, here's a curiosity: the game was written in CEEMAC, a proprietary programming language created by the author himself, Brooke W. Boering. It's probably one of the last — if not the very last — projects in this language. That makes Klondike Pro an archival oddity regardless of its gameplay merits. The graphics match the era and genre, the soundtrack and sound effects are functional, nothing more. The game was never a big title and never tried to be one.

Today it's mainly for those who are tired of Windows Solitaire and want more than passive card shuffling. If you've got patience for old DOS aesthetics and ever enjoyed thinking about where to play that heart six before your opponent does, Klondike Pro offers something modern card games don't come with by default — that gloomy, slightly slow atmosphere of '90s shareware. Playing it right in your browser via DOSBox emulation these days takes no more than two minutes to set up and saves you the hassle of hunting for a floppy disk.