Selfie Poker 12+

Very clever solo game

It’s so hard to find good solo card games that strike the right balance between casual and strategic. This game nails it. Everything is done right here. And the design is gorgeous.

I love that it saves progress at all times, because I can only play in short spurts. It’s just easy enough to learn to be accessible, while still providing a unique strategic challenge. You have to think, but it’s not overly hard or frustrating. It’s perfect for semi-casual gamers and strategic thinkers alike. And the component of luck makes it not frustrating.

I only docked one star because it could use battery optimization, it runs a tad warm and drains a tad more than a game like this should. It’s tolerable though since I play in short spurts anyway. I hope it can someday be updated to mitigate this. It’s not bad enough to avoid playing though. Especially since the developer made it free with no ads or IAP, you can’t complain. This free game is better than most paid card games, and it’s unique, you won’t find anything like it.

I totally recommend this game and applaud the developer for monetizing so generously. You clearly care about the art of good gaming. Thank you!

STUPIDITY MANAGEMENT

This would be a 5-star game except for the manner of dealing out losing hands i have nothing to do with. The game starts and i’ve lost because i only have one card left to draw and it doesn’t pair with anything. Which means some programmer played may hand poorly and then handed it over to me. Intolerable, and worse, unplayable.

I see no good reason for an app to arbitrarily destroy a lot of well thought out play. Ultimately it’s the company’s loss. Delete.

Thank’s for your reply. I have, believe it or not, retracted reviews in the past, so you will understand that I cannot agree with your response, so much so that I have deleted your app. You obviously cannot see the foolishness of playing someone’s entire hand and then handing them a silver-plated loss. The first series I played upon downloading your app gained a score of over 500. Since then I have only cracked 200 a couple of times, and what you refer to as “poor play” is only the most brilliant play as to have survived. Your system needs a serious rethink. Out of all of my losses I have only earned (by my terms) 4 or 5 losses compared to the dozens that are just handed to me. I know what poker is all about. I’ve been at it for a lifetime. Pity you can’t bluff in your app.

Developer Response ,

Hi. Thanks for the input.
Just to clarify things, dealing out cards between rounds is completely random. We don’t control randomness in any way.
I agree that it could be frustrating to be “handed” loss at the begining of the round, but this situation happens only if player did poorly in the previous round. The whole idea of the game is that you start the next round with cards left from the previous. I personally feel, that situations when we are doing poorly and have to rely on luck to survive are exciting and crucial for the game. Also, there ways to strategically limit impact of luck at this step.
At the same time, I understand your frustration and agree that it has it’s merits. Thanks for playing.

Love it

Simple but very replayable. One question, let’s say the bottom and middle rows have two (different) pairs each. How is their relative strength determined? 1: Addition of both pairs, or 2: the presence of two respective stronger pairs overall? (This is hard to explain...) Bottom row = AA 88, middle = TT 99 would win by method 1 and lose by method 2.

Developer Response ,

Hi. Tiebreaker in two pair vs two pair situation is a strength of the strongest pair. So AA88 beats TT99 because AA beats TT. This is a standard for all forms of poker. It might get a little confusing so we've included a tiebreaker example for most combinations in a Help tab. Most of them are obvious, like A-high flush beats K-high flush, but two pairs and full houses are really hard to remember (for full houses tiebreaker is a strength of a trips, so AAA22 beats KKKQQ).
And don't forget we still check hand strength for High Cards so having A-high at the Top and K-high at the middle row will lead to losing the game.
Good luck!