Image: Grey Alien Games & Night Signal Entertainment

Forbidden Solitaire was one of this year's best indie surprises - a collaboration between story-driven solitaire studio Grey Alien Games (Regency Solitaire) and low-fi horror outfit Night Signal Entertainment (Home Safety Hotline) that combined the two studios' strongest suits and ended up delivering a full (haunted) house. And yes, I know that's Poker, shut up.

Forbidden Solitaire wasn't just a smart Solitaire game, but a great horror yarn about a (literally) cursed 1995 game unearthed in 2019, interspersed with FMV segments to build up the mythology behind it. The only complaint I (and most others) had was that it ended. But as we all know, evil is not so easily defeated, as The Discarded - the story expansion - continues the plot for another few hours of card-slinging fun today, picking up a year after the original game's ending.

The expansion promises another 30 levels, which in the original game spanned several kinds of solitaire-based gameplay, including stealth missions where you had to play cards outside of a swinging spotlight or deal with the consequences. I'd expect some new shenanigans, as the original game's bosses loved to throw extra twists at you, requiring you to abuse every little upgrade and perk you'd unlocked.

It seems there's even more room for rule-bending in the expansion as well, with new jokers and arcane upgrades (visualized as you gruesomely burning symbols into your character's hands) on top of the old upgrade system, which had you embedding cursed gems into your flesh. Well, your character's flesh. Because the whole game is about your character (in the real world) playing a fictional game. Look, just play it. The metatextual stuff really works.

While the new DLC is great, this comes after a round of updates to the original release that also addressed the complaint of 'want more game'. While it didn't extend the story, the New Game+ update added a whole second set of high-level solitaire puzzle challenges designed with a fully upgraded player in mind, providing a really good reason to play through the entire game a second time. Altogether, that adds up to a surprisingly beefy game, and far more fun than I expected to have with any solitaire game.

The Discarded is out now for £7.15/$10, or available in a discounted bundle with the original Forbidden Solitaire. I'd recommend playing the original (and steeply discounted) game first and upgrading if you're hankering for more once the credits roll.