- New Game Announcement - Vampirium: 1997 - 8 July 2026
We've been working on our newest title this past year, and we're incredibly excited to be ready to announce our next game. Those of you signed up to our mailing list and reading The Last Portrait will have already had a sneak peek into the world we're building here. Everyone else, allow us to introduce...Vampirium: 19971997. Dracula is King of England. At his command, master your dark gifts to assassinate his enemies and secure his vampiric empire. Infiltrate locked-down locations, adapt and survive in living environments and uncover your own unique methods of executing missions.Wishlist NowVampirium: 1997 will be coming to early access, meaning player feedback will be at the core of the game's continued development. It will allow us to better respond to what the community wants, be it new content, quality of life updates, or simple bug fixes. Basically, your involvement helps us create…
- New Bundle and Creator Keys - Bithell Games' Legacy Celebration - 1 December 2025
We need your help, Spymaster.This week's game in our legacy celebration is The Solitaire Conspiracy! Protego, the world’s leading spy agency, has been destroyed. Only one person can wield C.A.R.D.S to take control of Protego’s scattered spy crews and save the world.You.The Solitaire Conspiracy will be on sale all this week and is included in our NEW BUNDLE where you can purchase all six of our self-published games (or complete the set if you already own one or more) for 10% off! If it's been sitting on your wishlist for a while or you want to gift the game to a friend, now is the perfect time.We're also sending out The Solitaire Conspiracy Steam keys to creators who want to play the game on their channels this week. There's still time to get involved if you want to be one of them! Fill out the interest form below and we'll be in touch: https://forms.gle/redadEHeKNnTFsgv5Bring our crews…
- Update 1.08 - The Atlantis Project! - 11 June 2021
Hello! Today we add our second post release crew! The Atlantis Project is a noble force of aquatic avengers, hydrated heroes and lubricated legends. They fight for the seas, and all who treat the water with respect. You'll get to unlock this new crew via their own FMV campaign, hosted by the awesome Alanah Pearce. Via an intriguing story, you'll learn to use their powerful Submerge skill, and take it into daily challenges, countdown and skirmish modes. We're incredibly excited to be bringing this new crew to the game, alongside its release on the Nintendo Switch. Thank you so much for your continued support, and for keeping those leaderboards populated. We couldn't have imagined how well this little game would connect, and we're so damned excited to have you here. Bug Fixes A couple of minor bug fixes and typos, but the game remains pretty darned stable. New Features Our second Recruitm…
- Update 1.07 - TLC - 9 February 2021
Hello! It's time for our first update of 2021! The TLC update is all about the little things, tweaks and quality of life improvements designed to enhance your experience with the game, and address some of the feedback we've received, along with other imperfections we've spotted. Here's a list of what's included: Bug Fixes The usual typo solutions (folks found a couple in The Merry!) and other small bugs. Features Korean language support. Welcome, Korean players! Bloom can now be switched off in settings. Tooltips can now be toggled off outside of campaign missions. Skip button added to card dealing animations. Optional 60fps targeted frame rate cap for folks playing on high end graphics cards. Countdown timer and sound effects update for a little more drama at the end of a game. FMV codec update to make emulator play on Linux a little easier (platform is still not officially supported).…
- Coming in 2021: Our roadmap for the first half of this year. - 20 January 2021
Hello! Happy new year all, we're excited to be back at work on this game, and welcome to everyone who jumped onboard during the holiday sale. Awesome to have you here. We're pleased to be bringing more things to the game, as it continues to weirdly outgrow its humble beginnings as a short game. This'll take the form of two major updates in the first half of this year. The first is a big push of quality of life features you've asked for, and we've wanted. The second is another new crew, The Atlantis Project. We're gonna keep the details of that team to ourselves for now, but we're excited to continue to grow the game with new cards and FMV. So.. the roadmap! February 9th - TLC Update Just in time for Valentine's Day, this update addresses a bunch of things we've wanted to tweak in the game. We're still working on this, but some of the key new features are: Korean language support Tooltip…
- Update 1.06 - Return of the Merry! - 8 December 2020
Hello! It's time to add our first post release crew! The Merry are joining the game today, with their recruitment missions already on your map (and playable in standard or plus mode). By completing their mini campaign, complete with its own bespoke FMV cutscenes, you'll unlock them for dailies, countdown and skirmish. The Merry are returning characters in the Bithellverse (trademark definitely not pending), a modern update of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, first introduced in our 2015 game, Volume. The Merry's power is one of redistribution, draining power from any crew they're placed on, and redistributing it at random, hopefully to cards more useful to your current situation. We think they'll add even more tactical depth to your play. Hope you enjoy them and their story, definitely let us know if you run into any bugs or issues, and happy holidays! We're excited to share future plans i…
- Update 1.05 - Global Spycraft! - 19 November 2020
Hello! OK! Here we go, our biggest update yet, and one that's essential to our more fiendish long term plans: We just rebuilt the game's main menu from the ground up. This new version charts your current place in the campaign, skirmish and countdown on a world map. This gives us more room for expansions to the game, and more content / modes. The first of these modes are daily challenges. A locked layout skirmish style map is presented each day, with a leaderboard to compete with the world for the lowest number of turns. Daily hotspots will cycle at random, meaning you may have to fight to maintain your legacy placements. We wanted to add a competitive option for those who favour tactics over speed, and we're excited to see how folks get on with it. Have fun, let us know how it goes, and if you're digging the game and our additions, be sure to leave us a Steam review heading into the hol…
- Update 1.04 - Gallery mode! - 29 October 2020
Hello! So, our latest update is a much requested gallery mode, featuring all the characters you've unlocked so far. This mode removes visual effects and let's you enjoy Jen's awesome work in full screen glory. Hope you dig it! Bug Fixes More little things here and there, a couple typos and some button weirdness. The game remains pretty darned stable, so please do continue to let us know if you spot anything odd. New Features Gallery mode. A slightly too busy main menu screen worthy of some tweaks in our next update... Planned Features for Next Update - Global Spycraft (This drops November 19th) New global map screen to replace main menu and allow for expanded content. Daily Tactical Engagements. And finally, thanks to Cyberpunk 2077 moving its release to our planned release for The Return of The Merry major update, we're gonna pull that a little earlier to December 8th, so as to give it…
- Coming in 2020: Our roadmap for November and December - 23 October 2020
Hello! So, we locked in our roadmap, and rather than waiting til next week (gallery and new refresh rate support going in Thursday) we decided to get the information out now. Interested to hear what you think. It's been a fantastic launch month for The Solitaire Conspiracy, with far more players than we expected, and most surprisingly, those players returning to play the modes after Campaign. It's clear that we've got a game worth expanding on, and we're excited to do so. Here's our roadmap, and to be clear, all of this is going to be free. October 29th - Gallery As we've said, this'll drop in a gallery for viewing all of Jen's amazing character designs once you've unlocked them, along with some bug fixes. November 19th - Global Spycraft It's time this game went global. We're completely overhauling the game's main menu to present the international world you're engaging with via a high t…
- Update 1.03 - Campaign Plus adds some challenge - 15 October 2020
Hello! It's update time again, an update that jumped the queue and made it in before our planned one in a couple of weeks. As we mentioned in our last news post, we wanted to get a more challenging alternative to Campaign into the game ASAP, and here it is! Campaign Plus can be selected at the start of the Campaign, or toggled on and off at any time on the Campaign screen. Put simply; it turns every mission into a fixed puzzle. We've set up a par turn count per job, and locked a card layout. If you can't get a mission done in the turn limit we set, you'll fail and have to restart. This mode encourages power use and tests your skills, so is intended primarily for folks on their second play-through, or for whom the campaign feels too easy. We hope you'll dig it! Bug Fixes Some minor ones across the board, but nothing major to report. Please continue to let us know if you run into anything…
- Coming this Thursday: Campaign Plus - 12 October 2020
Hello! We're just under a week since launch, and what a week it's been. We're scrambling to support the growing audience that's jumped in, and to entice those players who've yet to give it a go. With that in mind, we wanted to directly address the biggest criticism of the game we've seen, and by address, we mean add a new mode. Many of you want to play a harder version of the campaign, one which tests your skill. Our answer is Campaign Plus, an option available at the start of a new Campaign, alongside the classic version we launched with. In this mode, there's a fixed deal per mission, no shuffle restarts, and a par turn count set by the team. If you want to win a mission, you'll need to meet or beat our par, otherwise, you'll fail and have to start the mission again. It's a more puzzling version of the game for those who've completed it once and want a new challenge, or for those who…
- Update 1.02 - Skirmish Enhancements and Big News - 9 October 2020
Hello! It's time for our next update, and this one's a bit more substantial... fixing a couple of quality of life issues, and fleshing out Skirmish Mode a little more. Full list below, but first... Folks, The Solitaire Conspiracy's shifting some units. It's our bestselling launch yet. We've made a decision: We're gonna go to regular updates on this one. We're figuring out the roadmap, but you can expect a steady stream of content and tweaks for the game over the coming months, and communication from us on what's coming (and roughly when). We have a lot of ideas, but I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on what they'd like us to invest time in adding to the game. Let's call this first phase 'stage setting'.. fixing issues and making the core game the best it can be before we start adding new modes and/or crews. Bug Fixes Fixed a misleading XP notification in results screen, text now matche…
- The Solitaire Conspiracy doesn't understand what's fun about solitaire - 9 October 2020
Earlier this year, Bithell Games helped UK micro-indie Grey Alien Games publish Ancient Enemy , the latest in a series of what can only be called solitaire adventures by Jake Birkett. Mike Bithell - of Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex - must have enjoyed the experience, because here he is with his own twist on solitaire-with-a-story, The Solitaire Conspiracy, as part of his Shorts series of smaller-scale projects. It's out now for PC and Mac on Steam and the Epic store. Now, two of my favourite time-wasters of the last decade have been Birkett's delightful, Jane Austen-inspired amuse-bouche Regency Solitaire and Klei Entertainment's mini-masterpiece of future espionage tactics, Invisible, Inc. The Solitaire Conspiracy appears strongly influenced by both, so I was excited to try it. Like the Klei game, it features a cast of augmented spooks and hackers on daring undercover missions, an…
- John Wick: Hex creator's new game is cyberpunk Solitaire with FMV and Greg Miller - 7 October 2020
Over the course of his illustrious career, game designer Mike Bithell has made us care deeply for the plight of abstract shapes, captivated us with faceless robots, and let us plan out gun-kata scenes for the Baba Yaga himself. We heard rumours that his next game was going to be a steampunk version of minesweeper starring the cast of Rooster Teeth (this is a lie). Turns out it's actually The Solitaire Conspiracy - a narrative sci-fi twist on the classic card game, starring Kinda Funny's Greg Miller in a story told through FMV cutscenes. As far as elevator pitches go, we'll forgive you if you just missed your floor. "Join a world of near-future spies and take on a supervillain in this supercharged take on classic Solitaire," reads the description on The Solitaire Conspiracy's Epic Store page . "Precision engineered for replayable espionage action," which we believe is cyber-speak for 'hi…
- Update 1.01 - 7 October 2020
Hi there, Our first patch is up! 1.01 adds a feature we saw a few people asking about.. zoom! Right click to zoom in, click again to zoom out. This should give you a better look at cards, and hopefully help those for whom small text is hard to read to enjoy the game's story a little more. No major bug fixes, looks like we've had a pretty stable launch! Thanks so much for playing, and if you'd like to help us out, definitely drop a steam review for the game. Cheers! Mike
- Cards ‘n' spies thriller The Solitaire Conspiracy is out now - 6 October 2020
Let the cards fall as they may? Not if you have any say in the matter. Today sees the release of The Solitaire Conspiracy , the latest short from Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex devs Bithell Games, and you’re a tactical genius weilding the power of C.A.R.D.S to take down a megalomanic supervillain. Let’s hope all those hours spent on Windows Solitaire weren’t wasted, eh? (more…)
- The Solitaire Conspiracy is Mike Bithell's new game about cards and spies - 23 September 2020
After making Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex , intense cyberpunk solitaire wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from Bithell Games. Yesterday, the studio announced The Solitaire Conspiracy , a new game in the developers’ experimental “Shorts” series, which previously brought us the sci-fi adventures Subsurface Circular and Quarantine Circular . This new Short is a step away from those, though, placing you in the shoes of a Spymaster tasked with taking down a supervillain… with playing cards. “So… what if Solitaire, but extra, with powers and a full FMV storied campaign, time attack and skirmish modes!” Bithell tweeted . (more…)
