Wowzee

Forzee and Wowzee are a pair of innovative solitaire games from BSX International, a small shareware developer who was more famous for Madame Ching series of adult games that could be found on most BBS's in the early 1990s. Although these card games may not excite you (no pun intended) as much as other dubious titles from BSX, they will no doubt impress you with unique concepts, excellent implementation, and surprisingly high replay value.

Forzee is a one-player card game based on both Yahtzee and poker. To be more precise: the game plays like poker, but scored like Yahtzee. Dealt five cards at the beginning, you may discard any number of cards, or none if you choose, and draw new ones. The hand you now have is then scored in a Yahtzee-like manner for different poker hands. For example, flush (all five cards in the same suit) gets you 60 points. Four cards with the same face value is called "Forzee" and is worth 80 points. If you are lucky enough to get it more than once in the same game, you will get 160 points for each additional set. The player who gets 300 points first wins the game.

Wowzee is a similar game, except with the added rules of solitaire Mahjongg: you are not dealt cards but must remove them from a pile with one stacked on top of another. As in Mahjongg, you can only remove a card if there is no card stacked above it or immediately next to it. After you remove five cards and score the hand (based on the scoring rules of Forzee), you have to repeat the process until you haved used up all the scoring possibilities. Once you exhaust the pile, you will be given a new pile to continue.

Both Forzee and Wowzee are interesting, unique, and fun card games. Both games feature nice EGA graphics and the ability to play in a tournament mode. The additional rules of Mahjongg makes Wowzee a tougher game of the two, but both games will challenge all card players who are looking for innovative solitaire games that depend more on skills than pure luck. Highly recommended!

Review By HOTUD