FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Donald Rumsfeld Made an iOS Game, and It's Actually Pretty Good

Rumsfeld brings Winston Churchill's variant of Solitaire to iOS with new game.

When you're going to play a card game designed by Winston Churchill, especially one that came to life with the help of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it helps to do it right. And so last night I chugged a generous helping of scotch and booted up Rummy's new free-to-play iOS game Churchill Solitaireon my iPad at my standing desk (that favored workspace of both men). I'll cut to the chase—it's made me reconsider Solitaire as a diversion worth my time in this age of blockbuster games and social media, and I don't think that's the scotch talking.

Advertisement

It's appealing in part because it's so familiar. I honestly probably haven't played a full game of Solitaire in any form since the days when AOL was still cramming mailboxes with those annoying CDs, but it didn't take long to slip back into the dance of matching alternating red and black cards in cascading rows ordered from Kings to Aces.

The few deviations are significant enough, though, that they might succeed in weaning me off of my daily Bejeweled Blitz addiction. Here, I found the "Victory Rows," or eight stacks in the upper right for complete suites stacked from Ace to King. To the left I found the "Devil's Six," an assortment of cards that must be played in the Victory Rows rather than in the cascades below. Finally, it's timed. Scoring my first victory on the Medium difficulty took me just under 20 minutes, and I like to think that it taxed my brain more than the bare-bones affair that used to ship with Windows.

As the game itself relates, the British Bulldog himself supposedly came up with the rules, and he in turn taught them to Belgian political personality André de Staercke on the long nights while the exiled Belgian government waited out World War II. De Staercke, in turn, taught them to Rumsfeld while he served as a NATO ambassador in Belgium in the 1970s. Rumsfeld loves its difficulty, its strategy; the way its tougher rules challenge players, in a Churchillian turn of phrase, to never give up. He's reportedly played the physical version of it for over 40 years. Churchill Solitaire largely sticks to the game as he's always known it, embellishing it only with grainy war footage and a "campaign" that follows Churchill's climb to prime minister by labeling boards with names like "Sandhurst Cadet."

Advertisement

As The Wall Street Journal points out, Rumsfeld never could have brought this to iOS on his own—the man barely knows how to use a computer, much less code. Instead, Rumsfeld's former aide Keith Urbahn built the app with the help of Snapdragon Studios while Rumsfeld shot off a constant flood of little memos, much as he'd done in office when the two worked together. In the Journal's words, Churchill Solitaire "is likely the only video game developed by an 83-year-old man using a Dictaphone to record memos for the programmers."

With such a pedigree, it turned out better than I would have ever expected. Competency in matters of technology isn't exactly a given among the old guard in Washington, D.C., but Rumsfeld's game has a touch of class that tends to get lost in bright colors and grabby ads of similar games.

No cartoony Churchills bark out tutorials in playful bubbles. The playing field is a humble wooden desk that could have been Winnie's own. The soundtrack evokes both old news reels and the orchestral swells of a film like Saving Private Ryan. Even the payment model isn't eager to blitz your wallet, as it only unlocks a randomized mode for $4.99 and extra deal packs for $0.99 each, as well as extra hints and undos for up to $5.99 for a pack of 100. I never felt the need for them; I had much more fun snapping out of a tough spot by spotting the perfect card and slipping it into its rightful place. As the Journal relates, even Rumsfeld himself frowns on the Undos.

"There are damn few undos in life," he said. "But there are hints."

And if you're reluctant to try it out because you don't agree with Mr. Rumsfeld's politics, consider this—the proceeds reportedly go to charities that support wounded veterans or those "that further Churchill's legacy."