Eric's Ultimate Solitaire for BeOS (Wildcard Design)

Hi all.

I am hoping somebody out there can help. I have been looking for some games that were ported to the BeOS operating system by Wildcard Design back in the tail end of the 90’s. One in particular is “Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire” for BeOS.

Wildcard sold the whole collection of their games for $40 in 1999 when they were going out of business. I purchased it back then but those discs are long gone due to a flood in 2011. I spoke to the former CEO of Wildcard recently after finding him online and he says that even he does not have copies of the games anymore. Here’s the old announcement via the wayback machine of the games in question:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010405065858/http://www.wcdesign.com/openletter.html

I also emailed Eric Snider personally (Eric Snider is the developer of the game) and he was surprised there was even a BeOS version to begin with! He thought I had it mixed up and maybe I was speaking of the Mac version…until I showed him the link. He said that since the production was so low he probably never received any royalties for it. He suggested I reach out to Joe at Delta Tao (the distributor) but they are not answering their emails and their website appears not to have been updated in a decade.

Ultimately I would love to find all of the game ports, but I would be the most happy to just find Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire if possible. It was being shared on BeShare in the mid-2000’s but I didn’t need it at the time. That said I am hoping that someone saved a copy somewhere.

If anybody can help please let me know!

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The trial version is on Pulkomandy’s archive, search for EUSS.
An older freeware version was somehow available on the coverdisc of the french magazine “PC Expert” issue 97.

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https://web.archive.org/web/20010405065858/http://www.wcdesign.com/openletter.html

This was a super interesting and sad story to read!

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I think quite some of us back then bought some of the software around only to support BeOS, in the end even those didn’t last very long. (Refraction, Pixel32 …), should still have some CD’s lying around from back in those days.

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Sad story indeed. I was really upset when I read this as Wildcard was starting to bring us actual retail games on BeOS. When I ordered the games from John (the CEO) I received a burned CD of all of his ports (including EUS) as well as a beautiful sealed boxed retail copy of Civilization for BeOS. It was great to see a retail boxed game for my favorite operating system, but stung a bit thinking this may have been the first and LAST retail boxed game I would ever see.

I spoke to John a few weeks ago…he’s doing very well and a really nice guy to boot. When I asked him about the software he said all of it has been long gone around the time of his divorce. I told him I was sorry and he said he was more sorry about the lost software vs. the divorce. He’s a funny guy…lol!

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I browsed the website after reading the letter and saw the screenshots of Shogo Mobile Armour Division, another BeOS port of a game lost to time.

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It really pains me to see good software just vanish. I would implore anyone who has any software for BeOS that is “lost to time” (ie: no longer available by internet means currently) to dump whatever they have and share it. I wish I still had it to share personally.

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@PulkoMandy still has some games archived at: PulkoMandy's BeOS software archive

I really appreciate you reaching out! I did find his archive today and it does have some things that I could not find elsewhere. The EUS on here is the demo, but at least its something more than what I had before which was nothing!

I have to check the rest of his stuff…looks like a great archive.

And thanks to lorezan I have found at least the full French version of EUS!

While I would ultimately love to find that final CD-R of the Wildcard games (and also Civilzation full version) at least I have some things more than I had before…which was nothing at all.

I really appreciate the community help with this which has been more than great! Thank you.

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Ok first i need to read and catch the games you mean:

ACiD Tetris
Axia
Abuse
Hopkins: FBI
Civilization: Call to Power
Eric’s Ultimate Solitaire

I hope i have them all found in the text.

I should have all of these games on one of my 26 cd of downloaded BeOS Software from the past.

Hopkins FBI i buy on ebay in the time of Zeta iirc.

You can found Abuse on HaikuDepot (Webiste too)
Abuse (haiku-os.org)

I get Hopkins FBI and write a tutorial on how to install it on Haiku, but long time not tested again:

Call to Power does not run anymore on Haiku. Last running BeOS version this game runs are Zeta 1.2

I have see ACiD Tetris and Erics Solitaire for some times, but i does not know if i see it on HaikuDepot or by testing some games from my BeOS CD collection.

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Hopkins should run in latest ScummVM releases.

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Don’t forget to back up regularly. CDs lose their ‘memory’ after a while (sometimes frighteningly fast!)!

Regelmäßiges Sichern nicht vergessen. CDs verlieren nach einiger Zeit (teils erschreckend schnell!) ihr ‘Gedächtnis’!

Die sind dunkel und weich gelagert :wink:

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Wenn Du meinst…
RISIKO! RISIKO! RISIKO!

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Ok you are right i should think about making a iso file backup from all discs.

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Yup, those are the games. Thanks for the help! I had found Hopkins some time back on Archive.org, but its good to find Abuse! As for the rest, still not found (except French version of EUS and English demo of EUS…which were great to find anyway! Still need English full version of EUS too)

If you find the CD with those and can back it up and share I would be incredibly grateful!

Uploaded here:

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Fantastic! Thank you! I have tested it and it is the full US version. I want to really thank you for joining the forums and contributing this. I am not sure how many people out there still have this, especially considering it sold in low numbers to begin with. And, with the passage to time (and of people) I really did not have much hope at all to ever see it again.

I also want to once again thank everybody who helped! I now have the full US, French and demo versions which is great. I will not lose them again :slight_smile:

Now I just need to see if I can find the rest of the lost titles:

ACiD Solitaire
Civilization
Axia

I think that was it?

ACiD Tetris

Uploaded here:

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Great! Thanks for ACiD Tetris! Great to archive these. I greatly appreciate it!