3. Story walkthrough
And now the fun begins! My approach for this walkthrough will be to complete each game to level 20 before moving on to the next. I didn't actually play the game that way, but the achievements don't order as well if you hop between the games. So, as I covered in the hints and tips section, you should decide how you want to play it, and the achievements will eventually unlock for you!
OK, let's start with Klondike, which is the first game on the selector. It also happens to be the game that I completed the fastest. Play your first game of Klondike. If you win, do NOT take a spin at the wheel. Doing this should unlock your first achievement:
Play one round in any game to completion.
When you finish a game, it tells you how much progress you've made in your current level. Play Klondike and win until you pass to the first level. Again, do not spin the wheel to get bonus points. If you get to the first level without spinning, you'll unlock these two achievements:
Earn your very first pin.
Go up a level in any Game Mastery without ever taking a spin at the Bonus Wheel.
Next, on the main menu, go to the Scrapbook item. Choose the Pins option, and you'll be presented with the pin case for Klondike. Touch the pin that you just earned (for getting to level one), and it will play a sound, which unlocks an achievement:
Continue playing Klondike until you reach level 20. I should mention now that you should definitely use the wheel spin to get your bonus multiplier. That will help you advance through the levels quickly. In the Hints & Tips section, I recommend exiting the game if you get an unfavorable spin, and that will also help you advance quickly. When you get to level 20, you unlock the final pin. Pins are handed out at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. Once you've gotten to level 20 and unlocked that pin, you'll complete your first set of pins, which unlocks an achievement.
Complete any one set of pins.
Along the way, you should be able to unlock four additional achievements. The first comes by having Aces on all four home stacks (the four spots in the upper part of the table/screen. To do that, you should probably play Deal One. You can either get lucky and have all four aces in the deck, or you can build up your columns of cards on the play area (alternating colors descending numbers), and only move the Aces home when you get them. It may take a few tries, but you'll unlock this achievement:
Have only aces on all four home stacks at one time in Klondike.
Second, if you focus on speed in a Deal One game, you shouldn't have too much trouble finishing a game in under three minutes. I played a lot of Deal One games, and my average game time was 01:11, so you should be able to get under 3 minutes easily :-)
Win a game in less than 3 minutes in Klondike.
Third, you'll have to hope that the deals work in your favor to get the aces in an easily accessible location. You need to get the four aces to the home stacks without ever taking a card from the deck. The nice thing about this achievement is that you'll know early in the game whether you're going to get it or not. You can move cards around on the table, but you can't ever draw. So, if the four aces aren't dealt to the top cards, you need to move cards around and hope that the aces are just underneath. For non-grinding achievements, this one took me the longest. I might have even cheered out loud when it unlocked...
In Klondike, get an ace on every home stack without ever taking a card from the deck.
Finally, At some point during those games (probably over 100 by the time you're done), you should also land on the Super Spin spot on the bonus wheel. It is luck (there's only one Super Spin on the wheel), but odds are you'll hit it a few times as you work your way through Klondike.
Land on the Super Spin at the Bonus Wheel.
Next, go back to the main menu to select another game. Instead of actually selecting another game, we're going to earn an achievement! Flick the main menu spinner and let it freely rotate. When it lands, flick it again. Your goal is to have it land on the same spot (e.g. Klondike) three times in a row. With a little practice, you'll see that it's not too hard. Using the same finger speed and swipe distance, you should be able to pull this off after a dozen tries or so. The more consistently you swipe, the easier it is.
Spin the chest shelves and land unaided on the same shelf three times in a row.
Next, let's move on to Spider. It's the next game up on the main menu spinner, and it's my personal favorite. You won't earn as many achievements as you beat the second solitaire game because most of the rest unlock as a result of finishing the final solitaire game regardless of order (we'll get there shortly). The first achievement you'll unlock while playing spider is when you get a full run (Ace to King) of one suit. Considering that's the goal of the game, you should get that in your first play, especially if you choose one suit. Once you do that, you unlock this achievement:
Build up a full suit, ace to king, on any one home stack in Spider Solitaire.
Just as you did with the previous game, with Spider you should figure out the difficulty that earns you the most points quickly, and you should always spin the wheel for the bonus multiplier. As you're progressing through the levels, you'll have ample opportunity to work on a few Spider achievements. The first comes from winning eight consecutive games. Use the One Suit difficulty and undo as necessary. Once you beat the eighth straight game, you'll unlock this:
Win eight consecutive games in Spider Solitaire.
After 20 or 25 games of Spider, you should also have flipped over 1,000 cards (cards that started face down and flipped when you moved the cards on top of them). That unlocks this:
Flip over 1000 cards in Spider Solitaire.
Then, keep grinding away at Spider earning yourself as many points as possible. Your target is to get the final pin when you get to level 20.
Once you beat Spider, it's time to move on to the final game: Tri-Peaks. There's only one difficulty level, so jump right in and start playing! If you search the web looking for a strategy for Tri-Peaks, make sure you focus on clearing the peaks. Some strategy guides focus on long streaks of cards because they score more Tri-Peaks points. However, in Game Chest, you only get points toward your level if you clear all three peaks. So, focus you strategy on clearing the peaks, and you'll get your pins faster.
When you win your first game of Tri-Peaks, you'll unlock a few of achievements. First, you'll unlock one achievement for winning a game in each of the three games (since Tri-Peaks is the third game of three that we're playing). Second, because you won the game, you'll also have moved each card (Ace through King) to the deck from the peak. I think it's statistically possible to not have this happen, but the odds are low enough that I bet you'll get it. Third, at some point during the game, you probably have had a streak of moving three cards in a row to the deck. This usually happens early in the game when the most cards are exposed.
Win a game in each of the three solitaire games.
Move every card, ace through king, from the peak to the deck in Tri-Peaks.
In Tri-Peaks, move three cards in a row to the deck from the peak.
With the bonus spin, it's also possible that you advanced to the first level in Tri-Peaks. If not, play another game or two to advance to the first level, which will unlock this:
Reach level 1 in all of the Masteries.
You'll need a little help from Lady Luck on the next achievement. You need to get a streak that includes every card from Ace through King, though it can be in any order. It can even include more than 13 cards, but it must include each card at least once. When you're going for this achievement, you might have to ignore clearing the peaks. Since making this streak may make it difficult to get to the peaks, you might end up losing the game, but you'll still unlock this achievement:
In Tri-Peaks, get one of each card in a single streak without drawing a new card from the deck.
Finally, keep playing until you get to level 20 in Tri-Peaks. It's a grind to get there, but you'll get 30 GS for your efforts. One of the achievements unlocks for achieving level 19 on all three games, and the other unlocks for hitting level 20 on all three.
Reach level 19 in all of the Masteries.
Complete all the sets of pins.
Whew! All of that will take you around 30 hours (+/- depending on skills and strategies)! Hopefully you actually enjoy the games along the way enough to play the game even after you get 200 GS!
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