Published May 5, 2026, 1:01 PM EDT And it still works Steam's best solitaire games just pivoted from Jane Austen to cursed CD-ROM horror Image: Grey Alien Games/Night Signal Entertainment I'm a complete sucker for the solitaire games of Grey Alien Games — a.k.a. Jake Birkett, a solo developer from the pleasant English county of Dorset, assisted by his partner Helen Carmichael, who writes the stories. (I met Helen at a recent game show; their son, a recent games programming graduate, was with her, joining the family business.) Grey Alien's solitaire games involve clearing cards arranged in decorous, fanned layouts. They're super relaxing, with immaculate gamefeel, and fun arcade mechanics like combo counters, power-up cards, and so on. Some of these mechanics change from game to game, but others stay the same. Birkett knows his formula isn't broke and he never tries too hard to fix it. That's fine with me.…