Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is opening a new chapter in life at 83 by becoming an app developer — and Winston Churchill’s to blame, in a way.
It’s all a bit complicated, but here’s the basics: Donald Rumsfeld worked with app developers to create Churchill Solitaire, a game based on what Rumsfeld claims to have been a version of Solitaire originally played by Churchill way back when. How did Rumsfeld come by this version of the game? A Belgian NATO ambassador named André de Staercke taught him during a long flight.
Yes, that’s really how the story goes.
“I can remember de Staercke sitting across from me on a plane somewhere over Europe playing the curious game, dizzying columns of miniature cards arrayed on the table between us,” Rumsfeld says in a Medium post about the game. “I asked him what he was playing and he proceeded to tell me the origin of the game he called Churchill Solitaire after the man we both very much admired, and the diabolical rules that make it the hardest game of Solitaire — and probably the most challenging and strategic game of logic or puzzle — I’ve ever played.”
According to Rumsfeld’s story, Churchill taught de Staercke the game many years prior while the Belgian government in exile existed in London during World War II. It’s pitched as a much harder, more strategic version of the original game. Why it took Rumsfeld until 2016 to make an app out of a game he learned in 1973 is anyone’s guess.
What exactly differentiates Churchill Solitaire from regular Solitaire? Well, Churchill Solitaire is played with two decks, and there’s the added “liberating cards contained in a row called the Devil’s Six” bit. The app also comes with a campaign mode that posits a world wherein the player works under Churchill for some reason, and even has quotes from the man. Also unlike Solitaire, Rumsfeld’s version is free to play with in-app purchases to continue playing.
Sir Winston's diabolical game of solitaire is here. Follow @PlayChurchill & like on Facebook https://t.co/iHtLZTYpCJ pic.twitter.com/MvApWY9M8r
— Donald Rumsfeld (@RumsfeldOffice) January 24, 2016
Churchill Solitaire is available now on iOS.
Via: NPR
