Encore recently contacted us to show off a little sneak preview of an upcoming game they’ll be releasing shortly, called “Hoyle Miami Solitaire.” It’s set in Miami Beach and has you playing solitaire for money to build your dream house on the beach. We got our hands on their working build for a few hours, and let us say this: “Get excited, Solitaire fans. This one will keep you busy for months.”

The first thing we noticed was that this game has all kinds of style! Lively music reminiscent of a night at the casinos, flashy shuffling effects, vividly stylized backgrounds, exploding particle and point bonus effects are all there to enhance your solitaire experience.

That’s just the icing on this tasty cake, though. The game itself has two modes and tons of Solitaire variants. If you just want a quick game before heading off to work or you need to kill 10 minutes while dinner is cooking, you can fire up quick play mode and just play whatever you like. If you have a bit more time or you want to build up your dream house, pick up where you last left off in story mode and work the solitaire tourney circuit for cold Miami cash, with a different variant to master at every level!

That’s right, I said dream house. As if the card game itself wasn’t fun enough, you get to play with the money you win and build yourself a beachfront mansion from the ground up. There are tons and tons of options for various improvements to your home and garden, and the more money you earn the better it gets. Meanwhile, you also unlock unique card backs by playing story mode so you can change up the visuals whenever they get boring.

If this sounds a little overwhelming, or if you don’t play Solitaire often and aren’t familiar with the variants, don’t worry. At the beginning of each level they have a rule popup reminding you how that variant works. This feature makes the game appealing to both expert and novice alike.

The one complaint we do have about it is really just a part of Solitaire… we suck at some of the variants and have to replay the level. But overall, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable Solitaire game that’s sure to keep you entertained for many an hour. Be sure to look for it in the near future at Encore’s home page, http://www.encore.com!