Why this exists
The big-publisher Skip-Bo apps on the App Store all hit the same wall: ads after every round, an energy timer that limits how much you can play, a "buy 1000 coins for $4.99" pop-up you can't dismiss, and a multiplayer mode hiding behind a login. Skip-Bo doesn't need any of that. It's a clean, fast card game that should just work.
So I built one. No ads. No IAP. The coin economy that ships in the app is a closed loop — you earn coins by winning, you spend them on cosmetic skins, and that's it. There's nothing to buy with real money. There never will be.
What it took
Built in Swift / SwiftUI for iOS 16+, with a pure-Swift rules engine that runs on macOS too (so I could write proper unit tests). Multiplayer goes over a small Node.js relay I host myself; voice chat rides the same WebSocket. The whole thing is around 9,000 lines of code, which is a lot for a card game and not much by App Store standards.
Skip-Bo™ is a trademark of Mattel, Inc. — the App Store name "Skip Solitaire Pro" and the avoidance of the "-Bo" suffix are deliberate. This app is an unaffiliated tribute, not a clone of Mattel's official product.
Credits
- Card art base: Kenney Playing Cards Pack (CC0)
- Custom card numerals + wild face: original art
- Game engine, AI, multiplayer, voice, UI: solo build
- Markdown rendering on this site: Parsedown
Get in touch
Bugs, questions, feature ideas, or coverage requests — the support page has a form, or email directly at [email protected]. Responses usually within 1–2 days.