Card Shark is a delightful lesson in history and cheating

There’s a sumptuous, lived-in feel to Card SharkThe clever and fun game of “,” casts you as both a gambling addict and cheat. It is set in 18th century France. You will find humor mixed with period detail in the writing. Woodcut-style woodcut art has an expressive texture, as well as a glow from the candles. The straw and wine are almost tangible.

Released on Steam and Nintendo Switch June 2nd Card Shark is a collaboration between Nerial — the Devolver Digital-owned developer of The Reigns, a medieval-monarch simulator — and the artist Nicolai Troshinsky. It pairs Nerial’s sharp, colorful writing and simple gesture mechanics with Troshinsky’s luminous artwork, where the characters are animated like shadow puppets.

This artistry is used in the service of a wonderfully specific and flavorful storyline, inspired by Troshinsky’s interest in card manipulation and his love of the 1975 Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon. A young man plays the role of a serving boy for a poor tavern in Pau, a southern French French city. One day, an apparently well-to-do patron, the Comte de Saint-Germain, catches the young man’s eye and draws him into helping with running a scam on a game of cards. After the violence ends, the young man flees along with the mysterious gentleman. He continues his quest for the truth about a bizarre royal plot with an absurd name, The Twelve Bottles of Milk.

Image: Devolver Digital

(The Comte de Saint-Germain is a historical figure — although he went by many names, his origins remain mysterious, and his accomplishments, adventures, and the claims made by and about him are so outlandish as to strain credulity. This imagined version of him is basically Ricky Jay in a powdered wig, and he’s great to spend time with.)

You will learn a variety of card cheating strategies that can be used in real life, including card counting, manipulation, shuffle manipulation and sleight-of hand. You will find 28 strategies, each with a different name, including The Disheveled Gatherer or The Indiscreet fingers. While some strategies are easy to perform in real life, others require extreme skill and training. These feats of manipulation can be reduced to relatively simple gestures in the game: quick circles or flicks with the stick and a few clicks here and there.

That’s because Card SharkIt is more about nerve than skill. It is about smooth operations under pressure that matters. You will often be required to make quick calculations, remember gestures and commit cards to memory or focus on one task at a time. What cards can be duplicated within this switch deck? How can I ensure the person seated at third place gets the most valuable cards from the deal? There’s time pressure: As you execute each con, your opponent’s suspicion meter builds, and the longer you take, the more at risk you will be. You can be suspicious if you are too confident in your betting.

Image: Devolver Digital

It’s tense stuff. Even the simplest technique can make you sweat — for example, pouring wine while surreptitiously reading cards over an opponent’s shoulder. You need to execute a smooth pour with a gentle push on the stick, not too little wine, not too much; you need to keep one eye on the glass and one on the cards; pour too hesitantly and you won’t get a good view, too fast and you won’t have time to memorize the cards. It’s a beautifully simple, effective, and balanced challenge.

It’s worth pointing out that Card Shark isn’t actually about playing cards. The details of the games and the hands played aren’t specified, and they aren’t important. The execution of the cheat is what matters. In any case, you are the Comte’s side-man, and you’re not playing to win, but to help He win.

Based on a couple of hours’ play, it’s fair to wonder whether Card SharkIt will either combine and build its cheating techniques into larger sets or just one-shot instruction in some con-man esoterica. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s a fun, unique and entertaining game. You learn the secrets of the card shark, but it also transports you to another time and place. It’s a place where you can cheat Voltaire out of his coin while enjoying a spot of Enlightenment-era philosophical banter. It’s a time of gossip, scandal, humor, and devilry, where deception is a way of life and the only thing you can trust is that everyone is on the make.