Card Shark - Review
Review Copy Provided by Publisher
The very first time I saw Card Shark in a Nintendo Indie World Showcase, I fell in love. Card Shark promised almost everything I could ask for in an indie release: a unique art style, a creative concept, and passionate developers in Nerial (Reigns). It didn’t hurt that I like card games, of course, but that was ultimately a little misguided on my part. You see, Card Shark is NOT a card game, rather it is an adventure game about card games. That may not make the most sense to you now, but stick with me, dear reader, and I shall show you what I mean.
In Card Shark, you assume the role of a young, mute Frenchman working out of a small inn in the south of France. One day, a less-than-noble gentleman, the Comte de Saint Germain, enters your life and makes a proposition: you help him cheat at a game of cards, and he’ll give you some of his winnings. That night, the game is going smoothly until the Comte is (rightly) accused of cheating! A scuffle ensues, and in the chaos the innkeeper is shot and killed, leaving you to run off into the night with the Comte. What follows is an adventure that takes you all across France in an effort to expose a scandal that could shake the French monarchy to its very core…all while swindling the nobility of their ill-gotten wealth, of course!
Between destinations, the Comte takes it upon himself to teach you a new way to stack the odds in your favor. After an explanation of the cheat, you’re guided through the grift once before being left to practice it on your own. Upon arriving at your destination, all you have to do is execute the cheat you learned on your way into town! It doesn’t matter what cards ultimately end up in your hand, or anyone else’s hand for that matter, if you execute the cheat properly then the game is yours! This is what I meant when I described Card Shark as a game about card games.
The cheats themselves vary wildly in terms of difficulty and the steps necessary to succeed. Some are as simple as peeking over someone’s shoulder while pouring wine, then wiping the table in a predetermined pattern, while others involve multiple steps such as taking a second, secret deck into another room, pulling a winning hand out, and sneaking that hand into the game. Some cheats feature on-screen button prompts, but most depend on analog stick movements. Fortunately, you’ll only use up to two cheats during any given game, and there is a hint menu available in all but the hardest difficulty setting.
Cheating isn’t something you can just take your time to do openly, however. During the game, your opponent’s suspicion level is indicated on the bottom of the screen. The suspicion gauge will constantly fill while you attempt to manipulate the cards to your advantage, but how quickly the gauge fills depends on what exactly you’re doing at any given time. Picking a card from your hand to play (while communicating with your accomplice, of course) fills the gauge slowly. Take too much time shuffling, however, and your opponent is going to get VERY suspicious VERY quickly! If the gauge fills all the way, you and your partner will be accused of cheating and arrested (or worse)! If you can manage to keep their suspicions in check and win three hands, however, you’ll walk away a richer (and more well-informed) man.
Now that we’ve got the nitty gritty of Card Shark’s mechanics out of the way, I’d like to talk to you about how the game presents itself. Card Shark’s visuals look like illustrations right out of a book, and the slightly still way they animate really supports the visual style. The environments are varied and beautiful, ranging from humble inns and hospices to extravagant casinos and palaces. Character portraits are delightfully expressive, enhancing the already charming dialogue. Andrea Boccadoro’s musical compositions are lovely, and really sell the late 18th century parlor setting. Card Shark has an appropriately rich sense of aesthetic that I absolutely adored from start to finish.
Unfortunately, just as every cheat is eventually found out, so does every game have its weaknesses. Card Shark’s biggest problem, in my opinion, is one of pacing. Having to sit through what amounts to a tutorial before every single stage really bogs down the flow of the game. Simpler cheats don’t take very long to learn and mitigate this problem to an extent, but I spent longer on the tutorials for some of the more complex cheats than I did playing the missions I needed them for. The real kicker is that I can’t really see a way around this problem. It would be entirely too much to dump all 28 techniques on the player at once, and adding missions just to keep things flowing would make the game feel bloated. Sadly, that doesn’t really make the numerous tutorials easier to swallow for me.
Another point of frustration is there comes a point during some missions where the game changes ever so slightly, and requires the player to alter the cheat to compensate. I don’t have a problem with this concept, it can be rewarding to take a skill you’ve mastered and apply it to a new situation. Card Shark doesn’t always communicate how you can alter the cheat, however. How these situations usually played out for me was through trial and error, just trying an adjustment and resetting the deck (which is a simple button press) and trying again. Unfortunately for me, trial and error is far from my favorite way to learn, and one instance near the end of the game left a particularly bad taste in my mouth.
Card Shark’s biggest disappointment, in my opinion, comes with how it concludes its story. I found the overall story to be genuinely intriguing. I was absolutely invested in uncovering the conspiracy at the heart of Card Shark’s narrative. Then came the game’s finale. One final hand of cards, the power to shape the outcome rested in my hands…except it didn’t. I won’t spoil any of Card Shark’s multiple endings, but none of them really capitalized on that feeling of being in control for the very first time. Again, as had happened so many times prior, the story happens to the player despite the promise of finally having agency. I could understand this as a continuation of Card Shark’s themes if any of the endings delivered something I found satisfying, but that wasn’t the case and that breaks my heart.
Card Shark didn’t deliver the experience I imagined the first time I saw it, but what it did deliver was a unique gameplay experience and a (mostly) delightful story. The sometimes complex mechanics involved in the game’s many cheats could turn some people off, but I found them to be satisfying to execute far more often than not. Card Shark is, ultimately, a niche experience that isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Fortunately, Card Shark does appeal to me, and I heartily recommend it if you’re looking for a unique indie experience.
4/5
