Card Shark review – cheats always prosper

metro.co.uk:

A card game simulator set in 18th century France is not a common premise for a video game, but it does prove a surprisingly successful one.

Sometimes it feels like indie developers purposefully pick the least promising concept possible to base their games on, but if that’s what it takes to make something new and interesting then so be it. On the face of it, Card Shark has a perfectly mundane premise, that of a card game simulator. That’s not the sort of thing we’d normally cover for review, but these are card games that take place in 18th century France, where you play a stinking cheat trying to con their way into the upper echelons of French society.

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable concept for a movie but in terms of video games… well, it’s not as if it has to worry about anything else having the same premise. Gambling is a big part of the game, but you never actually play a normal game of cards yourself and rather than being a literal card game simulator the whole thrust of the gameplay and narrative is about cheating.

You start out as a mute servant boy, who finds his way into the service of the Comte de Saint-Germain, a real-life historical figure who helps improve your prospects and sets your ambitions to one day playing at the king’s table.

Rather than assuring you that you don’t have to know anything about cards to enjoy the game it’s probably more pertinent to say that if you do know anything about them that isn’t going to help. And not just because, at this point, Texas hold ‘em was still a couple of centuries away from existing.

Rather than the rules of contemporary card games, the skills you have to perfect are those of the professional conman. The game has over 20 different tricks for you to get the hang