Swindle Rich Aristocrats With Card Tricks In Card Shark

thegamer.com:

One of my favourite yet simplest card tricks my partner would perform for my wide-eyed amusement was to make a card vanish. It was a cool bit of sleight of hand; she would take a single card and, with an artful flick of her fingers, toss it into the distance. Never once, however, would I see that card land anywhere else. Anyone older than five would know that the card never actually left her palm—I know it was in the way she would swing her wrist, direct my attention, and timed the toss—but I would keep pleading for her to repeat her performance with the petulance of a child, enchanted by this one weird trick.

Likewise, the card tricks you’ll perform in Card Shark, a game about fleecing money from filthy-rich aristocrats in 18th century France, are all about performance. In my first task, I am to peek at the cards of my soon-to-be benefactor's mark at an inn while pouring him a drink, then signal to my benefactor the poor mark’s suit by cleaning the table in a particular motion: clockwise for hearts, counter-clockwise for spades, a straight up-and-down motion for diamonds, and side-to-side for clubs. This trick isn’t the easiest to pull off; I’ll need to examine the cards while keeping the wine flowing—and without it spilling over on the table. Eventually the opponent would become suspicious of his elongated streak of losses, and drunkenly whipped out his flintlock pistol. Shots were fired, someone died, and we fled. The more we travelled together, the more I picked up on the tools of this duplicitous trade.

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Card Shark is about pulling off all these delectable deceits smoothly without raising too much suspicion: take too long to pull off the trick,