Of Fops and Flops: Cheating the Aristocracy in Card Shark

[@1_random_commenter]

"Gambling without stakes is meaningless, and the game tries hard to provide them, but I found it convenient too often to rob myself of that joy." So what you're saying is, you cheated not only the game, but yourself?

[@rosskwolfe]

"Delivers in spades." Well done... Well done.

[@friendbreakfast]

the hesitation when getting to that line really makes it. like "Card shark........ (do i say it? do i REALLY say it? uuuuh) DELIVERS IN SPADES!"

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

*Rimshot.*

[@ogto]

I still can't believe someone said "let's make a game out of that part of Barry Lyndon where he works for a card shark". wonderful game (with a few weak points).

[@wikiales]

It's a shame about the ending imo. I would've preferred a single, strong ending to multiple weak ones

[@ogto]

@@wikiales i unfortunately kinda agree. i found the story overall to be quite compelling and well written, like Chris says, but i also found the ending to be kinda underwhelming. still a great unique game

[@Kelohmello]

One of the most novel concepts I've seen out of games in years. And the idea itself is fresh, but the presentation is what really puts it over. There's just so much video games can be.

[@madmanmax120]

"Delivers in Spades" ...and clubs, and diamonds, and hearts...

[@Arctem]

I loved the idea of the game, but the fact that every encounter chose for you what kind of cheat to use and that each method had a very fixed way to do it where if you made a single mistake you absolutely failed killed my interest. I wish the game had a bit more simulation behind the card games and let you improvise more: Failing a cheat always resulted in failing a hand rather than just lowering your odds and a partially completed cheat was just as useless as not doing it at all. I felt less like a card cheater slowly building up a repertoire of tricks and more like I was just following a very specific script (especially since most of the tricks you learn never actually come up again later - almost everything is one and done). I'd love a version of this game that was more sandboxy and more focused on keeping suspicions low. As is it expects you to win every single hand with perfect cheating, while it would be more interesting to play a game where you're subtly increasing your odds of victory like a real card cheater would. There's no option to play normally for a while to lower suspicion (even if you lose a hand suspicion climbs continuously while you shuffle or pick up cards or whatever that specific trick is about) and so the most common feeling in the game was a lack of agency. Cheating felt restrictive instead of freeing.

[@OtherMomo]

ironic how strong the game's anti cheat system is, saving after each hand, considering the objective of the game

[@temporalwolf7054]

Y'know, I find it kind of funny how the idea of "uncovering a grand conspiracy in Enlightenment France through card games" doesn't make sense until the namedrop of St. Germain. Like, I've only really encountered the character in fiction through Castlevania, but given in the games he's this enigmatic Dr. Who style time traveler that is quite literally trying to cheat Death out of reviving Dracula, and in the show he's a washed up alchemist using pomp and lies to project the image of nobility to con his way into almost *helping* Death revive Dracula, this really does feel like the happy medium of where that character would be once you remove vampries from the equation.

[@Warstub]

Loved Castlevania! Not sure it was the first time I'd heard of St. Germain, but It certainly got me googling the historical figure and now I definitely remember him!

[@MrTiredHuman]

This video was created for the last line, admit it. It was glorious

[@LilayM]

Delightful. Love it when you cover unusual games.

[@addymant]

This is the second time I've seen the Comte de Saint Germain in a fictional medium and I have questions

[@jigurd]

Laughed out loud at the pronounciation gag at the start. Love it.

[@COLDCHEMICALpresents]

I really appreciate this video. Card Shark is one of those games that I know I'll never play myself, but it's a joy to watch it and hear people discuss it. Such a well-written video, too. Thank you for creating it!

[@lordcrispen]

I absolutely HATE that I've opened a new KZbin homepage an underestimated 50-70 times over the course of 12 hours today and just now, 13 hours after you published the video, it finally gets suggested to me. Time to hit the BELL, which is something I never normally have to do for channels where I want to watch literally every vid they make.

[@volentimeh]

That's why I always go to my subscriptions page first.

[@wondersuave]

Hey, thanks for uploading. I was actually watching a bunch of your videos just last night. What a fun coincidence!

[@diegowushu]

Dude should have asked St. Germain the recipe for immortality in exchange for his services lol.

[@JunkerJames]

Ah yes. I worked with the animator on a different project. I love his style.

[@enistoja]

You just wanted to use the closer "delivers in spades", didn't you? Good to hear about this game! Certainly needs more love

[@ThatDangDad]

Card Shark was fun and beautiful but I just... couldn't hang. By the halfway point, I was forgetting the motions to the earlier tricks and I was relying on the Casual mode that just lets you skip ahead if you beef it three times on a hand. Really great artistic achievement but my brain was not a good fit hah

[@GmodPlusWoW]

"Card Shark delivers in spades." Oh, you clever scoundrel...

[@CubeAndPixel]

definitely getting added to my wishlist, I love quirky little games like this

[@safe-keeper1042]

Another game I'd never have tried had it not been for a KZbinr covering it. Thank you so much, have to add this to my list of to-play games now.

[@lemonautical]

Now I'm sat here, with a great video in my lap, trying to figure out how Errant Signal pulled one over on me.

[@SourSourSour]

I saw you tweeting about this game and gave the demo a try. Actively one of the more stressful games I've tried and it was awesome

[@HomerGunther]

Was just rewatching through a bunch of your videos Great timing

[@ultimategamer876]

I really like this art style

[@designiana]

Oh, wow. I literally just finished this game 10 minutes ago, incredible timing!

[@Guruc13]

Wonderful! I've almost forgotten this game, and seeing it now, I don't know how I did. Excellent review!

[@kienesel7]

And then he fled into the night, having dropped that fat pun right in front of me, laughing and farting.

[@TheGlooga]

Ooo I remember seeing a preview for this and thinking it looked really cool but I didnt realize it came out

[@CheesecakeMilitia]

Chris, what makes you determine if you want to delve into spoiler story discussions or not? I'd hope there's no fear about spoiling a lesser known game you're recommending, since even your spoilery vids are more thoughtful than 99% of KZbin discussion on games. (I'd imagine it's more of a work balance issue, which is valid.) Heard about Card Shark from the Eggplant podcast (which has a great developer interview) but excited to see your thoughts on it.

[@ErrantSignal]

Honestly it really depends on how much I have to say about the spoiler-laden content and also how much time I have to go into it. Since this game is about pulling on the threads of the conspiracy full of twists and turns (and since I'm more enamored with the mechanics than the narrative, even if I did quite enjoy the back half of the adventure once all the pieces were in place) and since this was a short little Blips video I mostly stuck to a spoiler-free approach. Like, it isn't so much about whether the game is known or not (Umurangi and Anatomy were fairly obscure game when I covered them, and I delved into much of what they had going on) but whether I'm doing a deep dive that really engages with the text or a "hey, this cool game exists!" And typically with Blips it's more of a "hey, this cool game exists!" effort, if only because of the brevity of them. That said, if you're looking for something like that? This piece ( www.pastemagazine.com/games/card-shark-game-historical-influences/ ) by Grace Benfell interviewing an actual history professor was probably my favorite from my research. It touches not only on the historical role of gambling/cards, but also which characters were historical/ahistorical, and even briefly brings up a lot of the queer subtext of the game.

[@RFieth]

I've seen this game covered somewhere previously. However, this is the first time it has actively piqued my interest. A quality video, as always!

[@Netherfly]

It got some nice coverage next to Pentiment last year, as both games have similar art styles and loves for their historical settings. Also conspiracies.

[@toekneemart5597]

It has a demo(or at least the switch does) and it's pretty fun I'd recommend it if you're interested

[@tvsonicserbia5140]

Oh my this seems like a real deal game, thanks for the recommendation!

[@richmcgee434]

Seems pretty cool conceptually.

[@theebronks]

I always a spotlight for a game i didn't even know existed; defo going to give this a try

[@nanardeurlambda]

so I couldn't help but notice Voltaire in the excerpts you showed, and I got curious about one thing. According to wikipedia, turns out the count of Saint-Germain was a real person, whose origins are unknown, and seems to have had quite a life. coming to Paris out of nowhere, he receives from the king's government the "chateau de Chambord", which is maybe the third most prestigious castle of the country, right below the Louvres and Versailles. I was going to say he pretended to be 500 years old, but the french article mentioned someone was paid to pretend to be him and say outragous things to make the count seem insane. make of those two things what you want

[@ablemcman]

He's also like supposed to be a messiah to certain new age people because of his weird stories.

[@darkerSolstice]

A lot of real historical figures are in the game. One that caught me off-guard and delighted me was Sitarane, aka Simicoudza Simicourba--you don't see him pop up in enough video games!

[@Ooffoop]

First new video since I found your channel Noice

[@dosbilliam]

Rutskarn would be proud.

[@maxmitchelson2195]

Yeah, I liked the idea of this one, but as I was playing the demo the pure amount of memorization was just frustrating especially since there were just so many one off tricks. I think a smaller group of tricks you could combine and use at will would have been far better, and definitely pacing out the tricks so you aren't overwhelmed by the amount of new tricks. I think your own cheating describes as much haha, and definitely its a massive flaw with the game (far too much repetition for it to often be tossed out immediately after finishing a level)

[@BearOldcastle]

I'm kinda glad your still going. Your indie game recommendation do lead to some really neat recommendations. Also thanks for turning comments back on KZbin. I can still recall those reddit days.

[@lyss1305]

Oh i tried playing this! The game is beautiful and the concept was intriguing but I couldn't rember any of the tricks, so i had to stop lol

[@manbow-flav]

This looks inspired by the classic Stanley Kubrick film 'Barry Lyndon'.

[@Netherfly]

Your Guitar Hero analogy makes me suspect you may have a huge blind spot for the music "edutainment" games out there -- spending hours practicing at Guitar Hero to exactly the same kind of approach/skill you need to learn how to play an actual guitar -- it's very transferable and there are a ton of learning apps that take advantage of that by gamifying the learning process. I'd been wanting to learn the piano for years, but never quite managed to make that plunge, until one day I had an epiphany while playing a rhythm game: the time I spent on the game, retrying songs to get better scores, timing my button inputs to the imagery on the screen... was exactly what I'd be doing if I were learning the piano -- just with a different set of buttons. And lo and behold there's an app for that. Several, actually. Set up just like rhythm games: music notes on the screen, a moving bar showing you when to hit each note, and they even use your device's mic to register whether or not you hit the correct note or not. You even get scored at the end. I don't even know how varied this genre is, but I know there are definitely a lot of apps for Piano and Guitar. Quality and approach varies -- some piano games/apps, for example, will use sheet music you have to read, others go for a less abstract approach (IIRC they literally just show a keyboard and highlight the correct keys to press and then use UI streamers to indicate upcoming notes). Likewise, even older games like DDR may not teach players "how to dance," but the time and effort spent learning "how to DDR" is exactly the same kind of thing. If you can have fun learning the one, you'll be able to have just as much fun learning the other.

[@bookbook9495]

Do you wanna touch upon Ravenous Devils some time? It’s neat

[@Paddyooooooooo]

Cool stuff!

[@adams3627]

It's a cool concept, but as someone who lacked the manual dexterity for guitar hero I suspect I won't be able to play it. Gotta love the idea of cheating at cards against Death to come back to life, though.

[@Rokfreakx]

It's not as straining as guitar hero. It's usually just a few mouse/joystick flicks and button presses at a time.

[@sphealingit222]

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen a social sim hybrid game set in 18th century France which draws upon the setting to inform the various mechanics of the game while coming short of what the game system could potentially achieve, I'd have two nickels. It isn't a lot, but it's weird and kinda cool that it happened twice.

[@rodrikforrester6989]

What's the other one?

[@sphealingit222]

@@rodrikforrester6989 "We. The Revolution". It's like if Ace Attorney was mixed with an espionage sim and later a light strategy game set in the French Revolution.

[@rodrikforrester6989]

@@sphealingit222 Oh yeah, I played that one!

[@centersolace]

7:32 u wrote this entire video just 4 this bit didn't u... 😒

[@MissKimsTeaTime]

I really loved playing this game, but I left it for a week and immediately forgot everything. I really needed a practice mode or tutorial zone. 😔

[@LoganCrazyBoy]

Same, I stopped playing it because I sucked so bad at it when I went back that I just didn't have the patience to relearn it

[@AileTheAlien]

When I was watching a streamer play this game when it was new, I thought they could practice forever in the gypsy wagons / outlaw tents? Is that not available from all chapters of the game?

[@LoganCrazyBoy]

@@AileTheAlien It is but the game saves mid-mission, so if you go away for what you think will be a bit and then end up coming back much later, you'll either have to savescum or fail.

[@Netherfly]

Or just a pause screen you can jump to that lays out the proper inputs for the "tricks" of whatever cheat method you're meant to be using. It really killed the game for me. I can play for a couple hours every few days, at most. I can never remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

[@gordonwong2260]

I was wondering what this game was like

[@Auriorium]

I would love to do a game like this but for TCGs like Magic the Gathering, Yu Gi Oh etc.

[@richmcgee434]

Yes, that's exactly what CCGs need, more people thinking they know how to cheat.

[@EggBastion]

SERIOUS COMMENT THO; I'd really like to hear an Errant Signal about save system design implentation and workarounds. I'm a big time over-leveler & save scummer and I can honestly say without the workarounds easily available to PC players I would never have put hundreds of hours into Dead Cells, Dark Souls, Into The Breach or those other games I can't remember now... It's been a long time and the whole dialogue around easy modes and save scumming have just hyper accelerated my drift from gaming as I've got older. I haven't really played a game since Mad Max or Dark Souls III. I did play Valfaris _for_ a friend and I enjoyed it's exuberance if not it's stiff mechanics Wait! I played Nex Machina too and really fell into it's difficulty curve without assitance the way some people fall into hard drugs or extreme sports. No other game ever really did that for me, maybe Wip3out a bit? --flops? it took me three days-- --that pronunciation edit tho? -_-sest magnifickway!-_---

[@xonroy7061]

What why didn't I get shown this I missed an errant signal for ages :(

[@Jekyllstein_Gray]

Who put Sterling Archer in Guitar Hero?

[@AL_Talks]

My grandfather was going to teach me and my brother to count cards but died when I was 2 so I never learned. My hands shake a lot because I'm autistic too so I have trouble even shuffling. This is my chance to be a rockstar, card shark

[@Zettabyte7]

It's quite an interesting concept for a game, but after watching Northernlion play through it I don't have much of a desire to play it myself.

[@CritikalJari]

Idk why but I thought you might cover this, nice to see a blip come out if not a full signal 👍

[@leftovernoise]

I played the demo and didn't vibe with the mechanics. But it seemed really interesting to me so maybe I'll give it another go

[@kyletowers9662]

Alchemy

[@MochaSlushes]

This game is such an underrated gem but I feel like the concept isn’t very appealing to people and that’s why no one has played it 😔 please play card shark it’s so good

[@Mahawww]

Spades. HA!

[@robbert-janmerk6783]

Chris, do you still remember choosing Josh's side instead of Shamus'?

[@colinmiller513]

I found the game too hard for me, so I took screenshots on my switch and cheated through the first half of the game.

[@xBINARYGODx]

You cheated? Seems perfect for this game.

[@FastLawyer]

Is it wrong to want to be a real life card shark?

[@richmcgee434]

Depends on fond you are of having functional digits on your hands. And breathing, if you get caught by someone who really takes offense.

[@hoagie911]

I don't care about the excuses, it should just let you practice whenever. Not doing so is just bad game design.

[@benwasserman8223]

Ik this might sound rude, but do we have an update your CoD Half-Life video?

[@ErrantSignal]

I'm actively working on it (see footage capture from here as proof: twitter.com/Campster/status/1625285737762496513 and snarky commentary here: twitter.com/Campster/status/1627357622847303681 ). It's hard, though, because I have both obligations to my patrons and to myself. I really want to push more content out and not disappear for three months at a time. But with this being a nights-and-weekends gig and wanting to keep the overall level of quality high, stuff just takes time. This is ostensibly the "February" video that came out a week late because I got sick. My goal is to put out a very short video for March (I've got a game in mind, I'm hoping I can knock it out in a week) and spend the remainder of the month pushing the Children of DOOM episode forward. I don't have a concrete ETA, but my guess would be it will be April's video. I know that's not an ideal answer, but until and unless I can walk away from the day job (or unless you want a 10 minute Children of DOOM episode) that's kind of where things are lining up right now.

[@benwasserman8223]

@@ErrantSignal Thank you for this. I really appreciate the detailed update.

[@SweetPeteInTheBackSeat]

Hmm

[@nobodysanything2330]

🃏

[@jamesbevan9939]

I still want to know why you blocked me for being critical of Jason Schreier

[@testoftetris]

I haven't tried this game, yet, but it sounds like you're onto something regarding how the game struggles to give real stakes to any of the cheating minigames. It's not super clear if there's a long-term narrative consequence to messing up a "high-stakes" game, or if you can just go do a bunch of low-stakes grifts and then drop back into the story exactly where you would have been in the first place. If the game doesn't actually acknowledge a difference between save-scumming and playing through your mistakes, then I really think that's the game's fault. All the extra cheating you can do kinda sounds like a needlessly complicated loading screen before you get to resume playing the actual game. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense to skip all that fuss. I also think the pattern of "go back and train for a bit before you try the big challenge again" is a much better fit for games with strong player freedom. If I die to a boss in an RPG, I can go wander around elsewhere, buy different gear, adjust my build, and then come back with a different strategy. Card Shark looks extremely scripted to the point where going off and doing a bunch of side content isn't going to actually affect how you approach the main content when you return to it. I think that can make the side content feel kind of like an arbitrary gate than an opportunity to explore different angles of the game and build up the skills/resources you need for a bigger challenge.

[@Daehpo]

Likewise I haven't tried the game yet either, but it seems like it would have been better if the game just saved before a card game started and after it was concluded. I can understand the idea of saving after every hand, but as show that just leads to save scumming. Especially when the consequence for losing a game is tedium.

[@haara.tomato]

Comment for the algorithm

[@JoseBara76]

Man I dont know if Im the only one but I think your videos have stopped popping on my sub feed. I get recomendations for them like 2 weeks later (If Im lucky).

[@Medytacjusz]

I'm not interested in the notion of card cheating at all, but I'm interested in the historical setting of 17th century France and also the aesthetic is beautiful. So I'm in a bit of a pickle with this one.

[@XionEternum]

"Gambling without stakes is meaningless, and the game tries hard to provide them, but I found it convenient too often to rob myself of that joy." So, you are a victim of the irony of cheating at a game about cheating. If so, then you are 4th wall cheating which is effectively fourth dimension cheating which means you secretly have a video out before this that you will make next month.

[@joshfennell2257]

I can’t believe they made a game about card SHARPS and spelled it wrong. It irritates me so much. I’m going to go play Guitar GYRO. Jeez.

[@shadeflash5953]

Holy shit i'm first?