CARD SHARK

Jody Macgregor, AU/ Weekend Editor: Most digital card games teach you things like mana curve or deckbuilding. Card Shark teaches you authentic ways to cheat, simulated with precise tweaks of the controller. Flicking the stick lets you arrange a deck how you want and ‘injog’ cards to mark your stacks, directional wipes let you communicate suits to your accomplice. Other moves let you steal glimpses at your opponents’ hands, deal face cards in a way that tells your partner what they are, etc.

It’s a system as complicated as any CCG meta, only you’ll feel like you learned something at the end of it. As opposed to mastering a mid-range black deck only to have Wizards of the Coast ban Meathook Massacre right out from under you. Not that I’m bitter.

Fraser Brown, Online Editor: The way Card Shark simulates the mechanics of cheating is undoubtedly impressive, but I was just as taken in by its confident and eye-catching style. The hand-drawn characters and lavish backdrops are distractingly fetching, and take full advantage of France just before the Revolution, a setting that’s more compelling than a Vegas poker lounge.

In motion, it impresses even more, with a novel cutout animation style that makes all the characters move a bit like puppets, and a penchant for switching perspectives so you’re always close to the action, watching the tricks from the best seat in the house.

Robin Valentine, Print Editor: I was particularly impressed with how versatile those appealing visuals are. It’s one thing making that look work from a zoomed out, 2D perspective, but thanks to the nature of its various card tricks, Card Shark also has to make it look sharp when zoomed in on a moment of sleight of hand, or from a first-person 3D perspective as you survey the table, or when you’re abstractly viewing the motions of a shuffling deck. All that, while still maintaining the visual clarity you need to follow all the moving parts of the tricks as they escalate in complexity. Seriously clever.