Your actions aren’t put into context of why feeding good cards constantly to your allies or informing the Comte of your opponent’s holdings helps. The game or games being played are never defined. The core conceit – you use sleight of hand, positioning, and smarts to outwit and cheat opponents in card games – simply doesn’t hold up. Unfortunately, Card Shark is unable to make it all hold together. Small actions, choices in writing, and the way you’re addressed by different members of the cast expose some good subtleties, and help with world-building for a reality-adjacent 18th century France. There’s some genuinely funny writing in there, especially regarding stereotypes of the age surrounding the English and French. The Comte and our young friend are joined by an eclectic cast of heroic thieves and thinkers alongside various cruel, stupid, cunning, or plain capitalist upper-class villains. You help him cheat at cards, though the game is never specified, to gather money and investigate a royal conspiracy known as the 12 Bottles of Milk. Be it anxiety from the nightmares of the age or something deeper-rooted, our silent but expressive protagonist is recruited into the service of Comte de Saint-Germain – a real-life and well-known philosopher-adventurer of the age. You play a nameless man, unable to speak and suffering from unnamed ‘attacks’ of the nerves. It may not fit your tastes, but it certainly does fit the game, and that should always be praised – even if more subtle animation would be useful for the gameplay conceits. The music certainly works for the late-renaissance French setting, and the art is integrated and specific enough that it feels like a stylistic choice rather than a budgetary one. On that, you will know immediately from a trailer whether the music and art style of Card Shark is going to hold up for you. It’s a shame, but there’s a glimmer of light in there for those who find the aesthetic trumps everything else. It’s a fantastic starting point – one that at some point gets lost among dull minigames, frustrating memorisation, repetitive gameplay, and a plodding story. An interesting concept, a unique protagonist, a conspiratorial story and a nice, tactile UI with satisfying clicks and clacks. It all starts so well for Card Shark, like a hand you think you’re winning.
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