It's that time of year again, the Autumn Sale is now on!
Card Shark is once again struck by its best, lowest price, with a shiny 40% discount, you're practically cheating us!

If con artistry and card tricks are not for you, how about ruling a kingdom in our card-swiping series Reigns? The Reigns Series is 50% off across the board, whether you'd like to play as a King or Queen, or visit Westeros

Check out our games in the sale as well as our fellow Devolver titles.

Stay tuned for some exciting Reigns news coming soon from us at Nerial!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1371720/Card_Shark/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/474750/Reigns

We know that Card Shark can be difficult. The deck manipulation puzzles get particularly complex at the end of the game, sometimes requiring many steps of memorization and a robust understanding of certain card tricks.

That's why we included a number of features in the Pause Menu to help struggling players progress if they get stuck. We're aware that some of these options aren't very obvious so our Devolver friend, Jean-Michel, created this video! It showcases a number of tips that you can use if you are not able to move forward or want a more relaxed experience.

1. You can practice as long as you want before tackling a trick at a real table
   
2. The Pause Menu contains your current objective and a list of controls from previous tricks
   
3. You can change the difficulty which primarily changes how fast suspicion builds
   
4. Turning Hints ON will show cards that you need to memorize

Before Card Shark, our studio was founded out of the Reigns series[reignsgame.com] of narrative strategy games. After some bad luck on other projects, Francois (the original @Nerial himself and lead writer of Card Shark), developed the first Reigns game in 2016.

It was a simple but very clever concept, described as Tinder x Game of Thrones. As a kingdom's ruler, advisors come to you with their problems. Swipe right to accept or swipe left to reject. Each decision may impact the 4 stats which represent your areas of influence. If any of those 4 get too high or too low, you'll die a gruesome death. The peasants become too prosperous? They don't need your leadership anymore. Your military is too weak? Warring kingdoms will have your head.

But death isn't the end. Your consciousness is transported into the next heir so that you can continue your reign. You'll need that time to uncover the mystery behind your newfound immortality.

Multiple instalments and an official Game of Thrones game later, we have just released Reigns: Three Kingdoms[www.reignsgame.com], the most ambitious version yet. Based on the beloved epic, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it doesn't just have the most story, it also has an entire deck-building card battle minigame with online multiplayer duels.

It's currently available on Android and iOS for Netflix subscribers HERE.

The original Reigns and two sequels are available on Steam for just a few dollars each!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/474750/Reigns/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/717640/Reigns_Her_Majesty/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/897820/Reigns_Game_of_Thrones/

When making this game, we honestly weren't sure if anyone would want to play it. We knew that the gameplay would not be for everyone. It's a game about cards, but not a card game. Deck manipulation puzzles are bound by real-life and not traditional game mechanics. It encourages you to think and memorize but under significant time pressure.

Despite that, we made a game full of artistry that we are very proud of. If you want to support indie games that take ambitious risks like this, it would mean a lot to us if you bought or gifted Card Shark.

Thank you to everyone who has already taken that plunge and experienced what our team has worked so hard on. Whether it was a game for you or not, we really appreciate your support!

And to celebrate this new lowest sale price, our lead artist, animator and cheat, Nicolai Troshinsky, has written this detailed developer blog. It shows how much work went into just one small aspect of the game.


If you played Card Shark it might surprise you that out of all the different mini-games, the “Card In Hat” was by far the most difficult one to develop. We spent more time working on this interaction than on any other technique in the game. Minor spoilers ahead!

Throughout the game, this technique appears just once and the interaction lasts only a few seconds. It seems absurd that such a short one-off moment took us so much work.

The idea came from this brilliant demonstration by legendary magician Ricky Jay. We immediately thought we had to have something like this in the game. So it was storyboarded and written from very early on in the project, becoming a necessary part of the story.

The basic idea was simple but making a card fly in 3D inside a hand-drawn 2D game was a big challenge. I naively thought we could have the card in actual 3D and simulate the physics but that was quickly discarded as too complicated.

I decided to solve the problem myself, in animation. Here's me trying it out to see how the card should behave. Not only the motion of the card would be a challenge but also it´s interaction with the chair.

We originally tried to implement a more complex aiming system for which I built this trail that didn’t make it to the final version. There are several animations accounting for hitting the chair, falling in the hat and rules to deal with draw order based on angle and strength of the shot. It got complicated fast!

It took me a lot of tests until I ended up figuring out a way to animate each axis on a separate bone and combine them in order to achieve the pseudo 3D motion. With a single animation I was able to scale and rotate the entire trajectory from a single bone.

We originally tried to implement a more complex aiming system for which I built this trail that didn’t make it to the final version. There are several animations accounting for hitting the chair, falling in the hat and rules to deal with draw order based on angle and strength of the shot. It got complicated fast!

That was just the visual side! The interaction design was another big problem, it played terribly for the longest time. We tried so many things and they were all either incomprehensible, trivially easy or insanely difficult. A ton of work was discarded.

I think it was only finished around the very end of development. Looking back, was it worth it? What did you think of this part of the game?

Nicolai Troshinsky - Artist, Animator, Cheat

We’ve released a new patch with more bug fixes! Scroll to the bottom to read all the new changes. I also wanted to show you some of the amazing fan art we’ve received from around the world!


You can join our community of cheaters on Discord[discord.gg] and Twitter to see more of these tricks!

@aluhnim on Twitter made this outstanding fake animation cel!
One of our biggest fans, @zbxm1004 is an awesome source of art and memes.

And who else wants a Card Shark manga by @terutiru?
This is a brilliant reference to Michaelangelo Caravaggio’s “The Cardsharps” by @laowuxi11

• First Cascarot Camp, Magician’s Trick: Corrected incorrect arm skins.
  
• First Hospice Carriage: Fixed incorrect dialogue playing after shuffle explanation.
  
• First Hospice: Fixed Aramitz going to negative money.
  
• Chateau Carriage: Fixed table arrangement not matching tutorial.
  
• Second Cafe Carriage: Removed Reset button during technique explanation.
  
• Cour des Miracles: Added reminder of requested cards when failing Sticky Hand or Full Harvest.
  
• Cour des Miracles: Prevented softlock when listening to Erdnase Shuffle explanation several times in a row.
  
• Second Bathing Establishment Carriage: Fixed explanation permitting mistake in Sticky Hand.
  
• Second Bathing Establishment: Fixed a potential softlock when failing to steal a card in Sticky Hand.
  
• Freeplay, Strategy 10 - The Shiner: Fixed opponent hand sometimes having no high card.
  
• Epilogue: Fixed softlock while pouring wine slowly.
  
• UI: Fixed misplaced money UI after caught dialogues.
  
• Reminder: The controls for False Riffle Shuffle were outdated.
  
• Art: Minor visual improvements to Nicolai’s already stupendous art.

We tried to make a game that was unlike any other but to do that, tough design decisions had to be made. While it isn't a game for everyone, we are so glad that many of you have enjoyed the experience for what it is. The tension and stakes, the learning and progression, the themes and presentation. These are just a few of the elements we wanted to convey and our players understand that.

If you'd like to see how this game was made, you can watch the new mini-documentary that goes Behind the Schemes.

We are also very grateful that you've stayed patient despite the bugs!

Since launching last week, we've been hard at work to address the issues you reported here in the Steam forums, in our Discord server and on social media. We still have more improvements to make, but we wanted to get these ones to you ASAP.

Version 1.1 includes these fixes and changes:

• Gambling House: Fixed softlock when not pouring enough wine.
  
• Salon: Fixed looping back to Limbo after failures against the Comte.
  
• First Salon Carriage: Fixed incorrect dialogue for pincer shuffle variations.
  
• Chateau: Fixed soft lock occurring mid deal if no card is stolen in Sticky Hand.
  
• Cour des Miracles: Intro cut-scene now plays correctly when loading a save game.
  
• Versaille: Fixed softlock in final round.
  
• Theatre: Prevented Comte from sitting in first seat in strategy 16.
  
• Second Deal: Fixed issues with input being remembered during dialogue.
  
• Pincer Shuffle: Explanations can no longer get stuck when single-shuffling / injogging in final shuffle pass.
  
• Full Harvest: Fixed mouse inputs being queued.
  
• Permadeath: Unlocked strategies are no longer deleted on permadeath.
  
• Endgame: Re-playing a completed game starts back at the tavern, with skip privileges and retained strategies.
  
• Map: Fixed getting stuck with nowhere to go because returning to the Camp is unavailable.
  
• Options menu: No longer loses focus when navigating with the gamepad shoulder buttons.
  
• Difficulty screen: Italian text no longer overflows.

This hotfix includes:

• Fix for achievements

Thank you for playing Card Shark! We're overwhelmed by the reception so far and it makes us very happy that many of you have enjoyed your time with our game.
We are currently going through every single comment we've received so that we can address issues as quickly as we can. There are a number of different problems so we'll be prioritizing critical fixes first.

Card Shark has been a labour of love for the past few years so we want it to be the best game it can be. That's what we're working towards and we appreciate your patience as we try to get there!

Special Reserve Games has teamed up with Devolver Digital and Nerial to create an outstanding physical collector's edition of CARD SHARK!

This is a PREORDER for a physical product. Estimated shipping date is Q3 2022.[specialreservegames.com]

The SRG Reserve of CARD SHARK for Nintendo Switch features:

SWITCH CARTRIDGE
Includes critical updates, patches, and DLC at time of manufacture
SEQUENTIALLY NUMBERED GAME PACKAGING
REVERSIBLE JACKET ARTWORK
SHIPS IN A SPECIAL RESERVE BOX
Makes a great shelf display and protects your game
DECK OF MARKED CARDS
Designed by Dalibass
Marking system by Nicolai Troshinsky
Marks can be read from a distance, without memorization
Features characters from the game
INSTRUCTION BOOKLET
Inside the shrink-wrapped game packaging

ONLY 1,000 RESERVES AVAILABLE.

Additionally, a SWITCH BUNDLE and SWITCH SINGLE are available.

The SWITCH BUNDLE includes the cartridge, sequentially numbered packaging, reversible jacket artwork, instruction booklet and deck of marked cards. ONLY 2,000 SWITCH BUNDLES AVAILABLE.

The SWITCH SINGLE includes the cartridge, reversible jacket artwork, and instruction booklet.

PREORDER NOW! Limited quantities available.[specialreservegames.com]

We have brought together all sorts of ruffians, scoundrels and hooligans because a great opportunity has reached our midst. In Card Shark, you'll take the least ethical path to achieve wealth, fame and status by cheating your way up the aristocracy.

But that path is also a dangerous one. The risks you take can leave you in worse shape than your humble beginnings or even take your life if you are not careful.

From all of us at Nerial, we want to thank you sincerely for joining us on this journey to launch. Making a game is like manipulating a deck. Managing and fine-tuning each step to bring wonder out of what appears to be random chance.

We believe we have created a unique and artful experience. To be completely honest, this isn't the type of game that typically performs very well on Steam. However, if you do enjoy our game, we hope that you'll leave a positive review! It really helps us continue to make games that reimagine real life in surprising ways.

So as you start this new adventure of delectable deceit, we hope you will have fun, learn something new and cheat your opponents' pockets dry.

We have many Card Shark fans on our other platforms! Please join us there

Discord - http://discord.gg/nerial
Twitter - https://twitter.com/nerial
TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@nerialgames

We've broken down the most important information about Card Shark before you play. Do you know which film inspired our game? Have you used Hint Mode? Learn the basics of cheating in What the Facts.

Our lead artist, Nicolai Troshinsky, performs card tricks in real life. In this series, he teaches some of the easiest techniques to perform so that you can always have the upper hand at the table. Every trick in Card Shark is derived from genuine cheaters and these videos modernize them! Did you ever think to use your phone as a secret mirror? It's the perfect place to start if you want to get your cheating career off the ground in real life.

The Card Shark soundtrack is stunning thanks to the arrangements by Andrea Boccadoro and the live orchestra, recorded at Air Studios in London. Andrea composed original scores and rearranged period pieces to set the tones of the 18th century. My favourite example of reimagining source material appears later in the game, when you'll meet Chevalier de St Georges[en.wikipedia.org]. He was both a master (fencing) duelist and musical composer. His theme in the game is rearranged from music he actually wrote in the 1700s!

You can also see Andrea in the video wearing the dark t-shirt at 1:35!

Discord - http://discord.gg/nerial
Twitter - https://twitter.com/nerial
TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@nerialgames