Sociologist Max Weber called this process “the disenchanting of the world.” Dr. In Card Shark, the cards always appear in the right direction, begging the question of whether Eugene is flipping them… or if it’s just a contrivance to make the game more readable.Ĭard Shark also takes place during a period now understood as “the Enlightenment,” when Western philosophy began to foreground scientific knowledge and human reason, often to the exclusion of more mystic ideas. As truthfully depicted in Card Shark, there was a correct way to flip face cards, leading to potential disaster if a player was thoughtless. Because face cards in the 18th century decks were not printed double-sided.” If you look at most decks of cards now, there is no right direction to turn the cards, and the face card figures are printed on both ends. Call advised, “Watch your opponent and see if they rotated any of the cards they were dealt. However, there may have been a good chance that you were playing against a cheat, even in the highest echelons of society.Ĭard Shark nods to, but explicitly leaves out, the era’s easiest tell. Card playing itself was still stigmatized by church and clergy, and with money on the line, it’s hard for stakes not to rise. If you could get away with it, it justified you doing it.” This is not to say that there was no moral dimension to cheating or that no consequences would occur if you were caught. Call said, “It was seen as a way of getting your edge. Call shared one instance where “one of Louis XIV’s ministers got his position because he was a good card player” and another where a minor scandal occurred because of one nobleman’s constant playing with his valets.Ĭheating itself was not uncommon, and even quietly encouraged. Louis XIV solidified gambling as an official pastime at Versailles and it had both obvious and strange political dimensions. Call remarked, “People, often coming from the lower nobility, catapulted themselves into social situations they never could have found themselves in otherwise.” The largest examples of this were in the king’s court. “Card play allowed for strange careers,” Dr. However, social mobility and class encounters happened on more than just the stage and page. Call brought up the landmark play The Gamester by Edward Moore, first performed in 1757, which explicitly calls attention to gambling’s class-bridging dynamic. This was true throughout the 18th century, the game’s setting, but gambling’s social role showed up in the literature of the late 16th and early 17th centuries as well. With class divisions stratified by birth, it was difficult to find any other ways to mingle with those of higher or lower station. Gambling, then, acted as one of the few real means of upward mobility, with both real consequences and hard limits. “It shows a good grasp of the period, because that’s what folks at the time were saying,” Dr. Gambling really did act as a bridge between classes. It is undeniably exaggerated, but the whirlwind story is based on some social truth. As Comte attempts to get to the bottom of a scandal known as 12 Bottles of Milk, he chains his social connections together to eventually reach King Louis XV. The structure of the game is a kind of social maneuvering. Protagonist Eugene (though his chosen name can be different) and the real-life figure Comte de Saint Germain take a tour throughout France and play cards with kings, sea captains, pirates, peasants and thieves. One of the first things that struck me about Card Shark was how it depicted card playing as something almost everyone in every class of society does. Spoilers for the entirety of Card Shark follow. I took several classes from him and also TAed for him in undergrad. We had a fascinating conversation, which I’ve summarized, quoted, and put into context below.įull disclosure: Dr. I thought he would be a perfect person to ask about Card Shark’s depiction of gambling and social drama. Call has primarily written about French playwright Molière, but also has taught classes about videogames and studied the cultural role of card games in historical France. That feeling only deepened as I interviewed Professor Michael Call, a specialist in Early Modern French Humanities. It’s funny and tragic, tricky to learn and rewarding to master, and shows off a light, deft hand towards its more literary aspirations. Asking players to perform real-world card tricks with a controller, it’s a whirlwind tour of fictionalized card tables in 18th century France. Card Shark immediately charmed me when I played its demo at LudoNarraCon, and finishing it revealed what will likely be one of my favorite games of the year.
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