There are many card games out there today. From Hearthstone to Crypto Decoding, from Slay the Spire to Monster Train, deck building for deadly combinations is everywhere. But Card Shark is different. Card Shark tricks its opponents, and it excels at it.

The setting is the early 17th century, when Louis XV was on the throne, and you play a mute boy on a dizzying adventure, avoiding jail, cheating death (literally), and emptying the pockets of French nobility. Your life changes forever when the soon-to-be teacher, the Count of Saint Germain, walks into the inn where you work. The king's men are after your partner and, by extension, your death. The contrarian happens to be a very talented trickster, and your job as his apprentice is to help him cheat and learn his own tactics for survival.

Each new encounter requires a new card technique. At first they are easy, but they become more and more difficult. You will learn shuffling techniques, sleight of hand moves, and even fencing tactics. It doesn't affect the plot much, but trying to learn how to do single-card shuffles and in-jogs (where cards are pushed out of a row to show where in the pack they are) will cause a deep furrow between your eyebrows.

"Card Shark" is the closest game I've seen to using a gamepad to mimic character actions. It is best played with a controller and, in fact, would be much more difficult with a keyboard. When played with a controller, it's great that the tricks you learn correspond to your actions. To find a deck of cards, you have to move your thumb slowly to find the ace you need. To throw a card, you need to put the thumbstick in the right position with just the right amount of force. And to do these tricks correctly, you have to make the right moves in the exact order in a small amount of time. With practice, your magic tricks will improve and become as smooth as if you were practicing with a real deck of cards. It is an ingenious system and every trick is different.

One small drawback is that Card Shark is not a game you can spend a significant amount of time coming back to. It is difficult to recall exactly how to do a trick under relentless time pressure. Other than when you first learn each trick, there isn't much room for practice. There is an area in between the main game where you can earn coins and try out the tactics you have already learned, but the game limits your options to only three tricks each time. With 28 techniques to learn, you have to shuffle your mind and try to get things right. Your experience will be much better if you play them all as soon as you can.

When playing, my desk became cluttered with notes. Unless you are used to keeping lots of small snippets of information, I recommend keeping a pen and paper handy. The first trick to learn, "The Bottle of Cahors," is easy. While pouring the wine, look over the player's shoulder and count the highest suit of cards in the hand. Then sweep the table in a pattern showing the same suits to your partner. By the time of "The Indiscreet Thief," the fifth of 28 tricks, however, the two decks are stacked in favor of the partner, and a note is made of which cards are duplicates, which can be retrieved a few minutes later. Be aware that if you take too long and invite suspicion, you could get killed. It's nerve-wracking in a good way.

You can also revisit the trick with improvements. The "Bottle of Cahors" becomes the "Bottle of Bordeaux," which not only shows your partner the suit, but also the exact number of cards he or she is holding. And a "bottle of Bordeaux" becomes a "bottle of Burgundy" when a player learns to lift his glass to indicate whether his hand is a king, queen, jack or ace. Your knowledge will expand at an astounding rate.

Each trick has a mechanism to master. You can hold up a finger, do an in-jog, raise or lower, do a dog ear, pick up a card from the left or the right. Wipe the table, pick up a wine glass, or pour a glass of wine. Every trick has depth and requires real thought and calm judgment. In Card Shark, it is difficult to get it right the first time, even at the intended difficulty level. If the contrarian gave me the opportunity to retry the demo, I would gladly take it. This is something that rarely happens in games.

Mechanically, Card Shark is excellent. The visuals are attractive and expressive, the music is fun. The story is about a young boy's struggle to succeed in an unforgiving world, but the characters made me laugh and surprised me. When you use all the techniques to get information out of the rich, you feel powerful, but sometimes it doesn't feel right, even if it's necessary. Card Shark" is fun. It is a card game like no other, and I feel enlightened by the fact that I could never do magic tricks, but with just a slight bend of my fingers, the trick proceeds.