Sunday, December 25, 2005

deck of cards

Ace of Spades

I got this cool Bicycle magic card set. Two packs of Bicycle cards, red and blue, with 20-something card tricks inclusive. This is mostly for my own record, as I'm programming a deck of cards for use in a future game of mine. I want to be able to find this post and look back on it as a sort of guideline for myself. Here's what I need in the future:

Deck order:

With the deck face up (face of cards facing me) the order is
Joker one.
Joker two with the Bicycle guarantee.
Ace of Spades followed by 2 of spades consecutively to the 10, Jack, Queen, King of Spades.
Followed by the same order of the Diamond suit.
Now the order changes to the King of Clubs followed by Queen, Jack, 10 down to 2 then Ace of Clubs.
Followed by the same King, Queen, down to Ace order for the Heart suit.
The last two cards, face up, are a Special Mail-In Offer for Official Rules of Card Games with instructions on the back of the card.
Then a card with an offer to join the American Contract Bridge League. This card has the normal blue back on it, the only card without the blue back is the Mail-In offer card.

[Edit] I really should also note the following:
The One-Eyed Jacks are of Spade and Heart suit.
The Kings with swords are Spade, Club and Hearts.
The King of Hearts is stabbing himself in the head.
The King of Diamonds has an axe.
The King of Diamonds is the only King with one eye.
The King of Diamonds is not holding his axe, but has an open hand.
The Jack of Clubs is the only Jack to have a feather in his cap.
The Jack of Hearts isn't holding his axe, he is holding a flower.
All Queens have flowers, except the Queen of Spades is not holding hers in her hand.
All the Jacks and Kings have moustaches except the Jack of Diamonds and Clubs and the King of Hearts.


The back of the cards look like a standard blue back. Doesn't look like there's any indication as to what the card might be on the other side. I only mention this because my cousin once had a deck of cards that by looking in one specific corner, there was a set pattern that would dictate what the face and suit value on the other side of the card would be. Theoretically, if you learned the pattern, you could say, "I know what card this is,it's the Queen of Clubs," just by reading the pattern.

I wasn't expecting the order of cards to change have way through the brand new deck. Honestly, I was expecting Ace through King for all of Spade, Diamond, Club, Hearts. This order might be exclusive to Bicycle brand cards.

I've got a red deck as well, that came with the pack. When I say 'Blue' deck or 'Red' deck, I refer only to the back of the cards. I'm sure the face of the cards are the same for the Blue and Red deck. And as far as I can tell, the picture is the same for both decks, just a different colour. There are 4 winged cherubs that appear to have a fish bottom with a tail in the corners of the cards backs with two winged cherubs in the center on either half. These cherubs in the middle have legs and look to be riding bicycles in the direction of "out of the card" toward the viewer.

I'm not looking to rip-off Bicycle with any design of my cards for my game. I guess I'm just recording everything I see because that's the way I am... crazy.

I'm installing a Christmas present to my computer as I write this and study these cards. "Beyond Good and Evil" by Ubisoft, and it's playing some "Propaganda" song while I'm doing it. It's a catchy tune, and probably the main theme of the game. I've been looking forward to this game since its release, and 3 years later and a $12 price tag it's about time I give it a try.

[Edit] The book of tricks that came with the set says on the inside that the
"Blue deck is the 'trimmed deck'"
"Red deck is the 'standard deck'"
That means, the trimmed deck is physically cut differently at manufacture so that one end of the cards is slightly narrower than the other end. So when you are to, say, look for a certain card in the deck chosen by another person, you can flip the deck around and have the selected card put in 'backwards'. This allows you to easily feel for the card that was chosen by the other person.

-Time to learn some magic card tricks again!

No comments:

Followers