From TES issue 70 (July 2011)

Series 7/8. Level 2/3.
PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT
This is a very nice, atmospheric level three challenge. Starkly combining the cutting edge, VR-begotten technomagical world of Goth with shades of the early series (which featured several references to and challenges based on playing cards), this was an aptly tricky test for any team bright enough to reach level three, and a ruthless exploiter of any shortcomings in the advisors’ brainwork and/or teamwork that had yet to come to light. Simon’s team and Alex’s team both discovered this to their cost, and the fact that this challenge killed the first two teams to attempt it always makes it seem that significant bit harder and more ruthless.

My one criticism of Play Your Cards Right is that there was no variety in the card sequences. Once you’d seen one team’s attempt at the challenge, you’d seen them all, which certainly sucked some of the tension out of the whole situation by the time Barry got round to completing it. The fact that the sequence was the same every time did not make the challenge any easier for the teams, of course, as they (unlike us) had not seen the preceding episodes of series 7 when they attempted it, so there was always that element of doubt that the next team to be faced with the Cards would know what to do, and I certainly don’t think the whole process of attempting the challenge is at all obvious the first time you see it, despite what Treguard may think: ”Boys, you were looking for something devious, when all you had to do… is follow suit.” – Treguard.

Inevitably, a seeing-eye spell or potion would be employed here to allow the dungeoneer to see themselves and the array of cards, which was actually completely unnecessary and not very nice to see, very much like all the other seeing-eye spell appearances! The Cards appeared once in series 8 (this time on level two, which Goth had become by this stage) and this was actually the only occasion during the final series when sight magic was used. Disappointingly, even at this stage, the puzzle still had the same card sequence, yet Nathan’s advisors still encountered problems when the Hearts ran out, so clearly this team hadn’t been watching series 7 on video even half as much as I had!

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