Pocket Card Jockey -- #2. A Day at the Races
1It - has - be - gun~:
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Is it statistically significant that you chose this version instead of the "traditional" enforcement of horizontal orientation?
https://youtu.be/lfRDzQM2KvA
Obviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.
So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)
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Honestly, I'd LIKE to have a lot to say about this game and how it's played, but... it's a bizarre combination of immediately overwhelming and also strangely soothing in its simplicity. If I had to guess, it's probably the direct result of how... um... a lot of it isn't actually under your direct control?
Let's be real. That describes a lot of gaming in general, and especially video gaming, because a diminutive little gremlin inside the machine slipping you the visuals and data and other forms of both direct and indirect feedback is playing with, for, and against you at all times. Otherwise, it'd just be a rote, step-by-step simulation of something, and your inputs would have far more certain outcomes... but at the cost of the gripping uncertainty of what challenge you might have to face next.
Which, I think is the key cross-pollinating logical thread connecting horse racing and card games. If I may be so bold as to attempt a seance to call forth the true meaning of the season and/or authorial intent. Frail little human beings think they can "control" a giant, powerful animal. They're ostensibly "playing" a game of trying to outperform the others in the same situation. But, really, all you can do is play your cards, accept and mitigate their appearances as they're dealt, and occasionally peek over at what's happening between lanes as you try to avert some kind of disastrous obstacle that might be unavoidable after all.
Once the table is set and ready to be cleared, the real points of import were the parts where you did your best and made what you could of the situation that unfolded in front of you. Could you have done a couple things a little better? Probably. But would the overall structure of what happened have been totally upended by a few minor tweaks and changes? Probably not. Maybe. You'll also never know. Just like you didn't this time. Only in hindsight. And only through the lens of your presumptions about what did and didn't happen. What might've happened.
All you can do then is start over and deal yourself a new hand. Go for the next time with gusto as well!
... ... ...wait, what are we even talking about anymore? Was this a card game or a horse racing simulator? Life? Life.
Sometimes you're the orange farmer. Sometimes you're the orange. Sometimes you're the sexist stereotype never far from your mind. Sometimes you're self-aware enough to just sidestep it entirely, because it's not SUPPOSED to make you mad so much as it is a part of life.
... ... ...I think I probably need to take a break from this description. Deal me in next hand, though, okay?!
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The only other thing I can point out that's not mostly self-explanatory or better-explained in the moment by the primary source material is... these races are that right blend of being enough to get your solitaire fix going in earnest and also fast-paced and intensely consumable...
So... it doesn't feel like you're doing much or going for very long, but suddenly the "logical" break point between major horse racing arcs of card games is... about thirty minutes?
I feel like I want to apologize for this. But I also feel like "what, that's it? but we were just about to do another one!"