Who Says Cheaters Never Prosper?

by Tsura

I’ve been playing the newest game, Cheat, for the day, and there are most definitely NO words that can describe my love for this game! I’m writing this article mainly to encourage fellow Neopians to play this game, if not at least give it a shot.

Being of middle class in this society, I figured I could afford to blow off some 50 NP. So, I began playing. You sit in front of three other players, each with 13 cards in hand, and you get to start things off. You can discard 1 to 4 cards at a time, but it is advised to keep the discarding down to two cards or less for the first few hands. To discard, select 1 to 4 cards from your hand, and then select from the drop-down list the face value you wish to tell the others that you’re putting down. Remember, the name of the game is Cheat, so feel free to do so! You can have 3 10’s, select them, and tell everyone you have 3 6’s. You may or may not be caught. Or, another fine trick of the trade, you can select cards that are completely different from each other, and slap them down as 3’s if you feel so inclined.

Any radical number of cards you see being set down is good enough grounds to accuse someone of cheating, so give it a shot! But, of course, tracers work both ways. :}

Memory and strategy are the keys to this game. Try your best to keep track of where the cards go. Remember, this game is only played with one deck of cards, so if one player has a certain number of one value and a second or third player puts down an amount of the same value that doesn’t add up to four with the other player’s amount, catch him in the act! You get 10 Neopoints for catching them in Level 1, and as the levels increase, so does the reward money by 5 NP intervals. Winning the first round earns you 200 NP, and as the levels increase, your winnings will increase by 100 NP. And each time you beat a round, you get a battle card. So, while paying 50 NP per round may seem a bit pricey to you, remember that you can always win them back by playing. I myself have gotten to level 6 in one day and made back my spendings 10 fold!

A nice feature to this game is that it holds your ranking for the next time you want to play. So if you need to quit for the day and you’ve gotten to level 5 or so, it will let you stay there until you come back. I enjoyed that part about it very much. :}

Another nice thing about this game is the opponents, for the most part, all have certain habits that you can pick up as the game progresses. Timmy the Tuskaninny, for example, is a notorious cheater, and he’s usually pretty horrible about it. If he discards a number more than one, chances are he’s cheating. Princess Fernypoo also enjoys a good cheat, and usually with a meager little number like two 3’s. Brucey B., on the other hand, will try to catch YOU in the act just about every hand you deal in the beginning, so try to avoid cheating with big numbers. He does have a nice habit of copying your move once in a while, as well. Good chance of catching him there.

A good MOVE would be to let yourself gain a large amount of cards, say about 17-20. With this many cards, you can catch others cheating and make more money.

If you’re unsure about cheating or if someone else is doing so, go by the number of cards in the pile. 5 or less is an OK risk to take, but any more than that, if you’re not in the lead with the least amount of cards, I don’t recommend you take it. Let someone else take the heat. Lots of times a whole hand will go down and no one will be accused to cheating.

One last tip before I go back to playing: If the other three all saw you take, let’s say for example, 4 Queens, and it’s your deal and there are no cards in the pile, take a gamble and put down four completely different cards. Chances are they won’t accuse you (unless you’re playing Brucey B.), and when you do place the 4 Queens down, they can’t pin you. So, give this game a shot if you have 50 NP to burn. You’ll be glad you did.