_SHELL GAME
THE HAND IS QUICKER THAN THE EYE
Every neighborhood in Chicago has at least one street huckster who’s looking to challenge you to the old shell game. You put your money down, betting that your eyes are faster than the other guy’s hands, and try to figure out which cup the ball is underneath. The game is the same from table to table; all that changes is the background and the banter.
The first couple of rounds of the shell game are almost freebies, but as the game’s difficulty increases, so does the complexity of the cups’ movement. The guy running the shell game isn’t afraid to employ a little sleight of hand in an attempt to trick your eye into losing track of the ball.
It’s not impossible to see what’s going on with the naked eye. As a general rule, if you see the cups tip or leave the table at all, that’s a hint that the ball just went from one cup to another. It’s possible with practice to see through the tricks on your own.
On the other hand, why work harder than you have to? You can use Aiden’s Focus ability to essentially slow the shell game down, letting you see through the dealer’s sleight of hand and track the ball’s movement more efficiently. The more Skill Points you’ve invested into Focus, the better you’ll be at the intermediate levels of the shell game.
This is a good time to stop by a newsstand or bar and pick up a refreshing beverage, as the extra time added onto your Focus meter will help you deal with the shell game’s tricks. (This also means that the shell game tables in Pawnee and the Mad Mile are the “best” ones, as they’re the tables in closest proximity to somebody who sells drinks.)
Focus is great, but it should be said that it isn’t a win button. Even at maximum Focus with a duration buff from a drink, you don’t have enough Focus to slow down an entire round of the shell game. You need to engage it in short bursts in order to maximize its value, and learning when to do that is a question of practice.
There are three levels of difficulty for the shell game, and you must win three separate games on levels 1 and 2 to unlock the next stage. Each game requires you to put money down to play, and if you win, you get that much money from the guy running the shell game.
WAGER AMOUNTS
- Level 1: $50, $100, $200
- Level 2: $100, $200, $400
- Level 3: $200, $400, $700
REWARDS
- Beat Level 3 at any table: 500 XP