TFE

Other Tidbits

Copyright 2006, masterfwiffo. All rights reserved.

The Game of Sharkticon

This older game is one of the most popular stock games in the galaxy, played in Casinos and by many, many different spacefarring races throughout the galaxy. Its simple play style and quick pace make it one of the easiest games to learn and pick up.

Stock games are played on small, very thing pieces of plastic called 'Stocks', in rectangular formation, with images imprinted on both sides. More often then not, the back side consists of a single image, while the front side consists of multiple images representing the different values of the stocks. Similar to Earth cards, stock games are popular throughout the entire galaxy. It is unknown which race first thought these were a good idea, though the Quintessons, as they often do with many things, claimed they were the first. Stock games can be played for fun, or can be bet on, often in the form of the standard currency in Quintesson controlled sectors, energon chips.

Sharkticons uses the standard Quintesson stock deck. A deck consists of 36 stocks in 5 suites, with one colorless Judge. The five suites are yellow, green, blue, red and black, listed in the order of importance. Each Suite has 7 different stocks (again listed in order): (1) the Sharkticon, (2) the Slave, (3) the Enforcer, (4) the Allicon, (5) the Warrior, (6) the Slavemaster, and (7) the Captain. The final stock is the White Judge, worth 8, the highest counted stock in the deck.

Traditional games using the Quintesson deck are played with hands of 3. In most games, certain combinations give the best hands- even the high Judge is worthless without some other stocks backing it up. Other games rely on combinations to reach a certain target number.

Basic Sharkticon can accommodate from 3 to 6 players. After collecting 3-stock hands, the dealer plays the first stock face up in the center of the table. Then, from the dealers right, the remaining players play stocks. Once player has played a stock the one who played the highest stock wins that match. He collects the stocks, then selects one card to keep (face down) on the side (in his Sharkticon Pool, as its called), the remaining cards are reshuffled into the deck. He then passes out one stock to each of the other players to replace the one played that round. Then, it is the dealers turn to play. This continues for a set amount of time (often 12 rounds) , whereas the person with the highest number of stocks in the Sharkticon pool wins overall. The stocks are ranked in typical stock order, the one exception being that any Sharkticon stock can win a hand, but only if the Judge is played in that round. If more then one Sharkticon is played, the winner is determined in order of color significance.

There are many strategies to winning at Sharkticon, most of which rely in choosing which cards to keep in the Sharkticon Pool, and which to reshuffle into the deck. Replacing a Judge can win you many captains later on, or you can choose to keep the Judge and remove it entirely from the game.

There are several variations to Sharkticon, including Judges Zero, Allicon and Feeding Frenzy, which have varying rules changes. Some, like Feeding Frenzy, have 7 round matches where the goal is to gross the highest number of points in each mach. Others may have points in the Sharkticon Pool be the target (like Judges zero), or give you extra points for having certain sets of cards in your 'Sharkticon Pool' (like Allicon).

A former Decepticon named Blackjack is the universes reigning champion at all forms of Sharkticon. He currently resides in the gambling lord Gyconi's main palace, where he offers a good game to anyone willing to put up the chips. He rarely loses.

-----