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Racing Horses, Playing Cards, and Accepting Failure: A Brief Look at Pocket Card Jockey

One of my favorite games of all time is Pocket Card Jockey, a 2016 3DS game that combines solitaire, horse racing, and some incidental life lessons. You’re the rookie jockey on the scene, you’re impatient, and all you want is to make it to the biggest race around. You meet a trainer and demand to ride the best horse, convinced that you have what it takes to be a champion. You’re given access to a prized racehorse and told to train. You try to force this horse to do as you say and are quickly bucked off, trampled, and come face to face with an angel. You’ve died. Here’s where the game opens up and is honest about what it really is. Both the main character and the angel realize that as a jockey, our impatient rookie doesn’t have what it takes to win The Big Race right now and so they’re asked if they have anything else that they like or any hidden talents. The rookie hesitates, but then declares that they’ve been playing a lot of solitaire recently, but they’re not especially gift
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