CP Knowledge: Card-Jistu

Welcome to another post of the series CP Knowledge. This is a series where I will talk about every single minigame on Club Penguin, continuing today with Card-Jitsu. The posts include how you play the game, its history, stamps, trivia, and a personal review of the game! Hope you enjoy it!


GAMEPLAY

Card-Jitsu is a popular multiplayer-minigame located at the Dojo. It is also accessible through Card-Jitsu Mats in penguin’s igloos and formerly, the Ninja Hideout. On a penguin’s first visit, they have to talk to Sensei, the owner of the Dojo. He will tell the penguin about the game and give them the Starter Deck. The Starter Deck is a deck of ten cards needed to play the game. Other Card-Jitsu cards could only be unlocked with codes from real-life cards. Power cards can be bought three at a time (one of each element) for 1500 coins in the Material Artworks catalogue. 

   After starting a game of Card-Jitsu you will be given five cards. The objective is to beat your opponent in this rock-paper-scissors fashioned game. You’ll have twenty seconds to choose a card, if you fail to do this, a card will be randomly selected. Your and your opponent’s card will be presented on the screen and the winner gets to keep their card. The three elements that can be shown on the cards are fire, water and snow. Remember that water beats fire, fire beats snow, and snow beats water. In case of a tie, the penguin with the highest number on their card will win. If both cards have the same value, it will result in a tie. The numbers range from two to twelve. All cards also have one of the six different colours – red, green, yellow, blue, purple, and orange

    To win a game of Card-Jitsu you will have to collect one of each element card but in three different colours. Alternatively, you can collect three cards of the same element, as long as they are in different colours. 


POWER CARDS

Cards with the value nine or higher are called power cards, they have a special animation and a unique effect. There are three different ‘number changes’ effects. They either raise your next card’s value by two, lower your opponent’s card’s value by two, or make the lower value win in case of an element-tie. The three different ‘discard element’ will discard a random card from your opponent’s won cards. Of ‘discard colour’ there are twelve cases. It will discard either one card of the colour said on the power card or all of them. This of course only affects your opponent. There are three different ‘element changes’, fire turns into snow, snow into water, and water into fire. Lastly, there’s ‘block’, which will ban your opponent from playing a certain element. Both ‘‘element changes’ and ‘block’ affect the round following that power card. 

   The ‘block’ effect makes another way of winning possible. If your opponent for example only has snow cards to play, and you block snow cards, you will automatically win. 


EARNING BELTS

After playing a certain number of games, you will be rewarded with a belt. There are nine different colours. In order from worst to best, they are these – white, yellow, orange, green, blue, red, purple, brown, and black. Once you earn your black belt, you are ready to challenge Sensei. Fight Sensei and win in order to achieve the Ninja rank and unlock the Ninja Mask. To earn experience points, it is better to train by talking to Sensei and choosing the “Earn Your Belts” mode instead of playing on a mat. 


HISTORY

The game was released on November 17, 2008, and remained unchanged. A room related to it, however, did not. Between the start and December 8, 2011, the Ninja rank served as a key to enter the secret Ninja Hideout. Through the Ninja Hideout, penguins could access the Card-Jitsu related games Card-Jitsu: Fire and Card-Jitsu: Water. On May 9, 2013, a snowstorm hit the Dojo Courtyard and surrounding areas. While this did not cause any damage, an avalanche occurred a week later, burying much of the Hideout. A week after that, the Ninja Hideout was removed, and the gates to the other dojos as well as the Material Artworks catalogue were moved to the Dojo. From May 28, 2009, penguins could see their deck of cards at the Dojo and Dojo Courtyard. This was done by clicking on the three cards at the bottom right.


STAMPS

There is a total of ten stamps available for Card-Jitsu. Out of the ten, two are easy, three are medium, another three are hard, and the remaining two are extreme. 


TRIVIA

  • According to a comment made by Rsnail, the Club Penguin Team was working on Card-Jitsu as early as beta testing. 
  • In issue 160 on The Penguin Times, if you clicked the letter N, I, N, in the word Lightning, J in Dojo, and then A in Damaged, a stone tablet would appear saying “fire, water, snow the triangle of power your journey’s first step”. 
  • According to Rsnail, Card-Jitsu was born from his desire to make a rock-paper-scissors game. Originally, this was going to be a pirate sword fighting game, taking place on the Migrator. 
  • According to Polo Field, the game was supposed to be called Card-Jutsu. It was named Card-Jitsu because he thought “ninjutsu” was spelled “ninjitsu”. 
  • You will always lose against Sensei until you have earned your black belt.
  • On CPRewritten, there was going to be an update for the game, including a leaderboard. The update was cancelled and it is to this day unknown if it will ever come. 
  • You can not earn any coins by playing Card-Jitsu.

PERSONAL REVIEW

I very much enjoy the concept of this game, and I think the team executed it perfectly. I love thinking-based games and also grinding to complete something. Card-Jitsu is exactly that. I remember the hours spent to get that black belt and defeating Sensei, the master. I like that they took a simple game, rock-paper-scissors, and then made it a bit more complicated. They completely nailed making it their own game and not a copy. There are lots of fun animations for the different cards, and I honestly don’t know what could make it better. Therefore, this game gets my second 10/10, tying for first place with System Defender. 


Did I miss anything? What do you think of Card-Jitsu?

Comment below!

That’s all for me today, hope you enjoyed this post! See ya next time!


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