As history would have it, Portuguese sailors "discovered" Japan and shared with the Japanese firearms and "gambling"! Yes, gambling. What kind? Card games, which became very popular!!!
But as history tells, western influences were removed from Japanese culture when Shogun took power over Japan (because European Card games were banned).
Card and card games fell into obscurity until eventually ONE company made a card game that was acceptable to the Japanese government. On September 23, 1889 a skilled artist named Fusajiro Yamauchi founded, guess what?!?! That's RIGHT: Nintendo Playing Card Company... that company produced hand-made cards...
The cards were beautiful and became really popular with the Yakuzas. They would play high stakes games of hanafuda and would use a new deck every time!
Nintendo made a "killing" and as they say, the rest is history!
Hmm... I think that's what Nicholas did with "Smoking Aces" (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pawnjokergames/smoking-aces-hybrid-...)
Like Bang! it too uses a standard Poker deck with enhanced abilities written on the cards themselves.
Do I think it's a good idea? Well I initially reached out to Nicholas asking if he wanted to co-design a more "thematic" version of Smoking Aces. Something with characters like the Bandit, the Sheriff, etc. Western themes that could go well with a card game.
Personally I think a more "thematic" type game would be closer to Ameritrash, which I love BTW. I was thinking combining Steampunk because of the story and characters, not the just the theme. Western/Steampunk could be an interesting fusion - and could make for interesting characters.
But I think "Smoking Aces" as-is, an enhanced game of Poker, doesn't seem to be very popular with Backers. I don't know if it's the look of the cards, or the type of game, etc.
Most people tell me this: "In their down-time, they like to read up on the story told by the cards (if there is one). It adds depth to the game because you have a basis to which understand the source of the game... Sort of like adding a frame to a picture.
Which reminds me that "Tradewars - Homeworld" has an original narrative of nine (9) unique stories that are all incomplete in the First Edition. Players will need to wait until the First Expansion in order to complete said stories... If you read the cards consecutively, that makes for interesting "factoids" which seem random. But when the deck is sorted by Resources (Back of cards), each narrative plays out one by one, explaining more about the setting of the game itself.
It was a costly investment of about $900.00 but then again someone else contributed towards designing the game. Just like our US playtesters who shared input: we redefined roles and added game variants based on those test. And we streamlined the game - in hopes of making an expansion.
So the missing endings to storylines are yet another reason to buy the expansion! :P