So this is the part where I call back to several other posts simultaneously into a crescendo like those parts of a musical where it turns out you can interleave all three of the main leitmotifs into one epic finale song.
This isn’t my last post¹, it just happens that I have now laid enough groundwork to start getting a little more meta.
This post also contains 3 trick reviews, which seems to be what magicians like²
In the past I noted that there’s no such thing as a perfect trick, only the perfect variation of a trick for a specific performer in a specific scenario. This is the reason people go round the loop of fixing problems while introducing others, although occasionally it feels more like they’re just trying to spice up a sales pitch because the real problem was that they couldn’t profit from anyone elses versions.
As you’ve seen in my last two posts I prefer to go through this process of development and refinement myself to create effects that match my particular set of requirements. Many magicians however choose the equally valid, if somewhat more scatter shot, path of looking for creators who’s goals (and therefore products) align with their own needs.
Which is why it’s interesting to examine an effect and track its branching evolution, deriving from that what other people thought it’s shortcomings were, and maybe try to figure out what’s next.
What’s Next
What’s Next is a rather old effect which has also been sold through the years as Dubious Domino, Crazy Dots, and probably a few other names I can’t think of off the top of my head.
It looks like this:
I assume this was invented after The Spot Card, which is what this would be if it only had the first phase of 1, 4, 3 and 6 spots with a misprinted card and is often found in children’s magic sets at playing card size. The addition of a phase where the 3 and 6 are shown without cover is the first elevation, followed of course by the kicker ending of 8 dots on one side.
For years the main innovation on this effect were either purely cosmetic or incremental improvements on the quality of the prop construction and then as if from nowhere the effect was innovated by a man called Jon Fabjance.
I don’t know how it went down but I imagine he saw and set out to solve the following problems, both of which represent the reason I never performed What’s Next.
- Number Ordering
The repeated sequence of 1, 4, 3, 6 doesn’t really make much sense, it’s hard to go give a reason for those numbers other than “it’s how the prop works” - Context
I said before the prop is sometimes referred to as a dubious domino, but it doesn’t look like a domino. In fact, as its origins suggest, it looks more like a card but it’s a card without indices or shaped pips. - Awkward Grip
Perhaps this is only a problem if you expect the first phase to be even slightly convincing, but gripping the long and short edge alternately telegraph what’s going on before the revelation, meaning the explanation retreads old ground and bores the audience. - Confusing Finale
The expansion from 6 dots to 8 is kind of like the original 1, 4, 3, 6 progression in that it makes no sequential sense, but as the last number this is even worse because it has no sense of finality. Maybe the next side will have 10 dots, who knows?
And Jon Fabjance’s arguably less confusing solution to all these was the Confusing Die.
Confusing Die
The confusing die is methodologically identical to what’s next, but a relatively minor change in the aesthetic… Well just watch:
Reshaping the effect to a square fixes the strange grip, makes it look like the face of a die for added context, puts the numbers in order from 1 to 4 and allows the finale to go to 5 and then 6, which people know is the end, because that’s how many sides a dice has.
This is the effect I perform because it solved all the problems I also had with it… But that’s not where the evolutionary tree ends.
What if there were further shortcomings?
Sumit Chhajer developed this idea further in his effect Dots To Die.
Dots to Die
Pictured here is Dots to Die 2.0, because magic was like that in the early twenty tens, it was a lawless age of people taking effects to market before they were fully ready in order to stake a conceptual claim, then refine it later³.
So what does this solve that was missing from the original? Looking at the differences you can assume that they are something along the lines of:
- Indirect Effect
To Sumit, the effect of What’s Next and the Confusing Die is the fact that the number on the face changes. All that garden path stuff about covering the dots and gaps is getting in the way of a direct effect. So much so that he drops it entirely. - Clearer Visual
Without that phase of the routine the next fix is to get rid of the covering as much as possible, showing all but one number fully displayed. He is even willing to lose the satisfaction of a straight count from 1 to 6, because in order to show all the numbers in full, the 4, 5, and 6 are on the same side of the prop, so they must be interleaved. - Stronger Finale
With the more direct sequence the reveal of the 6 is no longer a climax, so it needs something extra and I would argue that this may have been Sumit’s primary intent with this prop. As a 2D dice it is still decontextualised, what it needs is to become a full 3D object.
If these are your problems, this is a good solution, because it delivers on 6 numbers shown in full becoming a full die.
I actually kind of hate that the numbers aren’t in order⁴ so this isn’t for me, but I can see how some people prefer it.
But evolution is not a straight line; it’s a tree. It branches, and goes in different directions, so let’s go back to What’s Next and ask, what if you saw completely different problems to fix?
DOTS-MAN (Automatic)
This video, which I found quite by accident, is what inspired this entire post.
So DOTS-MAN (Automatic) has the Automatic in the name because unlike the other routines, which require interaction to instigate the changes, it changes automatically. This could be the solution to a number of problems.
- Missing Full Displays
Whilst the original what’s next allows full displays of the 3 and 6, you can’t fully display the 1 or the 4. With a mechanical design all 4 numbers can be fully shown, at the cost of losing the faux-explanation 2 and 5 dot displays. - No Visual Change
Not everyone likes implied magic. All the other versions and evolutions have the number of spots change when the card is turned over, you can never show the displayed side change instantly. This kind of camera-trick looking effect is in demand for a certain kind of magician. - Outdated Context
It doesn’t look like a domino, but even if it did, modern audiences are less well acquainted with dominos, and arguably even dice. To engage a modern audience, a new context is needed.
To be totally honest, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all, and there’s no nice way to say that.
This is where I need to change gears for a moment to talk about evolution and restate a question from QI.
“What did the dik-dik do that the dodo didn’t?”
Not everything that evolves will ultimately survive. When humans found the dik-dik it ran and his because it was used to running and hiding. The dodo evolved with no natural predators, so when an apex predator landed on the Galapagos Islands, the dodo was extinct within a few short years.
Some magic tricks evolve without an audience.
The mechanism involved in the DOTS-MAN (Automatic) happens beneath a clear surface, which is reflective. This is a problem in terms of the visibility of the effect under strong lights but it has a far deeper ramification when combined with the new context.
It’s called DOTS-MAN, but we all know it’s Pacman right? Pacman is a more up to date reference than dominos, but where does Pacman normally appear? On screens! Screens with shiny fronts that can change instantly.
I mean sure it looks like an iPad, but it looks like a double sided iPad. Amazing.
But hey, you can produce a little sprung cardboard dot at the end⁵.
It is fascinating to look at the evolution of magic tricks through this lens of what creators perceived to be a problem with prior versions. This is far from the first time I’ve done it, but this is the first time I’ve talked about it because the difference between many tricks is purely methodological. Just from watching the trailers there’s no huge difference in the effect seen by the audience.
It’s rare to see an effect evolve in terms of the plot and aesthetic like this, but behind the scenes this is happening all the time. Oh and there’s one last thing…
1 to 6 Spot Card
While collecting the videos for this, I found one more branch
Literally brand new at the time of writing, a larger version of confusing die is about to be released under the name 1 to 6 Spot Card. I won’t be buying it, looks a bit unwieldy to me, but if you wanted to perform Confusing Die on stage for 6000 people⁶, you’d be glad of a larger prop.
The tree of life for the spot card therefore currently looks like this:
Is this the full story? Of course not. There’s presumably cross pollination with the Magic Compass to switch to corner revolutions for the handling of the Confusing Die, sprung production poxes for the Dots to Die, and there’s a jumbo card change which makes way better use of the method from DOTS-MAN (Automatic). All three of those have their own taxonomic tree of life with tiny innovative steps taking them to where we are now, and onward to the future. What of the eukaryote that everything issues forth from? Well consider this quote:
“All magic is the offspring from the initial pairing of gambling cheats and phony spiritualism.”
– Me. I said that.
¹ Assuming I don’t like, drop dead or anything. I almost did a couple years ago, hence the posting hiatus
² Remember when there were a million and one review shows on YouTube, all run by magic shops because they were the ones with all the latest tricks on hand to show them off, an arrangement which died a death the second people realised what an indescribable conflict of interest that represented? Well David Penn and Craig Petty are still at it except now they have separate shows and neither of them are directly selling the tricks reviewed, and they’re essentially competing to be the most honest. How times change.
³ Arguably this still happens, but not as often. Indeed the refinements made in modern re-releases are more likely the result of feedback from thousands of magicians performing the previous version. The reason these kinks are not ironed out pre-release is a feature of modern magic production which I will cover at a later date.
⁴ In my opinion Sumit missed a trick by not doing a sequence of 1, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4, because those are pairs of numbers that ARE on opposite sides of the die, so it has a through line, and I think it should theoretically be possible to perform that way, but ending on 3 and 4 might leave the final die misnumbered depending on how the gimmick opens out. If Sumit Chajer is reading this and wants to colab on Dots to Die 3.0, get in touch. Paint my name on a pigeon and I will find you.
⁵ Personally I would have used a yellow sponge ball with a section cut out to look like Pacman.
⁶ As much as my narcissistic shoulder demon craves the glitz and glamour of global stardom and the massive audiences which come with it, my lazy shoulder demon⁷ is thoroughly satisfied that I will almost certainly never have to work a venue larger than a village hall.
⁷ I’m under no illusions of having a shoulder angel, I am torn hither and thither between a multitude of conflicting negative drives.