Second Dinner
The developers at Marvel Snap have done their job a little too well. In an interview with The Verge, the developers spoke about how, when designing Marvel Snap, they wanted to create a game that could โfit into your life.โ Well, it seems like I and millions of others have not only managed to fit the game into our lives but have shaped our lives around it. Thatโs why I play a few quick rounds first thing in the morning, reward my productivity at work with a midday Snap break, and why I must end the day on a dub before I can sleep.
Marvel Snap is the debut game of Second Dinner, an indie studio founded by ex-Blizzard developers, and from the start, they knew they wanted to create a mobile card game. โMarvel Snap is about continuing our passion for sharing our love for collectible card games with as many people in the world as possible,โ said Yong Woo, Snapโs chief production officer and co-founder at Second Dinner.
โWe felt like mobile is absolutely a great starting point,โ he continued. โWeโre thinking about a game that can fit into your lifestyle, where everybody can enjoy it regardless of how much time they may have in their lives.โ
One of Marvel Snapโs biggest draws is that itโs a game that can be fully experienced in minutes at a time. While gamers still greatly enjoy the 60-plus-hour, full narrative experiences from developers like Sony, Ubisoft, and EA, as the core age demographic of gamers slowly creeps upward, the idea of โappointment gamingโ is starting to increase in popularity.
Yong said that, like most developers, the folks at Second Dinner want to make games they themselves are passionate about and would want to play. And in designing Snap, they wanted a game that wouldnโt interfere too much with peopleโs busy lives where oftentimes, a trip to the toilet is one of the dayโs only moments of peace and solitude.
โTheyโre are games out there where you could play around, and itโs like five minutes,โ Yong said. โBut then, if you get into a crazy situation, you could be sitting on a toilet for like 20 minutes, you know?โ
Yong continued, โWhen we were thinking how we wanted to forge [Marvel Snap], [we thought] โHey, what if a game could be super strategically deep, and what if we could also somehow make it, like, three minutes long?โโ
A typical Marvel Snap match lasts around three to six minutes. While that short time doesnโt sound like it lends itself well to the kind of deep-thinking play CCGs are known for, Snapโs card design, unique field-of-play, and โsnapโ mechanic makes for matches that are like neutron stars of competitive drama. Imagine if you could get all the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the high-octane emotion of wild โswing for the fencesโ plays in six minutes or less. Now imagine that 70 percent of your games are like that: thatโs Marvel Snap.
The amount of love the developers have invested in Marvel Snap is shared by their partners at Marvel Entertainment. According to Second Dinner co-founder and chief development officer Ben Brode, it was Marvel Gamesโ EVP Jay Ong who approached them about making a game, confident that Second Dinner would deliver the same quality experiences found in games like Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and the criminally underrated Guardians of the Galaxy.
Image: Second Dinner
Every card has several different variants in different art styles to encourage collection and deck customization
โHe hit up Hamilton, our CEO, and said, โHey, look, Iโd love to work with you guys. I know you guys can make something great, so Iโd love for Marvel to be a part of that,โโ Brode said. โWorking with [Marvel] has just been unbelievably fun because theyโre not a normal licensor whoโs just doing it for the dollars. These are folks who are from the games industry whoโve been working at Marvel for a really long time, who really, really care.โ
According to Brode, the titular โsnapโ โ whereby a player can increase the stakes of the game with a โdoubling cubeโ โ was an idea that came from the companyโs CEO Hamilton Chu.
โSo we actually just played Hearthstone with a doubling cube,โ Brode said. โSo Hamilton sat behind me and said, โWould you double the stakes this turn? Would you retreat if your opponents doubled the stakes?โ And I was like, โOh my gosh, I think I would double the stakes right now.โ And we felt like it made the game more fun. It added this extra level of deep strategy.โ
I find that the cards are more compelling strategy devices, and with absolutely unheard-of mechanics (like cards that play the game for you), there is no shortage of ways to frustrate and delight your opponent. In fact, one of the best things about Marvel Snap is that it encourages wacky play. I will make the most bone-headed โyoloโ plays just for the hell of it, and the best thing is it often works. โThe ideal situation is where people can have fun and try things, and there isnโt this immense pressure for you to find the right way to play the game,โ said Woo.
Live service CCGs like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering Arena are typically dominated by cycles of content releases. Every time a new set comes out, more powerful cards are released, and decks tend to feature the same handful of cards. With Snap, and particularly its unique location mechanic, itโs harder for a singular strategy to take hold. That, according to Woo, is where a lot of the creativity and innovation of cards and players tend to shine.
โI think it really helps mix things up,โ Woo said. โDay by day, week by week, youโre not supposed to use that one deck that somebody said was the right deck a month ago. Itโs like every day, weโre hoping to create a situation where youโre like, โHey, whatโs the new puzzle that I got to solve?โโ
Image: Second Dinner
Featured locations change every week, allowing players to change up what decks they build and play more often.
Iโm so torn between locations or cards as my favorite singular element of the game. On the one hand, having a Bar Sinister pop-up โ a location that duplicates whatever card you play there until the space is full โ is my favorite. Fill it with the Scorpion card that reduces the attack power of every card in your opponentโs hand by one, and you can ruin someoneโs day. Iโm also really fond of when opponents commit errors against themselves. The developers laughed, delighted when I told them of how opponents would immediately concede the match when they realized that adding an Iron Man โ a card that doubles a locationโs score โ to a space that already has a negative value only makes the value even more negative. (See, those basic math lessons really did come in handy.)
โWhat? You played Yondu on Bar Sinister on turn one? I am out of there,โ said Kent-Erik Hagman, associate design director at Second Dinner. Heโs the person who handles all the design elements of Marvel Snap, from new locations to new cards, and is, therefore, the one responsible for all your Bar Sinister-related frustrations. โAnd then you Killmonger it to clear your Bar Sinister. And then you play Cable on Bar Sinister. And then they have no deck!โ (Writerโs note: this is an extremely situational play and should not be attempted regularly.)
Image: Second Dinner
Putting a Yondu on Bar Sinister is a surefire way to make your opponent rage-quit.
Trading stories about your Marvel Snap shenanigans is one of the ways the game has spread like wildfire. According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, over 3.4 million people have downloaded the game in its first week, and the developers are working on social features to make playing Snap against your friends possible.
โWe are very eager to have some form of friendly match or friendly battle where you can play against your friend or someone streaming,โ said Hagman. โItโs coming soon, hopefully.โ
While Marvel Snap was not designed with esports in mind, the developers hope that with the launch of matchmaking, community tournaments will soon follow. They also shared that they are tracking stats and hope that further down the line, they can add a profile feature where players can take a look at their win records and other useful tidbits of information. A way for players to craft the cards they want but donโt yet have is also being kicked around.
โIโm really excited about that,โ Yong said. โAnd global launch has been really successful, so this is just a beginning.โ
Marvel Snapโs current success was not guaranteed, and Brode shared he was nervous when this endeavor began. โWe were going to spend four-plus years spending money and time and energy on this thing, and I was like, โI hope people like it,โโ he said. โSo itโs a little bit like letting go of a breath Iโve been holding for four years.โ
With excellent design and lightning-quick matches that encourage creativity and risk, Marvel Snap does not merely fit into my life โ it is my life, and Iโm thrilled to continue to let the game have it as long as it wants.