Marvel SNAP!

[Xev]

I guess you can get this on Steam but otherwise it's a mobile game.

Got a tablet recently for Reasons and it's turned out to be pretty decent gaming machine although it feels like taking a huge step backwards in screensize. Like starting all over again with 14" monitors but even smaller.

The portability of course is the great thing tho and mine seems like a pretty speedy gaming machine for the amount I spent on it even though that's not what I originally got it for.

Anyway, Marvel SNAP!

First of all it's a superhero card game. It probably falls into the easy to learn, harder to master category. The basic object is to score the most points - there's 3 locations to play cards on and winning at least 2 of them wins the game - ties are settled by whoever has the most total points.

One of the things I like best is I can play an entire game in a couple minutes or so - there's timers, so, a game can't run for more than like, I dunno, less than 5 minutes.

My opponents seem to get tougher and have better decks as I move up in levels. Opponent matching up to this point has been pretty good. I've probably played hundreds of games and never have to wait long for an opponent, either. I'm guessing some are bots but I think most aren't. I never remember seeing the same opponent name twice.. I have beaten players who buy cards with real money about as often as I've lost to them - up to this point. Up to this point I have been given, the illusion at the very least, that wins can't be outright bought with cash like in Star Trek Fleet Command, for example. At some point I expect that illusion to be shattered because it seems to be all about the greed in newer FTP/PTW because it seems to prey on people willing/happy to pay a ridiculous amount of cash (car/house payment amounts or more...) for status in a video game. Until then, having fun.

Sometimes there can be an annoying amount of luck involved in the game. There are rules on the 3 locations where cards can be played and those rules change with every game. That does do a good job at adding to the variety too though because no 2 games are the same. You're usually going to play against someone with a different deck as the last person and in a game that has different table rules as the last one.

My favorite card so far is Galacticus.... I just got him recently but he is so OP when I can get him to fire off (and when I can get him in my hand - you don't get every card from your deck into your hand in a single game - I have multiple decks with multiple themes, too, and he only fits into 1 of my current decks) which requires some luck but I've done it multiple times. He must be rare. I must have gotten lucky getting him. No one has ever played him against me. What he does, is, if you play him on a location that has no other of your cards and he has more points than your opponent at that location - he destroys the other two locations and every card at them - and he does it in a mini-video where he crushes the locations as worlds. No other card has this kind of cutscene or makes such a massive game change, lub him. Laugh every time he fires off as I imagine the person on the other side of the 'table' from me, jaw open, mouthing "W...T...F!!" lol

[Thunder Glove]

I love superhero games, but I kinda hate card games.  They're all so luck based.  I can rarely draw the cards I need when I need them, assuming I have them in the first place.

(It gives me flashbacks to Hearthstone, where every single match I'd start off doing great, until I got wrecked because my opponent would whip out some uber-powerful card I never heard of and shred my entire team, even my best cards)

[Xev]

Didn't even know it was going to be a card game. Just saw Marvel and thought hey that looks good. Had I known it was a card game up front I might have passed.

The only card game I ever played that didn't use regular playing cards is Magic. And UNO hehe.. Really liked Magic when it was new but sucked at it. Understood how to play it but couldn't get in the groove and there were so many cards and so many rare cards.

One thing that helps sort cards in SNAP is it has filters for cards that have similar effects which helps when putting together new decks. Starting out with a lot less cards than when playing Magic helps too. Then, when new cards trickle in, it makes more sense what deck to put them in if any because I know my existing cards and how they work together better than when I played Magic.

The matching seems good too. As I progress I play against better and better players with better cards. Win more hands than lose - go up a level eventually and gain a reward for doing it. Lose more hands than win - go down a level eventually. It pretty much always feels like I'm getting a good match. I like that the matches only take a few minutes too.

Only once did I feel like I was a free player going up against a paying player - this person had the pay cards from the last two Battlepasses which is about as far back as my knowledge of the game goes. I beat him, too. I expect the gap to massively widen between me and paying players eventually but so far so good. On the subject of paying - I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the pricing structure but what I've seen of it seems reasonable. 10ish dollar purchases?

There is a tournament type matching style in the game too. One main difference besides gaining a whole new currency is that you play the same person 3(?) times in a row before the win is decided. Been waiting until I feel more comfortable with the game to run these matches but in the few I have run, I won'em all. These matches don't count towards the battlepasses or daily 'quests'. They give their own currency and rewards such as a currency to buy special cards.

Most of the Luck part of the game seems to come more from the Location rules than the cards. There's 3 places to lay down cards and they all 3 usually have different rules such as 'no cards can be played here after turn 5" (that's a tame rule in comparison to many..). The rule choices are Random with every game. There must be maybe a dozen different rules and every few days there is a rule that has the highest chance to appear - this sometimes incentivizes playing different decks to take advantage of that. Daily quests and Battlepass quests sometimes incentivize not playing the same old deck all the time too. New rules are being regularly introduced. It sometimes adds way too much luck component to the game but more often than not just shakes things up to help keep things from being monotonous.

I've played all the other Marvel games I could find in the Google Play store. They were all cool in their own way but ended up deleting all but this one. DC Legends has been my DC pick.

[Xev]

The big official launch for the PC version of Marvel SNAP starts...... today. Should be able to link my phone/tablet/PC to share the same gmail account. I'm guessing there's gonna be a giveaway or two this week.

I'm about to give it a try. Lil' theatrical trailer to mark the start of the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hmPpS4dpqo


-------------------

Downloaded and tried! Yipeee!

Man, games are just better on big screens than tiny tablets and phones. Luv the PC layout! The sound is so much better too. Forgot how much I like the SNAP music.

Can't drag the PC to the stationary bike or.... bio relief station. Tablet will rule there. Otherwise it's PC all the way.

[Xev]

One of my favorite things about this game up to this point is it's not a job.

Ya know?

I'm completely fed up with games that get me on a clock. It becomes a Daily Chore and the more I progress the more clocks I get. Oh and when I'm on the clock every single day I'm not playing for fun - I'm doing mindless, repetitive, tasks to fulfill daily and battle pass quests. When I'm done with that I can play for fun but I generally have to log off when/before the tasks are done. If I don't keep up with the daily clocks I feel like I'm falling behind competitively with other players.

Marvel SNAP, I log in, whenever (generally 30 mins to 2 hours a day and I could skip days if I wanted). Play for fun. Some time before it feels like time to log off my dailies and the battle pass complete themselves. I very mostly only play people near my skill/deck (gear) level which is gradually improving so I feel like I'm progressing. I have no fear whatsoever of falling behind. I play on my schedule and how I want to and the quests complete themselves. There are options, not requirements at all, to progress further, on my schedule, if I have more time to spend in the game (which I never do but I will this winter). If I don't put in the extra time, I still do perfectly well in my bracket. That's.... how ya do it......... I'm still kinda new to the game so I hope it's always like this.

[eabrace]

One of my favorite things about this game up to this point is it's not a job.

That's a HUGE selling point.

[Xev]

Right??!?

I just now completed 3 dailies..... by Losing a hand. I don't even have to win!! Just have to....play.

Well, not usually... Occasionally winning is required to complete a task but unless its like a BattlePass quest from a BP that's about to end there's no rush to complete the task and even if I don't finish a BP it's no tragedy.

A BP quest from day 1 can be completed on the last day. Dailies (2 of these trickle in every 8 hours up to a max of 8 ) can be done in any order and with rare exception an uncompleted Daily will always eventually complete itself without any effort on my part other than.. playing for fun. Weeklies can be completed without finishing all Dailies and not finishing a Weekly is no tragedy.

There are some very minor and very temporary changes in play that will help/are required to complete a small amount of BP quests and Dailies but for the most part just playing for fun completes tasks and the quests just serve to make play more interesting and provide a reason to receive lewt.

There's no mindless, repetitive, grinds. There's clocks but they are very forgiving and if I don't keep to them it's no tragedy and progression can still be steady without feeling like I had any tragic loss in the effort to keep up with the Joneses.

~~~~
Kinda totally unrelated, but, the Art on most of the cards is really good!

They can be upgraded too to add a lil more flair with each upgrade and upgrading the card's appearance gives points for lewt. It's a major part of the game. Card art upgrade points come directly from winning any hand. I think sometimes the best loot in the game (if the RNG gods are merciful) comes from upgrading a card's appearance with enough points. So I get uber loot from guilty pleasure (cosmetic upgrades).