How are Marvel Snap cards designed? Ben Brode breaks down dev process Marvel \/ Second DinnerWhat exactly goes into making a new card for Marvel Snap? With hundreds of variables to account for, game-changing interactions to balance around, and dozens of Locations in the mix, there\u2019s plenty to keep in mind when designing new additions. Ben Brode joined Dexerto to reveal how Second Dinner gets the job done. When it comes to expanding on Marvel Snap\u2019s roster of iconic heroes and villains, it\u2019s not quite as simple as just chucking everyone\u2019s favorites into the lineup right away. Instead, developers at Second Dinner opt for a more considered approach, one that sees just a single new card shaking up the meta with each passing month. This more cautious method of delivery is employed for a number of reasons. On one hand, the team always wants players to expect something fresh with each seasonal update. On the other, they\u2019re keenly aware that dropping too many powerful cards all at once could create an imbalance due to the game\u2019s Collection Level system, wherein, the rarest unlocks are randomly provided at Pool 3. Thus, each new arrival is thoroughly tested long before it goes out into the wild. But just what does that design process look like? How do the devs settle on which new card to implement and when? How does the team keep on top of an ever-growing list of art variants? Chief Development Officer Ben Brode went through it all in a recent conversation with Dexerto. \u2018Top down\u2019 & \u2018bottom up\u2019 cards in Marvel Snap New cards are put forward in one of two ways. All designs in Marvel Snap follow either the \u2018top down\u2019 or \u2018bottom up\u2019 rule, as Brode explained the CCG terms. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of both. \u201cOnce upon a time, card games had the name and the art at the top and the rules text on the bottom. So do you come up with the rules text first, and then figure out what to call the card, or do you come up with the name and the art, then figure out what it would do?\u201d In some instances, characters immediately spring to mind before their potential impact is defined. The likes of Iron Man, Captain America, and even Nightcrawler, were all must-haves from the very beginning of Marvel Snap\u2019s development, meaning the team mostly ran with a top-down approach early on. \u201cSo we\u2019d have the character first, we know we\u2019re gonna make a Nightcrawler card, but what would it do in Marvel Snap?\u201d Brode said. \u201cWe think about the powers of the character, what\u2019s iconic about the character, and design around that.\u201d It\u2019s this methodology that helps a vast majority of Marvel Snap\u2019s cards align with their inspirations. Agatha taking control of your plays fits perfectly with her character. Galactus outright demolishing the board makes complete sense. It all comes from a place of logic and a team wanting to do right by Marvel\u2019s biggest heroes and villains. Though admittedly, it\u2019s not always the case. Every now and then, the desired ability comes first. \u201cSometimes we think, we\u2019ve got a bunch of these super bad villain types, like Red Skull who will help your opponent. They\u2019re evil cards so they\u2019ve got downsides. So what if you wanted to build a deck with a whole bunch of these cards together? Well, we need a card that removes their abilities or turns their downsides into upsides.\u201d In this particular instance, the team had no idea who they could add to fit the description, but they knew exactly what effect they wanted. A card like Zero is a prime example of a bottom-up design. \u201cI didn\u2019t know who Zero was when I first started working on this game. So I would type in \u2018power nullification\u2019 onto the super-powered Marvel wiki, and it would return all of the Marvel characters that had power nullification abilities,\u201d Brode explained. Problem solved. Breaking frames with original artwork Conceptualizing a card is obviously just the beginning of Marvel Snap. Given each comes with its own upgrade path, custom animations, effects on the board, audio cues and voice lines, interactions with other cards, and of course, an assortment of stunning art variants, it takes a great deal of effort to bring them all to life. As a result, Second Dinner has largely looked outward for assistance in handling a bulk of the game\u2019s artwork. While VFX, gameplay systems, and sound design are all controlled in-house, external artists are given the chance to shine in all-new ways thanks to Snap\u2019s variant system. \u201cOur art director Jomaro Kindred had a huge network of incredible artists he started working with,\u201d Brode said of the team\u2019s early days on the project. \u201cAlmost all the art in the game is commissioned from world-class talent who either already worked in comic books or have done incredible work in the past.\u201d Some variants are purely different spins on popular characters while others completely alter their appearance. Be it the Summer Vacation set dropping Doctor Octopus off at the beach, the baby set turning ominous villains into charming toddlers, or the Luchador set giving your strongest heroes a new masked identity, there are hundreds of unique looks in the mix on top of default appearances. Some players even craft their decks around a particular art style, looking to play each card in a particular batch to keep things consistent. \u201cWe\u2019ve been trying to get a really broad variety of different art styles in the game so it\u2019s been really fun working with some artists that have maybe never done comic book art before. It\u2019s really fun to see the Marvel universe through their lens.\u201d As for Brode\u2019s favorites, with a collection level of over 4,000, he has a soft spot for the \u201ccharming\u201d Dan Hipp variants and the Summer Vacation set. Upping the tempo of new card releases For the time being, Marvel Snap\u2019s dev team plans on continuing forward with its current cycle. One new card per season, AKA one new card per month. Though with the arrival of Collector Token just on the horizon, there\u2019s a chance we could see an increase in this pattern in the near future. As it stands, players currently have two options in which to acquire new cards. Either through the Collection Level system, grinding through Pools 1-3 and claiming rewards at random, or through each season\u2019s Battle Pass, manually purchasing one new arrival each month. However, a third method is just around the corner in Collector Tokens. As teased in an earlier development roadmap, these unique Tokens will give players a means of collecting a specific card, rather than having to rely on RNG. A rotating shop will provide a window in which to grab a highly sought-after hero or villain for your arsenal. And while no exact date has been locked in, Brode shared with us that its release is coming \u201csooner than later\u201d and that when it arrives, it could shake up Second Dinner\u2019s plans moving forward. \u201cI think we\u2019ll end up releasing more than one [card] a month at some point,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about Collector Tokens and how we\u2019re gonna add more cards at the end of the road, more really rare cards. People will earn Collector Tokens and use them to buy the cards they really want, they won\u2019t have to rely on randomness. \u201cI think once we have those systems in place, we could do more than one card a month. We could even do one card a week if we wanted to, so we\u2019ll see how it goes. But we have a lot of new stuff we want to try in the next couple of months.\u201d One of those things is obviously the Tokens and although Brode wouldn\u2019t share specifics on how they\u2019re acquired nor how many players will need to purchase a new card, he assured fans will know soon enough. \u201cWe\u2019re working on it right now. It\u2019s probably the highest priority for us now, Collector Tokens and getting new cards into the game. It won\u2019t be anytime in the next couple of weeks, obviously, there are a bunch of holidays in the US we\u2019re working around, so we\u2019re trying to find a good time. But it\u2019s soon, we\u2019re actively working on getting this out there as quick as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How are Marvel Snap cards designed? Ben Brode breaks down dev process Marvel \/ Second DinnerWhat exactly goes into making a new card for Marvel Snap? With hundreds of variables to account for, game-changing interactions to balance around, and dozens of Locations in the mix, there\u2019s plenty to keep in mind when designing new additions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}