The Queue: Oh, snap! (Deep booming laughter edition)

The universe may be in danger, but at least it’ll go out with deep, booming laughter.

That’s not a question, but I definitely wanted to talk about Marvel Snap.

Ben Brode, former Game Director of Hearthstone and “the voice of BlizzCon,” left Blizzard a few years ago to start his own company, Second Dinner. It’s been known for a while that Ben and his team were working on a game for Marvel, and we just got the news that it is, in fact, a card game (like many had been speculating).

Marvel Snap has very little to do with Hearthstone, other than inhabiting the same “digital card game” space. When it comes to gameplay, you’re not trying to place down minions and have them attack your opponent to reduce their HP to zero. Instead, you play assorted Marvel characters (heroes and villains) on three different strategic points, to control them. When the game ends, whoever controls two out of the three locations wins. Action doesn’t happen on direct clashes between units either; rather, they simply add their own power to each location — though they often also have special effects that can bolster their own side, or tamper with the enemy in many ways.

There are other key differences. Turns happen simultaneously — both players’ actions are revealed at the end of the turn, so you never have to wait for your opponent’s turn; you’re always deciding on your actions, back to back. Games are really short — only six turns, or about 3 to 5 minutes. And there’s an interesting element where the reward for each match — Cosmic Cubes — will be doubled on turn six, but can also be doubled two more times by the players themselves with the Snap action, if they’re confident they’re about to win (or if they’re confident in their bluffing skills), making each match potentially cost as many as eight Cubes depending on circumstances.

I’m definitely looking forward to this game, and will be keeping an eye on it. From the brief gameplay video we’ve seen, featuring two matches, it looks like Marvel Snap has incredibly deep mechanics while being very easy to grasp initially — a necessary characteristic for a good game.

I would be remiss not to mention that Kalcheus is thrilled that his dream of seeing Uldaman expanded is finally coming true.

As for me, the storyline that speaks viscerally to my preferences is that of the VanCleefs and the Defias Brotherhood. So I’d like to see that particular thread being unraveled again, ideally with a resolution where Stormwind finally does something concrete to address the damage done by Onyxia and the House of Nobles. Extra points if Vanessa gets her revenge and sails away laughing maniacally.

Congratulations!

My Thursday was fine. Had a rehearsal with the band as we’re preparing to finally play in public again this weekend, after over three years.

Crushed. Saber-toothed tigers are my jam.

The urge to write a lot about this is immense, but I’ll keep it brief: Final Fantasy 6. Its great characters, setting, and story deserved more than the Pixel Remaster it recently got — I’d love to see a proper remake, modernizing it both graphically and mechanically, and with a new take on its soundtrack, which I consider to be the greatest videogame soundtrack ever made.

Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre are up there as well. Rumors are that we’re getting remasters for both, but sadly they probably won’t be in HD-2D.

These rumors are a little flimsy, so I’m not putting much stock into them. That said, assuming they were true, I feel like it would be another neutral race, and that it would be related to some of what we’ve seen in the patch 9.2.5 PTR — which did get an encrypted Splash Screen recently.

We know from previous rounds of testing that there’s a focus on northern Lordaeron (with questlines involving the Blood Elves and Dark Iron Dwarves), and the looming potential of a storyline revolving around Calia and her new place among the Forsaken. The aftermath of the destruction of the Forsaken and Night Elf home cities is still open. And there have been hints of the resurgence of a Dark Ranger-centric storyline as well.

With all of that, if we were to get an extra Allied Race, my money would be on Darkfallen — a race of undead elf-like beings which includes the San’layn, but also the Dark Rangers.

Finished with my camping cause it couldn’t help me with my mind. People think I’m insane because I am /rudeing all the time. All day long I think of rares, but nothing seems to qualify.

So I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want: If you wanna be my rare, you gotta get with my pets (gotta get with my pets).

I’m glad half of us survived the Snap — and now the next Queue is worth double the amount of Cosmic Cubes. Have a good weekend, everyone.