My problem with poker video games is the same as I have with digital recreations of board games: the appeal of execution mechanics is a huge part of why I get into video games, and it’s exactly why poker is played do not do it for me.
See, most games of cards have the details of the moves already determined. The complexity of each movement is predetermined. Your job is to make decisions; deciding which cards to play, which cards to discard, and which cards get into the deck you bring in.
There is certainly value in having some power to influence outcomes, but you can only do so from a distance. I want to be the one who throws the punch, fails a block and takes a hit. I wanted to do something that a deck of cards I bought at the train station couldn’t do.
Or so I thought. While I’ve long held that belief, and largely still do, I can’t deny that two of my favorite games this year have been… Solitaire.
Based on my iPhone’s screen time, I average 1 hour and 11 minutes per day surprise snapshot game time. Can’t track overall playtime, but I know I started playing the game about a week after its official release. You can do the math from there.
Marvel Snap is a card collecting game, and there’s no other way to describe it. You’re meant to grow your card collection, which opens up new ways to play for you, which in turn lets you create different decks for different strategies. That’s it, that’s the whole game.
It’s a card game that has everything I claim I don’t like, but I’ve completed the battle pass and reached a collection level of 743 (very high). Next to Marvel Snap is a shortcut for Diablo Immortal, and I’m ready to enjoy more games.
It’s a franchise I love, and it plays just fine on my phone. Like Snap, Immortal also has cross-play and cross-progression with PC. Even if the PC version sucks, I can easily switch between the two platforms when I need to, just like with a Snap.
However, only one of these two is draining my battery every day. I can’t explain why I’m more willing to try card games now. There has been no shift in my perspective (as far as I know) and I haven’t had any profound mind-altering therapy or anything – even this year I started playing (and enjoying) Fortnite.
I know that whenever card games show up in my recommendations on Steam, I still ignore them, so I don’t suddenly become a CCG hound. I’m not going to play Slay the Spire as soon as I finish writing it. But I can probably guess why it was the Marvel Snap that broke my defenses.
Marvel Snap is an apt title for this game. When you know you have a better chance of winning, you can take it, which is essentially a form of betting. But the word also signifies the speed at which the game is played.Like a satisfying pop or pop, it grabs your attention just long enough It’s fun, but knowing you’ll start your day after the rush has dissipated.
It’s this knack of getting you hooked briefly before letting go that makes Marvel Snap so easy to pick up when you have five minutes or so. Neither its game loop nor its busy work outside of the game goes beyond those boundaries. This is Hearthstone, and it’s all over again.
This trust ultimately allowed me to return “safely” on a regular basis. I know things aren’t going to get out of hand, they’re just getting more and more interesting while staying in the same pot I already know how to handle – which is exactly what I want from a mobile gaming experience.
midnight sun is another Marvel game that I also fell in love with. It has cards, many of the same heroes, and some generic mechanics that can be skipped easily.
If it’s hard for me to get away with the behavior of, well, not being the perpetrator of behavior in a mobile game, it’s going to be an even harder pill to swallow in a big-budget PC/console game.
But, with 2022’s desperate lack of blockbusters, I once again find myself engaged beyond even my desire to see Midnight Sun. The reason is simple, Midnight Suns is more than just a card game. It’s effectively a BioWare role-playing game, where you spend most of your time making friends, chatting with heroes, and exploring environments that expand as you grow in knowledge and power.
Cards only actually appear when you leave base to go into battle. That’s when another major part of the game takes center stage. Yes, your goal is to collect cards, assemble decks, and pray that the cards you’re dealt don’t screw you up — all standard tropes.
However, the Midnight Suns version doesn’t play as well as you might expect. The action unfolds in arenas rather than predetermined lanes or linear timelines like you know from XCOM. Turn Limit is now a card game, and the cards themselves move freely and reposition your heroes.
What makes the flow of combat more fun than a card game is that most of the mechanisms that these games don’t give you with complexity are intact in this one. You don’t just use a card for its intended effect, you use the environment itself to find a new context for said effect.
The way each card moves the hero has a big impact on the next one you play, the animation/direction can determine whether it knocks some mobs off the stage, throws them against the wall, or lines them up for a more spectacular thing.
Despite my horror at them, each of these two card games appealed to me in ways I didn’t expect. So yes, card games suck, but maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to see them as a mess.
