Marvel Snap, the fast-paced mobile TCG has won Mobile Game of the Year at the DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Awards.
With initials Design, Innovate, Communicate & Entertain spelling out DICE, the awards are not actually associated with the developer of the same name. They’ve been in place since 1998, and celebrated their 26th year this week by dishing out numerous awards to games from across the industry, including to Marvel Snap, the popular mobile TCG based on the Marvel Comics franchise.
Marvel Snap, from developer Second Dinner, was launched late in 2022 and saw blockbuster success by capitalising on the niche for a much more casual TCG experience on mobile. Although some criticised the game’s UA tactics the game has been a fantastic success, utilising many of the more obscure elements of the Marvel comics universe rather than playing safe and sticking to the more widely known MCU films that have dominated the box office for the past decade.
Straight from the Snap
We got the chance to get a quote from some of the developers of Marvel Snap including general manager Brian Francis at the DICE awards, who spoke about winning the award, and the thought that went into the design behind the cards themselves that are based on a variety of Marvel characters.
“When we designed the cards there’s two kinds of directions that we came from, one was top down – ‘oh Spider-Man what would he feel like, what’s a power that really makes him pop, and makes people feel like this is Spider-man?’. And the other way, bottom-up is ‘what does the game need? What’s a mechanic?’ Most cards have some elements of both,” he explained.
“I hope that Marvel Snap has also shown people that mobile doesn’t mean crappy art or crappy sound or crappy visual effects – there’s no cap on the potential of this platform. That opens the eyes of lots of players and that in turn will open the eyes of lots of developers to really be ambitious. So I think the future is really bright with people really pushing expectations, and we’ll have to work hard to fulfil those.”
To incorporate so many niche elements of the Marvel comics canon despite being based on a widely known universe the game was certainly a gamble. However, having easily surpassed 30m downloads and also snapped up Mobile Game of the Year at The Game Awards, it’s clear that Second Dinner’s work paid off.