by Matthias Cramer

The Birth of a Skirmish

In 2023, Lookout Games asked me whether I'd like to re-implement Fight for Olympus for the Marvel IP — and I did.

At first glance, one might assume that Greek mythology and the Marvel universe are worlds apart. However, there are many parallels and borrowed elements, and the separation between good and evil opened up possibilities for designing the game asymmetrically.

A Ton of Differences

First, ten years have passed between the development of that earlier game and MARVEL: Skirmish! In New York. During that time, I developed several two-player games with direct interaction, such as Watergate, The Hunt, and Lenin's Legacy — all of which taught me a lot about direct player interaction, especially via timing and momentum. If your opponent builds up a threat against you, you can react immediately and neutralize that threat, or you can build up a bigger threat that your opponent has to react to, causing them to abandon their original plan.

Second, Fight for Olympus has a card payment system that I would not have designed in the same way today. Because everything had to be paid for in exact colors, players were far too restricted in their choice of plays. In MARVEL: Skirmish! In New York, card costs are more flexible, which gives you more options to play the cards you need in the current situation.

Playtesting Plants vs. Animals

I had to sign an NDA for this project, so the prototype needed a different theme that I could use to test the new mechanisms. As every other game seems to have a nature theme these days, I decided to have some fun and let animals battle against plants – with the plants being the bad guys. I can say that the Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) is a fierce enemy...

In late 2024, the Essen board game café Roll & Dine opened exclusively for us on a day off for the final test. We played many games with TCG players to get a good feel for the balance. If you're attending SPIEL this year, be sure to drop by and visit them...

The Rebirth of Heroes and Villains

Both players (heroes and villains) now have their own deck. Instead of the many different heroes in Fight for Olympus, each side now has only twelve heroes and villains — with multiple copies of each card and in two variants.


Each character can be in play only once, but you may replace one version of the character with another version for free, healing the hero/villain in the process. This creates a lot of additional possibilities and dilemmas, e.g., do you want to replace the strong version of a character with the weak one because you can heal it that way?

Asymmetry

While both sides fight for artifacts and various locations, the objectives on each side of the board vary greatly. The villains can collect victory points and slowly move the marker toward sudden death; the heroes, on the other hand, rescue civilians who can help them play cards. In short, there are a lot of potential threats on both sides.


The artifacts and locations come into play from a deck of their own to make the game more variable. The artifacts, in particular, bring powerful abilities and leave their mark on the game — or to put it another way: playing against an opponent with "Norn Stones" is a hard job!

Matthias Cramer

P.S. Rules are available in English and in German on Lookout's website.