Marvel Puzzle Quest Gets In On The 80th Anniversary Festivities – Talking With Joe Fletcher
by James Ferguson
As a lapsed player of Marvel Puzzle Quest, I was intrigued by what D3 Go! had in store as the mobile game head into its sixth anniversary, coinciding with the 80th birthday of Marvel Comics. I had a chance to speak with D3 Go! Producer Joe Fletcher to hear about what was coming up. I’ve since re-downloaded the game and have been obsessively playing it every day.
James Ferguson: How has the game evolved over the past six year?
Joe Fletcher: Every couple of weeks we introduce new characters into the game. By doing that, it evolves the meta constantly. The game is quite a bit more complex in general with new mechanics changing how characters interact with the puzzle board. With new story events and new ways of doing them, like boss battles and alliances, the game has gotten a little larger with how players use it.
About a month and half ago, we redid the game engine from the ground up. It was going on six years so things were getting a little creaky. We upgraded it and made things a little snappier and better for players. We have plans for other features to improve in the future.
James Ferguson: Do you weave in story elements from the comics? Was there a Civil War in Marvel Puzzle Quest?
Joe Fletcher: We bring in elements from the comics, the movies, and we also do our own storyline too. The game started with our own take on the Dark Reign storyline which is now a few years back. Since then, we’ve continued that story on our own, but we also added in things like Captain Marvel earlier this year. We did a story based on some of the pieces from the film, but told a different story. When something like Spider-Man: Far From Home comes out, we decide to do a boss battle against Hydro Man and things like that. We put our own spin on things so we don’t directly tell the story right from the comic. People have read that. If they want to find out about it, they can read that.
James Ferguson: Aside from having the Marvel Universe at your finger tips, how does this stand out from other match-three games out there?
Joe Fletcher: Puzzle Quest itself has been around for about thirteen years now. We’ve gone through multiple iterations. Every time we make a new Puzzle Quest game, we change the formula a little bit. Each version differentiates itself with its own genre and other puzzle games. With Marvel Puzzle Quest, we looked at the universe. What do people do here? They beat each other up. With the original Puzzle Quest, you had to be a little more strategic to deal damage. Here, you’re dealing damage with every match and using special abilities.
James Ferguson: As you head into the sixth anniversary of Marvel Puzzle Quest, what else can fans expect?
Joe Fletcher: We have Spider-Man 2099 coming out tying into some of Marvel’s 80th anniversary storylines. We had actually wanted to bring 2099 into the game a few months back, but they asked us to wait a little bit. We also have a story event with him that’s based around the character trying to save the future, but also harkens back to some of the earlier events that players have really enjoyed. For example, there’s a story version of the Civil War event, which is normally a boss battle. Doctor Doom is trying to take out Iron Man and Captain America before they can escalate things so Miguel has to go back and fix it.
There are also some other anniversary stuff that we do every year, like the “Class of” events, that highlights the characters that came out during that year. We have plans for new features, including one that I can’t quite talk about yet, coming next month that should help players get covers a little faster and get who they want a little easier. New characters, new story, and more.
Marvel Puzzle Quest is available now on the Apple Appstore and Google Play Store. Comicon would like to thank Joe Fletcher for taking the time to speak with us.
