TwistedSpoon Studio

      Open you eyes... what do you see?     Is it...     A vision?     Welcome back, beast folk! Last week, we started worldbuilding for FUR, a custom Magic set about a world of anthropomorphic creatures. We established that medieval wolf folk, Chinese fox folk, Greek dog folk, Celtic cat folk, and Arabian scale folk gather in the neutral City of the Five to partake in a cultural festival each year. This week, we're officially starting the first of the three stages of design.     So, what is Vision Design? This is where we're going to establish the goals of the set in terms of emotional impact and gameplay feel. At the end of this stage, we'll have most of the mechanics and archetypes, as well as a set skeleton-- a rough draft of the final product. If you want to read more about vision design, check out  Mark Rosewater's article here . At Wizards, this stage takes four months, and there's a lot of playtesting, with broad change...

      For the last two weeks, we've been brainstorming mechanics for the custom Magic set FUR, set in a world of anthropomorphic beast folk. This week, we're going to take our first look at what that world looks like.  In exploratory design, we decided that art, community, and crafting matter. We also established that this world is full of diverse beast folk, with five main tribes-- Wolf, Dog, Fox, Cat, and Scale Folk-- taking center stage. Where do diverse groups of people celebrate community and culture?     A convention!     Or, in more fantasy terms, a festival! Leaning into the source material, the set could take pace in a central where folk of all kinds live together in harmony, surrounded by the territories of the five tribes. Once a year, they gather in the City to celebrate their individual and collective cultures. That gives us the "where" and "when;" the details of "who" will come later in the process.     Let's take a look a...

          Last week, we explored mechanics that could represent different elements of the furry fandom. This week, we'll be looking at the different species and carving out mechanical identities for them. In other words, we're going to look for mechanical themes that create an impression of that animal.     First off, let's divvy up the different animals by color. As a reminder, here's a figure from the research article :           Let's ignore Hybrid, Mythical, and Other. Let's also drop Big Cat, Feline, and Canine since they're a little redundant for our purposes; roll Ferret and Squirrel into Rodent, whether that's technically correct or not (bunnies get a pass because I have one; don't @ me); Let's drop Raccoon, Skunk, and Marsupial for now, because they feel a little silly for Magic, but we may revisit; Dinosaur can inaccurately be rolled up with Reptile; and let's drop Insect because they squick some p...

     Last week, I presented the research for FUR, a custom Magic: the Gathering set about a world of anthropomorphic characters inspired by the furry fandom. This week, we're exploring design space to find mechanics and themes that will fill out the set. The two main takeaways from last week's research were a list of popular fursona species and activities associated with the fandom. For a refresher, you can find that article here . Fursonas      Fursonas are more than just anthropomorphic characters-- they are specific, personal creations that represent some aspect of their creator or their ideal self. Fursonas are characters that people identify with.       There are several approaches that we could take to represent fursonas. The first is something we're already doing: providing a wide variety of anthropomorphic creatures. This gives players the opportunity to pick their favorites to play with. This works especially well at common...

    Last week, I introduced FUR, a custom set for Magic: the Gathering . I also said that this week would mark the start of Vision, but that's actually skipping a very important step. So instead, this article will briefly explain the stages of Magic: the Gathering design and present some research that will be important to designing the set itself.     Magic design is formally broken up into three stages: Vision, Integration, and Refinement. In practice, each of these stages takes roughly four months and is performed by a different team. The Vision stage establishes the mechanical focus of the set, defines the emotional resonance that the set is aiming for, and takes a rough pass at the set. The Integration stage cleans up the rough draft, tweaking mechanics and draft themes as well as filling out the high-rarity cards. The Refinement stage optimizes the set, fine-tunes the flavor, and make any last-minute changes needed to address possible issues. Note that...