TwistedSpoon Studio

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studios! In the last design article on FUR, the custom magic set about the culture and art of beast folk , we created a set skeleton that incorporated all of the set's themes and mechanics. This week, we're going to start filling out that skeleton with some card-by-card designs. First, though, I have an announcement: FUR finally has a name!     If you're on the  r/CustomMagic subreddit , you can probably figure out exactly when last week's article was written. Back in October, I ran a series of polls to find the best names for each territory (sorry u/Intent!) and, more importantly, the plane of the set! I'll discuss the results in the next worldbuilding article, but for now, all you need to know is that FUR takes place on the plane of Urbestia. This may not come as a surprise-- I updated the name of the index page after the polls-- but there it is.     With that out of the way, the new card file is done, and...

     Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! I'm excited to announce a new miniseries: Designer Talks! Every Wednesday for the month of December, I'll be hosting interviews with experienced game designers and developers who want to share their knowledge with you! You'll find out what inspired them to become designers in the first place, what challenges they've had to overcome, and their advice for becoming a designer yourself. Think of it as TwistedSpoon Studio's Christmas gift to you!       Tune in starting next Wednesday to see what they have to say. Until then, happy Thanksgiving!     

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! We've taken a few weeks off of worldbuilding in our series about FUR, the custom Magic set about the Festival of Beast Folk , but that ends today. Last week, we created a set skeleton to guide our mechanical path; today, we'll be doing something similar with the Creative. We're going to create the proper nouns-- people, places, and things-- that will appear in card names and flavor text.      A little bit of Creative goes a long way.  If you see a card named "Red Dragon," you get that it's big and it's red and it flies. But if you see a card named " Shivan  Dragon," suddenly it feels more real-- it's from a place called Shiv, which apparently has dragons. It's rooted in the world. If you see a card that returns a land card from your graveyard to your hand, you think "Hm, situational utility. Whatever." But if that card's flavor text is a poem comparing the people of Zendikar rising t...

      Welcome back to TwsitedSpoon Studio! Last week in our series on FUR, the custom Magic set about the festival of beast folk , we outlined the cycles that would be in the set. This week, as promised, we will reveal the set skeleton in all its glory!     But... not yet.     First, let's talk about something important: the difference between a set skeleton and a card file. When you're making your own Magic set, it's tempting to start creating cards right off the bat. That path leads only to disaster. A card set is a delicate machine with a lot of moving parts; small changes, especially at low rarities, can throw off the entire balance. In order to make sure that every card is fulfilling a purpose, it's important to step back and look at the overall structure of the set.     Thankfully, most of the hard work is done for you. Mark Rosewater, praise be his name, released an article containing the exact same set skeleton that is given to new de...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Last week in our series about FUR, the custom Magic set about a beast-folk festival , we crunched the numbers to find our set's structure. This week, we're looking at cycles. FUR is about art, culture, and creativity, and the setting is a festival on an island full of anthropomorphic beast folk inspired by the furry fandom; our cycles should reflect all of that. Note that what you see below are proof-of-concept mockups rather than final designs. (And hopefully the images work this time; I didn't realize until too late how broken they were in previous articles. Aaanyway~) Mask Cycle     When we first brainstormed mechanics, we came up with three core pillars of the fandom: Art, Community, and Fursuiting. Vibrant ( If three or more mana were spent to cast this, [effect] ) represents the first, Tradition ( When this creature enters the battlefield, enact a tradition  paired with Tradition: [Effect] ) the second, ...