TwistedSpoon Studio

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio!  Every other Monday, we discuss thoughts on game design, ranging from ideas and advice to analysis of published games. With Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty on the horizon, this week is going to be the latter.       We're going all the way back to 2004 to break down Champions of Kamigawa, the first entry into one of the worst-received Magic sets of all time. But was Kamigawa really so bad? And if it was, why is Wizards returning? We're going to analyze the set's themes and mechanics to see if we can answer that question. Themes     Kamigawa is a top-down plane of Japanese folklore. In order to capture that flavor, Wizards focused on two main themes: Legendary and Spirits. Legendary: 1.33 per pack ASFAN 10 uncommon, 60 rare     Every creature at rare was Legendary, as well as a cycle of lands, a handful of artifacts, and two cycles at uncommon. On average, that's a Legendary card in every pack! So the theme was a hit, right?       Well, no.

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a world of beast-folk, we're hitting a pretty big milestone: The end of Vision Design! Vision Design on FUR started September 25th; Wizards of the coast gets four months for this stage, and this is the limitation I've been working under as well. With that being said, it's finally that time! The flavor text says it all. The Handoff     What does that mean for the set, for the blog, and for you?     For starters, it means that you finally get to see the Vision Design Handoff Document ! This doc contains a condensed version of all of the design we've done so far . The tribes, mechanics, set structure, archetypes-- it's all there. That even includes a few things that I haven't talked about here yet, like uncommon and rare cycles and a fourth (minor) mechanic. I highly recommend reading it if you're interested in creating your own custom set and d

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's the Workshop Wednesday, our weekly deep-dive into the custom Magic design process, and this week we're breaking all the rules. Well, maybe not; but we are breaking some chains:      Unchain is an activated ability that goes on creatures, allowing them to deal combat damage equal to their toughness rather than their power. This effect has been around forever, but Unchained is my attempt to keyword it in a form that could be printed on more cards.      I love this style of card-- it feels like you're getting away with something when your cheap walls suddenly turn into giant battlecruisers. I'm also a sucker for Wall themes, like Rise of the Eldrazi's Vent Sentinel deck or Return to Ravnica's Axebane Guardian deck. So why doesn't Unchain have anything to do with walls or defender? The short answer is, I tried that:       As it turns out, the design space is pretty limited. Defenders slow down the game without d

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Mondays are for Musings, and this week it's a hot one. Games are made to be played, so the only way to know if it's any good is to play it. Preferably a lot. Like, a lot a lot. So how do you make that happen? How do you get anyone, let alone a lot of people, to play an unfinished game?     Well, my answer is, I don't know. Playtesting has been a huge stumbling block for me in the past, and is one of the main reasons that I've never tackled a project like this one before.  So in classic TwistedSpoon Studio spirit, why don't we learn together? I'm going to try something, and we'll find out if it works. Are you ready?     This Saturday, January 29th, at 12pm Central/1pm Eastern, we're opening up play testing for Festival of Urbestia! The format will be Pauper Sealed: Players will receive six packs of commons from Festival of Urbestia via Planesculptors . Build a deck with a minimum of 40 cards from their pool in Co

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Last week in our series on FUR , the custom Magic set dedicated to the beast folk of the plane of Urbestia, we discussed top-down tropes that would establish the flavor of the plane. This week, I want to come at it from the other angle-- starting from the bottom level with the mechanics, let's take another pass at the archetypes and draft structure. Mechanics     One of the challenges of designing a set is hitting the right level of complexity. Early on in a design, too much complexity can obscure underlying problems. For this reason, the New Year take on FUR seeks to simplify. We're keeping the same mechanics, but we're cutting back on colors-- outside of cycles, each mechanic will only appear in one or two colors: White: Vibrant Blue: Crafting Black: Treasure Red: Crafting Green: Vibrant     With Vibrant as a diversity mechanic, it makes sense in White as the color of community, and Green as the color of acceptance. Crafting fits b

      Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's Wednesday my dudes, and that means the Workshop is open. This week, we're getting into the trenches with some top-down military designs featuring the custom Backup mechanic:     Backup is an alternate-cost mechanic that can go on any non-land card type. (Well, technically... no, we're not getting into that again.) If you played Battle for Zendikar, you might recognize this mechanic:     Personally, I think Surge was a great mechanic. It lets you "combine" spells into a one-two punch, and you can even cooperate with your teammate in some formats. (I'm a sucker for Two-Headed Giant sealed deck, so I may be biased there.) Backup is more limited-- it only cares about creatures, and only your own-- but it's meant to allow you to break timing restrictions (like Miracle does) if you get clever with it.     That being said, it's a pretty simple mechanic. I suspect that the feedback wouldn't have been as overwhelmi

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week, rather than talking about designing games, we'll be deconstructing one to see how it ticks. In this case, Magic: the Gathering; more specifically, the recent set Innistrad: Crimson Vow .      Before we get into this, yes-- I consider Magic expansions to be independent games. Trying to analyze the entire game of Magic  is a fool's errand; however, while the various sets are interconnected, they are also explicitly designed to be played individually in a format called Limited. In Limited, you get some number of booster packs-- three for drafts, or six for sealed pool-- and you build a deck on the spot. Limited is much more constrained in its scope, allowing for a more curated experience. (If you follow this blog, you probably already know all of this; if not, just know that I'm a Limited junkie and that's not changing any time soon.) Mechanics     To start, let's take a look at Crimson Vow's mechanics. Innistrad

      Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! Last week in our series on Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a beast-folk festival, we established a new direction for the set. This week, we're going to explore evocative tropes to make our creatures feel like the animals that they're based on. We're also going to dig into festival/convention tropes, though they're going to take a back seat this time around. Vizier of the Menagerie by Victor Adame     Before we start, keep in mind that every set needs to do something new to stand out. One way to do that is with structure-- look at Ravnica, with its ten-color-pair factions, or Alara with its triad factions; Scars of Mirrodin block plays with asymmetrical factions, with Mirrodin Besieged split 50/50 between the Mirrans and Phyrexians. One of the most common structural features is the association between creature types and colors-- elves are green, goblins are red, merfolk are blue, so on and so forth. Some sets use tw

      Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! Today is Wednesday, which mean's we're pulling back the curtain and letting you see inside the Workshop. (Well, more specifically, my brain, but that's a less inviting image. Unless you're really into medical dramas, I guess. I digress.)      One of the earliest fantasy series that I ever fell in love with was The Chronicles of Prydain . When I was growing up, my dad had a single black tome containing all five books by Lloyd Alexander, plus the book of short stories that followed. Inspired by Welsh mythology, it has everything you need-- a magical princess, an evil lord of the undead, and of course, an oracular pig.       Okay, maybe that last one isn't exactly a mainstay of the genre, but there's always some  sort of prophecy going on. Maybe there's an oracle in a cave, or a witch in the woods, or a royal wizard in their tower; whatever form they take, there's usually someone or something there to tell us that the w

    Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's another Monday, and that means another Musing. If you're reading this blog, odds are you're into Magic; and in that case, odds are that you know that Richard Garfield, creator of Magic, has a PhD in mathematics. ( Specifically, his BS was in computer mathematics and his PhD was in combinatorial math. ) And you can bet that a strong understanding of math is a huge boon when it comes to designing games. Golden Ratio by Alix Branwyn     So, do you need a PhD in math to design games? Not at all. Mark Rosewater, the lead designer of Magic for two decades or so, studied communications and aspired to be a screenwriter. Matt Leacock, designer of the Pandemic board game, got his degree in visual communications. Gary Gygax, the father of modern gaming , only attended junior college before starting his career as a game designer.     That being said, your game probably has numbers in it, and it's easier to work with numbers when you know a m

       Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! With a new year comes a new approach to Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set about a diverse city of beast folk. We're going to revisit the mechanics and world with fresh eyes.     Let's start with the set's Vision: Make Urbestia a world of beast folk Put diversity front and center Let players choose how to express themselves Capture key elements of community, art, and self-expression     The world is full of beast folk, but they don't really feel  like beast folk. They feel like every other creature in Magic, but with a different type line. To address that, we're going to use flavorful tropes and associations to make them feel like the animals that they're supposed to be. Wolves howl at the moon. Dogs like to dig holes. Cats always land on their feet. Whereas the previous approach was top-down festival with beast folk sprinkled in, this attempt will be more top-down animals with festival tropes sprinkled in.     The

    Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! This is the first Workshop Wednesday article, where we'll be making a custom Magic card and sharing our thought process throughout the design. This week, we're kicking things off with a controversial design:     Look familiar ?     But, would you be surprised to learn that Arbor Dryad was not  the inspiration for this card? No, that humble Forest Dryad was but a vessel; the actual impetus reaches much further back, all the way to Legends.     Legends was a Magic set released in 1994 that introduced several new features to Magic-- among them, Legendary creatures (then just called "Summon Legends") and multicolor cards.     That's not all, though. Legends also brought us... these:     Now, you might be making some assumptions about this card. For example, that maybe it has a hidden ability to make mana. It does not. Or that it does anything at all. It does not. Legends introduced lands that produced no mana in exchange for "