TwistedSpoon Studio

      Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week we're back with another Monday Musing, and this one is near and dear to my heart: the One-Hour Game Jam. It's exactly what it says on the tin. That's all for this week!   The Tin     Okay, maybe there's a little more to say about it. The One-Hour Game Jam is not a competition, so much as a game design exercise. You have one hour to make a playable game. Notice that I said "playable." I didn't say "great," "perfect," or "Spiel des Jahres." You're aiming for minimum viable product-- think of whatever you end up making as a rough sketch of a game.     This whole practice is inspired by the podcast Unplaytested . The premise is simple: every week, they make an RPG in an hour, based on a randomly selected theme. It's a master course in building games fast and loose, and it's well worth a listen.     When you have an idea for a game, it's easy to fixate on it. What ar...

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! This week in our series on Festival of Urbestia, the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, our story-boarding is coming to an end. Or is this only the beginning? The Circle of Life     In the first article of this creative push, we hinted at a darker secret behind the world of Urbestia-- a mystery for our heroes to unravel. That secret (surprise!) is a fourth Eldrazi titan. But why is there a four-dimensional horror from beyond the stars at our cheery little Festival?     I have a fan-theory about the Eldrazi. Back in Battle for Zendikar block, Ugin warned the Gatewatch against destroying the titans Ulamog and Kozilek. His reasoning was that they are colorless just like he is-- well, okay, maybe not. He was afraid that their deaths would somehow disrupt whatever meta-planar ecosystem begot the titans in the first place.     So my theory is this-- the Eldrazi don't just eat  planes, they recycle...

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Today we're talking custom design, and to continue the sci-fi theme of the last few articles, today we're talking power suits. Inspired by space sci-fi from Halo to Warhammer 40K, this cycle is intended for a hypothetical Commander preconstructed product. Gear Up     Suits are a new artifact subtype that acts like equipment, but attaches to players. The Don ability allows you to attach a suit to a player-- any player-- at sorcery speed. Each of the suits in today's cycle also has an enters-the battlefield ability.     While it may not seem strictly necessary, the etb-effects are actually what makes this work. After all, if you want an artifact that gives you abilities, those already exist: they're called artifacts. Putting those extra effects behind a cost begs the question, why not just make them more expensive?     Thanks to these spell-like effects, these go from artifacts with extra steps, to spel...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Last week, we analyzed the named mechanics in the latest Magic set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty . This week, we're taking it a step further.        I've said it several times now, but NEO has a lot going on. A lot . On top of 7 to 8 named mechanics ( depending on how you slice 'em ), there are enchantment creatures, colored artifacts, tribal themes, and more. All in all, this analysis covers 36 different factors. And on top of that , it's all broken down by color and rarity.     You can find the results here!       There are four sheets: one with raw numbers, one with ASFANs, one with the average number per draft pool ( 24 packs ), and one with the average number per sealed pool ( 6 packs ). The final set of columns shows the totals across all columns. As a note, I didn't count Sagas or tokens in the creature counts; for the former, most of this analysis was performed by eye ...

    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 setting up Creative elements in-between playtesting the set (you can learn more about that  here ). Last week we talked about the lovable rascals that the audience will be rooting for; this week, we're talking bad guys. The "Bad Guys"     When we first started talking about the story , we introduced the idea of an Eldrazi as the big twist villain of the set. That's not what we're talking about this week. ( Sorry! ) Instead, we're going to look at the rare Legends who bridge the A-plot and the B-plot.     Much like the uncommon Legends , these antagonists are more grounded. They're village elders, community leaders, authority figures; they're not standing in our heroes' way out of malice, but from a place of duty and tradition. After the big twist, they may even turn about-face and become allies to the...

    Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's not Monday, but we're still Musing about the latest and greatest addition to everyone's favorite multimedia franchise. That's right, this week we're talking about Pokemon Legends: Arceus!  Well, okay, maybe not. You read the title, right?   Themes and Structure     Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is all about the conflict between old and new, tradition and technology, history and progress. This mirrors not only the desire to reinvent a world that R&D viewed as a failure for decades, but also a genuine tension in Japanese culture. Having maintained isolation from the rest of the world for centuries, Japan was essentially dragged into the industrial revolution in the 1850s; over the next hundred-and-fifty years, Japan would leap from medieval to modern at a dizzying pace.     This theme is represented in the set via artifacts and enchantments. Of course, you can't do a set based on Japan without Samurai and N...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Monday is when we talk about game design, and this week, we're talking Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty!     Except we're not doing it today because, well, life gets in the way. It was ambitious to try to put up the set analysis before the set was sortable and searchable in Gatherer. NEO is a chunky set with a lot  going on under the hood, so I really want to do it justice.       That being said, I have other obligations that prevented me from giving this set the time it deserves this week. So what we're going to do is a two-parter. Part one is going up on Wednesday, and it'll be the format that you're used to-- discussing the themes, ASFANs and breakdowns of all the major mechanics, comparisons to other set mechanics, et cetera. Part two will drop next Monday, with a much meatier mathematical breakdown of all the moving parts.      Thank you all for understanding, and I'm sorry for droppin...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Festival of Urbestia, the custom Magic set about a world of beast folk, is currently  going through playtesting .  While that's going on, we're continuing our series with a creative push.       Last week we covered the overarching plot-- something fell to Urbestia long ago that accelerated the evolution of beasts; a Festival is held every year to celebrate that event, and the Story Circle is here to learn more. There's mystery, ancient secrets, and an eldritch force lurking just beyond sight.     But today, we're looking at the small stuff. We need something grounded and down-to-earth for players to identify with and to set the tone, so that the big plot twist hits that much harder. To that end, the set has a cycle of uncommon Legendary creatures that act as B-plot protagonists.  Meet the Band     Originally, I wanted these characters to represent the Big Five tribes, but ran...

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! It's Wednesday, which means we're workshopping custom Magic designs. With Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty on the horizon, there's no better time to talk about cyber punk. Inspired by novels like Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep and  Neuromancer , and movies like Bladerunner  and Ghost in the Shell , the cyberpunk genre is about two main elements: cyber (digital technology) and punk (anti-establishmentarianism).      Magic already has a Revolt mechanic, so today we're doing the other one. In meat space, I actually work in information technology, so I was very much looking forward to some sort of digital mechanic in NEO-- data, hacking, the Metaverse, anything long those lines. Instead, WotC focused on the transhumanist side of the genre, highlighting body modifications. To fill that gap, I tried a couple of different approaches:         The first was a rather literal take a data manipulatio...

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Last week in our series on Festival of Urbestia , the custom Magic set dedicated to anthropomorphic beast folk, we finished Vision Design with the Vision Handoff document . While we take the time to playtest the set , we're going to step back from design and put on our Creative hat. A while back, I promised that we would get into the story once we hit the Integration stage. Well, here we are!     Magic's stories tend to revolve around planeswalkers. And if we're talking about planeswalkers in a world of beast folk, then of course it's got to be the lion man himself: Ajani Goldmane.     Of course, he can't be the only one up on the stage, right? Thankfully, he's got some friends who might be willing to come with him to the Festival-- The Story Circle!  Okay, maybe Tamiyo's book club hasn't gotten as much press as certain other planeswalker team-ups, but that makes this casual group of story-swapping travel...