TwistedSpoon Studio

      Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Every Monday we bring you Musings on game design, and this week, we're talking about resource systems. Every game has them, whether they appear to or not. Resource systems fall into two broad categories: Implicit and explicit.     Consider Yu-Gi-Oh for a moment. Your goal is to reduce your opponent's life points to zero by summoning and attacking with Monsters. You summon Monsters by playing them from your hand onto the field once per turn.     Now consider Magic: the gathering. Your goal is to reduce your opponent's life to zero by casting and attacking with creatures. You cast creature spells by tapping lands to produce mana, which you spend to pay their mana cost.     That's the difference between implicit and explicit resource systems. In an implicit resource system, you have a hard limit to what you can do-- summon one Monster a turn, take four actions per turn, attach one Trainer item per turn,...

      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! 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! 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!  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 ...

     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 ...

    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...

     Welcome to TwistedSpoon Studio! This is the first article in a series I'm calling Monday Musings, where I ramble about whatever game design topic is on my mind and, hopefully, turn it into practical advice for you. This week, the topic is work flow. When you're approaching a new project, it can be daunting to figure out where to start. Every designer has their own methods, but there are some best practices that apply to any project. Below I'm going to outline my own process, but don't take it as set in stone-- feel free to adjust it for your own needs and the needs of your game. Time Sieve by Franz Vohwinkel Pre-Design     Pre-design is exactly what it sounds like-- it's all the stuff you have to do before you start designing proper. For my money, this process has three broad steps: Exploration, Research, and Planning.     The order of the first two steps will vary depending on whether your project is top-down or bottom-up. For a top-down design (...