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The Mechanics of Magic

The Mechanics of Magic

Game Design Writings by Students at Stanford taking 247G and 377G

  • Library
    • CS247G Community Game Design Resources
    • Game Design Resources
    • Graphic Design for Game Designers
    • Graphic Design Resources
    • Chapter 11 from Game Balance
  • Read Write Play
    • Hollow Knight: RWP 4 2023
    • Mystic Messenger: RWP 6 2023
    • Undertale: RWP 3 2023
    • What Remains of Edith Finch: RWP 5 2023
    • Catan: RWP1 2023
    • 80 Days: RWP 2 2023
  • 247G Syllabus
    • The Formal Elements of Game Design
    • Design for Play | Week One | Lecture A
    • Design for Play | Week One | Lecture B
    • Design for Play | Week Two | Lecture A
    • Design for Play | Week Two | Lecture B
    • Design for Play | Week Three | Lecture A
    • Design for Play | Week Three | Lecture B
    • Design For Play | Week Four | Section A
    • Design For Play | Week Four | Section B
    • Design for Play | Week Five | Class A
    • Design for Play | Week 5 | Class B
    • Design for Play | Week 6 | Class A (no class)
    • Design for Play | Week 6 | Class B
    • Design for Play | Week 7 | Class A
    • Design for Play | Week 7 | Class B
    • Design for Play | Week 8 | Class A
    • Design for Play | Week 8 | Lecture B
  • Serious Play Study Group Overview
    • Study Group Week by Week Breakdown
      • Formal Elements of Games
      • Final Reflection Essay
    • [Optional Material] What is fun?
    • Project 1: Those Who Play, Teach
      • READING Visual Design of Board Games
      • Pitch Your Teaching Game
      • Sketchnote: Playtesting Boardgames
      • Sketchnote: Erin Hoffman // Wind, Not Sand: Mapping Dynamic Emotion Across a Product Landscape
      • SketchNote: MDAO
      • Critical Play: Write up your game of FLUXX
      • [Optional Material] Playtesting
      • OPTIONAL Board Game Usability
    • P2: The Future We Deserve
      • Critical Play: A Mechanic and a Story to Tell
      • Interactive Fiction: Tiny Playable Prototype
      • Introducing Interactive Fiction
      • Map and Premise
      • Critical Play: Story AND Storytelling games
      • Essay or Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters
      • Sketchnote: Art of game design- Story
      • [Optional Material] Emergence and Progression
      • Essay or Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters
      • Project 2 Reflection Essay
      • Share what you Learned: Writing Excuses Podcast
      • Values at Play & P2 Peer Grading
    • P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
      • P3 Concept Doc
      • Playable prototype
      • Working With System Dynamics (mindmap the reading, apply it to your game)
      • Mapping Systems
      • Sketchnote/Response for Rules & Tutorials
      • Project 3 Check-in
      • Project 3 Reflection Essay
    • P4: Refine a game
      • Sketchnote/Response for Playtesting with Strangers
      • Read: Mechanic is the Magic
  • On Sketchnotes
  • Printing at Stanford

Critical Play–Bluffing, Judging, and Getting Vulnerable

July 3, 2026

Hi! For this critical play, I experimented with a social deduction game called “Secret Hitler”. In this game, players are forced to decide which…

Critical Play – Getting Vulnerable – Owen Sample

July 3, 2026

Part 1: Perception In the modern era of superficiality and perfect Instagram posts, We’re Not Really Strangers (WNRS) feels like the perfect thing to…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

July 2, 2026

Secret Hitler: My Reflection on Trust, Power, and Human Nature I played Secret Hitler for the first time during Monday’s office hours. Because the…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable – Cards Aginst Humanity (Clare)

July 2, 2026

Required Criteria: Target audience, name of the game, game’s creator, platform of the game. Target Audience: Adults (Young ones preferably) Game’s Creator: Created by a…

Sketchnote: What Games Are and Aren’t

July 2, 2026

Aksel – Weapons Drawn – Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

July 2, 2026

  In Jackbox Party Pack 8, on laptop/mobile, Weapons Drawn is a bluffing game where players draw murder weapons, create guests/accomplices and both commit…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

July 2, 2026

Developed by the American game studio Innersloth, Among Us is a 2018 online multiplayer social deduction and bluffing game. Targeting primarily casual gamers, teens,…

Mindmap: Formal Elements

July 2, 2026

We’re Not Really Peers

July 2, 2026

We’re Not Really Peers A critical play of We’re Not Really Strangers We’re Not Really Strangers (WNRS) is a viral card game marketed to…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable… – Nicholai K.

July 2, 2026

This week, I played Blood on the Clocktower for the first time. Designed by Steve Medway and released by The Pandemonium Institute, the game…

Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

July 2, 2026

The game I’ve been playing these past few days is Spyfall, which is a very interesting game. The rules of this game are very…

Critical Play: Among Us

July 2, 2026

For this critical play assignment, I chose Among Us, a game I had played before but never seriously reflected on. Although I was already…

Critical Play- Cards Against Humanities, a judging game

July 2, 2026

For this weeks critical play I chose Cards Against Humanities. I played it with a group of friends I have been a part of…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable – Marcus Polson

July 2, 2026

Coup is a game all about bluffing. Created by Rikki Tahta and originally published by La Mame Games, it only gained popularity upon a…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging, and Getting Vulnerable – Willow Azevedo

July 2, 2026

For the bluffing, judging, and getting vulnerable critical play, I played Wavelength. Wavelength is an analog party game that requires 2+ people; and was…

Critical Play: Spyfall

July 2, 2026

I chose to play Spyfall, which is a social deduction game meant for a group of 3-8 in which everyone is given a role…

Learning to Play Closely: Undertale

July 2, 2026

I game that I’ve played a bit of (admittedly maybe not enough to fully understand) is Undertale. It is structured like many RPG games…

Critical Play: We’re Not Really Strangers

July 2, 2026

“How do we foster communication?” We’re Not Really Strangers, a purpose-driven card game created in 2018 by Koreen Odiney, is a card game for…

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun: Pokémon GO

July 2, 2026

A game that I really like is Pokemon GO, since it lets you feel like you’re exploring the world and collecting interesting things. In…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable

July 1, 2026

Blood on the Clocktower and Social Deception Game: Blood on the Clocktower Creator: Steven Medway, published by The Pandemonium Institute Platform: In-person tabletop social…

Posts pagination

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Welcome to the Stanford HCI Game Design Blog.

Currently this blog holds two formal classes being taught by Christina Wodtke as well as Independent Study Work. In winter of 2022, cs377g was cancelled because of covid-19 uncertainty, and became a study group. You can follow along by looking at the SGSG syllabus and weekly break down.

CS 247G: Design for Play(SYMSYS 195G)

A project-based course that builds on the introduction to design in CS147 by focusing on advanced methods and tools for research, prototyping, and user interface design. Studio based format with intensive coaching and iteration to prepare students for tackling real world design problems. This course takes place entirely in studios; please plan on attending every studio to take this class. The focus of CS247g is an introduction to theory and practice of the design of games. We will make digital and paper games, do rapid iteration and run user research studies appropriate to game design. This class has multiple short projects, allowing us to cover a variety of genres, from narrative to pure strategy. Prerequisites: 147 or equivalent background.

CS 377G: Designing Serious Games

Over the last few years we have seen the rise of "serious games" to promote understanding of complex social and ecological challenges, and to create passion for solving them. This project-based course provides an introduction to game design principals while applying them to games that teach. Run as a hands-on studio class, students will design and prototype games for social change and civic engagement. We will learn the fundamentals of games design via lecture and extensive reading in order to make effective games to explore issues facing society today. The course culminates in an end-of- quarter open house to showcase our games. Prerequisite: CS147 or equivalent. 247G recommended, but not required.

SGSG: Serious Games Study Group

  • Library
    • CS247G Community Game Design Resources
    • Game Design Resources
    • Graphic Design for Game Designers
    • Graphic Design Resources
    • Chapter 11 from Game Balance
  • Read Write Play
    • Hollow Knight: RWP 4 2023
    • Mystic Messenger: RWP 6 2023
    • Undertale: RWP 3 2023
    • What Remains of Edith Finch: RWP 5 2023
    • Catan: RWP1 2023
    • 80 Days: RWP 2 2023
  • 247G Syllabus
    • The Formal Elements of Game Design
    • Design for Play | Week One | Lecture A
    • Design for Play | Week One | Lecture B
    • Design for Play | Week Two | Lecture A
    • Design for Play | Week Two | Lecture B
    • Design for Play | Week Three | Lecture A
    • Design for Play | Week Three | Lecture B
    • Design For Play | Week Four | Section A
    • Design For Play | Week Four | Section B
    • Design for Play | Week Five | Class A
    • Design for Play | Week 5 | Class B
    • Design for Play | Week 6 | Class A (no class)
    • Design for Play | Week 6 | Class B
    • Design for Play | Week 7 | Class A
    • Design for Play | Week 7 | Class B
    • Design for Play | Week 8 | Class A
    • Design for Play | Week 8 | Lecture B
  • Serious Play Study Group Overview
    • Study Group Week by Week Breakdown
      • Formal Elements of Games
      • Final Reflection Essay
    • [Optional Material] What is fun?
    • Project 1: Those Who Play, Teach
      • READING Visual Design of Board Games
      • Pitch Your Teaching Game
      • Sketchnote: Playtesting Boardgames
      • Sketchnote: Erin Hoffman // Wind, Not Sand: Mapping Dynamic Emotion Across a Product Landscape
      • SketchNote: MDAO
      • Critical Play: Write up your game of FLUXX
      • [Optional Material] Playtesting
      • OPTIONAL Board Game Usability
    • P2: The Future We Deserve
      • Critical Play: A Mechanic and a Story to Tell
      • Interactive Fiction: Tiny Playable Prototype
      • Introducing Interactive Fiction
      • Map and Premise
      • Critical Play: Story AND Storytelling games
      • Essay or Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters
      • Sketchnote: Art of game design- Story
      • [Optional Material] Emergence and Progression
      • Essay or Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters
      • Project 2 Reflection Essay
      • Share what you Learned: Writing Excuses Podcast
      • Values at Play & P2 Peer Grading
    • P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
      • P3 Concept Doc
      • Playable prototype
      • Working With System Dynamics (mindmap the reading, apply it to your game)
      • Mapping Systems
      • Sketchnote/Response for Rules & Tutorials
      • Project 3 Check-in
      • Project 3 Reflection Essay
    • P4: Refine a game
      • Sketchnote/Response for Playtesting with Strangers
      • Read: Mechanic is the Magic
  • On Sketchnotes
  • Printing at Stanford

Archives

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Recent Posts

  • Critical Play–Bluffing, Judging, and Getting Vulnerable
  • Critical Play – Getting Vulnerable – Owen Sample
  • Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…
  • Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable – Cards Aginst Humanity (Clare)
  • Sketchnote: What Games Are and Aren’t

Recent Comments

  • Christina Wodtke on Short Exercise: Learning to Play closely
  • Christina Wodtke on Short Exercise: Learning to Play Closely – Fruit Ninja
  • Aksel Kolasinski on Hi! I’m Mathias
  • Aksel Kolasinski on Self Introduction – Cameron H
  • Jinhyo Huh on Final Reflection – Leo Sui

Categories

  • P2: The Empathy Machine
  • Featured
  • Project One
  • milestone
  • P2: The Future We Deserve
  • mindmap
  • P1: Social Games
  • CS247G
  • Assignments
  • P1: those who play, teach
  • Lectures
  • P2: Games In Space
  • Critical Play
  • P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • Project Two
  • Project Four REFINE
  • P4: Refine a Game
  • Sketchnotes
  • Project Two: The Future We Deserve
  • From the Instructor
  • Project Three: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • ReadWritePlay
  • 377G: Serious Games
  • SGSG

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