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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

P3: Tiny Playable Prototype

November 9, 2025

Some people were weirded out by the idea of “buying” musicians with money. The mechanic made sense, but the wording felt off, like you…

Playtesting formally — amaru

November 9, 2025

 

NOT ON MY BLOCK! – P3 First Playable Draft

November 9, 2025

Rules: NOT ON MY BLOCK! is a 4-player game about how gentrification occurs, persists, and changes neighborhoods over time.  Game Objective: The player with…

Sketchnote: Playtesting formally

November 9, 2025

Sketchnote: Playtesting formally

November 8, 2025

Sketchnote: Playtesting Formally

November 6, 2025

Figure 1: Sketchnote of the reading

Natural Ecosystem Playtest #1

November 6, 2025

For P3, our group (Krystal, Leyth, Lucas, and Ngoc) is tasked with creating a systems game that leads to “unexpected consequences”. We decided to…

P3: Tiny playable prototype

November 5, 2025

observations the citizens were trying to collude and after a few rounds, they were trying a few different strategies and deliberating (out loud, so…

Read and Play: Working With System Dynamics

November 4, 2025

Sketchnote   Game Analysis: Terra Nil (Netflix) Terra Nil is a digital game developed by Free Lives and published by Devolver Digital and is…

Read & Play: System Dynamics

November 4, 2025

Reading Sketchnote Writeup Game Name: Spiritfarer Creator: Thunder Lotus Games (published by Netflix Games) Platform: Digital (played on iPad) Link: https://thunderlotusgames.com/games/spiritfarer/ Total Time Played:…

Read & Play: Working With System Dynamics

November 4, 2025

Read Play Pandemic (link) is a cooperative system game designed by Matt Leacock. I played the game analog with one other player. It is…

Read and Play – Pandemic

November 4, 2025

For this Read and Play, I played an cooperative analog systems game — Pandemic. This mass market game was created by Matt Leacock and…

Read & Play: Cult of the Lamb (Systems Games)

November 4, 2025

Overview Cult of the Lamb is a 2022 hybrid roguelike action-adventure and colony management simulation developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital….

Read & Play: Working With System Dynamics

November 4, 2025

Part 1: Working With System Dynamics Part 2: Game Dev Tycoon I played Game Dev Tycoon, a digital business simulation game created by Greenheart…

Read & Play: Working With System Dynamics (Shapez.io) – Krystal Li

November 4, 2025

[Sketchnote of Fullerton’s Working with System Dynamics & Cook’s Loops & Arcs.] HD Version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IqFYicQigHDE8nmSXcvqQzOXhExUiMnH/view?usp=drive_link Overview For this Read & Play, I decided to…

Loops and Arcs in Hades

November 4, 2025

  Game: Hades Creator: Supergiant Games Platform: PC (Steam), and Xbox 1 Target audience: Teen–adult players who like action roguelikes with strong narrative hooks….

Read & Play: Working With System Dynamics

November 4, 2025

Part 1: Butch, I slack DMed you the image. For some reason, my image upload is completely broken (not sure why I tried a…

P2 Reflection — amaru

November 4, 2025

This project is now my second attempt at making a narrative game. The first was P2 in CS247G which ended up being way overscoped…

System Game Analysis: Oxygen Not Included

November 3, 2025

Game Name: Oxygen Not Included Creator: Klei Entertainment Platform: PC Target Audience: Players who like complex systems, base building, resource management, and hardcore survival…

P2: Reflection

November 2, 2025

I have a genuine appreciation for interactive fiction games and a passion for writing. I initially wanted to have an ambitious narrative for this…

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

  • P3: Tiny Playable Prototype
  • Playtesting formally — amaru
  • NOT ON MY BLOCK! – P3 First Playable Draft
  • Sketchnote: Playtesting formally
  • Sketchnote: Playtesting formally

Recent Comments

  • shaotz on P2: Giant Steps
  • shaotz on P2: “Blank Canvas”
  • shaotz on Answer Me – P2 CS377G F2025
  • jubiswas on P2: Giant Steps
  • angmao on Answer Me – P2 CS377G F2025

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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