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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

Mindmap: Formal Elements

June 25, 2026

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun – Lebriz

June 25, 2026

I believe that one of my all time favourite games is one that I played growing up which is called Okey. Okey consists of…

MDA – Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics – Rohan Gonzalez

June 25, 2026

For this blog, I am going to talk about Sudoku. When it comes to mechanics, Sudoku is one large grid. The grid is nine…

Introduction

June 25, 2026

Hello! My name is Zerui, a high school student from China. I prefer hie/him pronouns. As you can see, I am a relatively lazy…

Zerui_Li_MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun

June 25, 2026

For me, I would choose to analyze Minecraft. For this game, there is a set of mechanics that involves breaking blocks, picking blocks, and…

Introduction

June 25, 2026

Ben he/him Favorite game is scrabble because it mixes strategy with problem solving and is a social game. Recently enjoyed the Sushi Go game…

Gavin’s mindmap of FGDE

June 25, 2026

Mind Map of Formal Game Elements_Gavin_Patton

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun: Scrabble

June 25, 2026

I enjoy the game of scrabble. Scrabble contains “arbitrary obstacles” in that you are given random letters, and need to construct words. This challenge…

Mindmap: Formal Elements – Marcus Polson

June 25, 2026

Mindmap: Formal Elements

June 25, 2026

Mindmap: Formal Elements

June 25, 2026

Mind Map

June 25, 2026

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun

June 25, 2026

My first reflection will begin with Disco Elysium, which is my favorite game. Disco Elysium offers players multiple layers of gameplay. DE goes beyond being just…

Introduce Yourself – Owen

June 25, 2026

Preferred pronouns: He/Him but Any/All if you are feeling adventurous. Favorite game of all time and why: I can’t pick so two: Minecraft, for…

MDA–Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics

June 24, 2026

For this blog, I’m going to talk about No Man’s Sky. No Man’s Sky is, in its majority, a space exploration game. You have…

Mind Map: Formal Elements of Game Design – Yunming Huang (Lucy)

June 24, 2026

If it’s unclear for the image, here is my mind map in PDF form: Formal Elements Of Game Design

Introduce Yourself (Joseph Guuuu)

June 24, 2026

Joseph Gu (he/him) Favorite game of all time: Hollow Knight: Silksong Recent Game: Zenless Zone Zero (it’s peak)

Introduce myself

June 24, 2026

Hi guys. My name is Zicheng, but please call me George so that you won’t pronounce it wrong. He/him Favourite game of all time…

Mindmap Formal Elements – Jack Y

June 24, 2026

Introduce Yourself – Yifan Xu

June 24, 2026

My name is Yifan Xu, you can call me Jason if you like, and my pronouns are he/him. My favorite game is counter-strike 2….

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

  • June 2026
  • May 2026
  • April 2026
  • March 2026
  • December 2025
  • November 2025
  • October 2025
  • September 2025
  • June 2025
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  • April 2025
  • February 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • June 2024
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  • April 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • June 2023
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  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Mindmap: Formal Elements
  • MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun – Lebriz
  • MDA – Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics – Rohan Gonzalez
  • Introduction
  • Zerui_Li_MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun

Recent Comments

  • Aksel Kolasinski on Self Introduction – Cameron H
  • Jinhyo Huh on Final Reflection – Leo Sui
  • Jinhyo Huh on Jinhyo – Final Class Reflection
  • ban on CS199 Reflection – Rat King
  • Christina Wodtke on Read, Write, Play: Final Essay – Krystal Li

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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