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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–Competetive Analysis

July 10, 2026

Winker (Also known for its other iterations, such as Wink Murder) is an extremely simple social deduction that can be played with most types…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 10, 2026

Tsuro (online version): https://quibbble.com/games/tsuro  Tsuro, a tile-laying board game for 2-8 players (ages 8+) designed by Tom McMurchie and is played on a physical…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – Nicholai K.

July 9, 2026

When considering our game Corruption, I chose to compare it to Town of Salem. Town of Salem is a social deduction game developed and…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis by Carl Liu

July 9, 2026

I chose to do an analysis over Avalon for this comparison, which is a hidden role social deduction game published by Indie Boards &…

Protected: Mooney Ranch

July 9, 2026

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Critical play – competitive analysis – Lebriz

July 9, 2026

Although Corruption and Cluedo are deduction games, Cluedo has several mechanics that could improve my team’s game. However, there are still some aspects that…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – Marcus Polson

July 9, 2026

Peak is a game released in 2025 by indie studios Landfall and Aggro Crab. Earlier this week, I played it with some friends online…

Aksel – Unstable Unicorns – Competitive Analysis

July 9, 2026

Unstable Unicorns by Unstable Games is a card game which centers around the goal of playing seven unicorns in your stable before any other…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 9, 2026

I chose to play One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which is a casual social deduction game with a physical card format published by Bezier Games….

Secret Hitler Compare and Contrast with P1 Game 404: Alignment Not Found

July 9, 2026

  Secret Hitler Compare and Contrast with P1 Game 404: Alignment Not Found The game that I chose for our playtest was called Secret Hitler (SH),…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 9, 2026

This week, I played the game Ticket to Ride during game night to understand Competitive Analysis as one of the designer’s toolkit. This is…

Among Us

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 9, 2026

The game I’ve been playing these days is Among Us. This is a Fellowship game that is highly similar to the game we created…

Critical play- Competetive analysis by Gavin Patton

July 9, 2026

In order to judge my game with a more educated view I played Blood on the Clocktower. I believe that the informational design of…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – Willow Azevedo

July 9, 2026

For the competitive analysis critical play, I played Forbidden Island. Forbidden Island is a game that requires 2-4 players (though it is better with…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 9, 2026

The game I played was Uno by Merle Robbins. Uno is a card game, but can also be played online and is targeted towards…

Critical Play: Unstable Unicorns

July 9, 2026

Introduction Unstable Unicorns, developed by Unstable Game, is a competitive multi-player card game in which players race to collect 6 or 7 unicorns total…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 9, 2026

The game I’ve played is Avalon, created by Don Eskridge. It is a tabletop social deduction game for 5-10 players, targeting those who enjoy…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis_UNSTABLE?!Unicorn!!!

July 9, 2026

‘Why Strong Cards Can Make You Weak’ Unstable Unicorns, it’s a card game created by Ramy Badie and published by TeeTurtle/Unstable Games It’s a…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

July 8, 2026

As part of the competitive analysis for our game design process, I played Ticket to Ride: North America, the route-building board game designed by Alan…

Semi-cooperative Mechanisms Alters Fellowship Patterns: Comparing Dead of Winter with 404: Alignment Not Found

July 8, 2026

Target audience: Players who enjoy social deduction Game: Dead of Winter Creator: Plaid Hat Games Platform: Physical board game The strongest similarity between Dead…

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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–Competetive Analysis
  • Critical Play: Competitive Analysis
  • Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – Nicholai K.
  • Critical Play: Competitive Analysis by Carl Liu
  • Protected: Mooney Ranch

Recent Comments

  • Sizhe Wu on Introduce Yourself – Carl
  • 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

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
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  • SGSG

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