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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

Month: February 2022

Critical Play: A Mechanic and a Story to Tell // Goragoa

February 20, 2022

For this week’s Critical Play, I played the game Goragoa on my iPhone with special attention to the game mechanics and the story.   …

Mapping Systems: Stardew Valley

February 20, 2022

Stardew Valley is a farming game in which you grow crops, fish, and mine. The resources gained by farming, fishing, and mining can be…

Sketchnote: Erin Hoffman // Wind, Not Sand: Mapping Dynamic Emotion Across a Product Landscape

February 20, 2022

Sketchnote_ Erin Hoffman – Wind, Not Sand_ Mapping Dynamic Emotion Across a Product Landscape

P2: Interactive Fiction, The Cat and the Lacquerware, Vicky

February 19, 2022

For Project 2, Interactive fiction, I wanted to do a version of the coming of age story. Here is the link to the download:…

P2 The Oasis – Goutham’s IF & Reflection

February 18, 2022

Play the game here on itch.io! The Idea: When I was thinking about the interactive fiction game, I wanted to go back to another…

Rachel Naidich P2

February 18, 2022

The Disappearance of Jennfier Smith You can play it here: https://rachelnaidich.com/game.html There is also a cheat sheet just in case: The Disappearance of Jennifer…

P2 Reflection: Murder in the Metaverse

February 18, 2022

  Play it on Itch!     My basic idea: you’ve been murdered in the metaverse, and you have to find out whodunnit, stayed…

Project 2: Remembering

February 18, 2022

Remembering is a game about leaving your family behind for independence, then finding out that maybe that’s not what you really wanted. Play the…

P2 Reflection: Tunnels

February 18, 2022

https://melonfarm.itch.io/tunnels   I knew that I wanted the final choice to be between staying in the unknown or returning home. Then, I had to…

P2 Essay and Reflections: Where’s My Son?

February 18, 2022

 Where’s My Son?  [WARNING ALERT: POSSIBLE SUICIDAL CONTENT] Link: https://eyt18.itch.io/wheres-my-son  Introduction Where’s My Son (WMS) is an interactive storytelling game that I have created…

Rachel Life is Strange Critical Play

February 16, 2022

I ended up playing Life is Strange, a game that follows the story of Max Caulfield, a high school student at Blackwell Academy. Max…

Rachel Naidich Florence Critical Play

February 16, 2022

I played Florence, which is a mobile game about a woman named Florence who falls in love with a man named Krish. The game…

Critical Play: FLUXX

February 16, 2022

FLUXX is a card game made by Looney Labs. I played the base game in both the physical version as well as the mobile…

Mindmap: Verbs and Objects, A Game Design Vocabulary

February 16, 2022

Rachel Naidich Map and Premise

February 15, 2022

The premise of the interactive fiction game is that you play Emma, a college student in 2122 who is grieving from a recent breakup….

Cynthia plays Florence

February 15, 2022

Florence was a quick 30-minute play on iOS, and I really enjoyed it. There were a few interactive mechanics that I think really added…

P2: Goutham’s Premise

February 14, 2022

For the interactive fiction project I wanted to tell a story of complicity and scarcity through a story of finding water in the desert….

P2: Map and Premise

February 14, 2022

Story, setting, and motive: I (Colleen) do not remember where I am anymore. I woke up and I am in this room. I want…

Critical Play: A Mechanic and A Story to Tell -Vicky

February 13, 2022

I played Hungry Hearts Diner. Hungry Hearts Diner is a story of a grandmother who is running the diner on her own in Japan…

Map and Premise

February 13, 2022

Setting: You wake up in an empty white room. There is no furniture other than the bed you lay on. You exit into the…

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

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Recent Posts

  • Cursed Problems
  • Sketchnote – Loops & Arcs – Andreas
  • [Extra Credit] Sketchnote or Mindmap: Cursed Problems – Evan
  • Final Class Reflection
  • Sketchnote – Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games – Andreas

Recent Comments

  • amaru on Critical Play: Mysteries & Escape Rooms – Amelia Chen
  • suyeshen on Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable – Sue Shen
  • Izzy on P2: AI Judgment Day
  • Izzy on P2: The Future We Deserve – The Broadcast
  • Izzy on P2: Pokemon The Next Adventure

Categories

  • Featured
  • Project One
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  • milestone
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  • P1: those who play, teach
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  • Project Two
  • Project Four REFINE
  • Sketchnotes
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