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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: April 2024

Mechanics and Dynamics of Teamfight Tactics (TFT)

April 9, 2024

Teamfight Tactics (TFT) is a game created by Riot Games which combines strategic mechanics and dynamic gameplay that caters to diverse player preferences through…

Pieces of the game Taboo including cards and a buzzer.

MDA – Taboo

April 9, 2024

A game I love playing is Taboo! The premise of the game is to provide verbal clues to get your team to guess the…

Mechanics and Dynamics of Valorant

April 9, 2024

One game I particularly enjoy is Valorant. Despite having played since the initial release, I still find myself regularly hopping on and queuing a…

Critical Play: Secret Hitler – Mohamed Musa

April 9, 2024

Critical Play Analysis Week 2: The Dimensions of Deception and Deduction in “Secret Hitler” Target audience: The game seems to be targeted towards young…

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun – Mohamed Musa

April 9, 2024

Brawl Stars is a game I’ve been playing on and off since sophomore year of high school. The dynamic of fast-paced, strategic, and competitive…

Critical Play: Spyfall, a Dynamic Social Deduction Game

April 9, 2024

During this week’s critical play, I played Spyfall in a group of seven people, using an online website (https://www.spyfall.app/). Spyfall, designed by Alexandr Ushan…

Critical Play: Social Deduction (David Fang)

April 9, 2024

In the realm of board games, few titles have managed to blend the art of social interaction with strategic gameplay as seamlessly as “Secret…

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun- David Fang

April 9, 2024

Heroes of Might and Magic III is a game that splendidly marries the elements of fantasy and challenge, offering a deeply immersive experience that…

Analyzing Rankdle With An MDA Lens

April 9, 2024

Rankdle has a simple premise: pick a game, you will be shown three submissions from players playing that game, guess the competitive ranking of…

An image of three Secret Hitler role cards. From left to right: Hitler, Fascist, Liberal.

Critical Play (Social Deduction) – Secret Hitler – ban

April 9, 2024

Secret Hitler combines eternally existent fundamentals of probability with internally induced opportunities for deception and behavioral analysis to create a social deduction game different…

A Title Screen for Ultimate Chicken Horse. There are various farm animals on an obstacle course with dangerous traps.

MDA/8 Kinds of Fun – Ultimate Chicken Horse – ban

April 9, 2024

My favorite party game to play with friends and family is Ultimate Chicken Horse, a free-for-all competitive sandbox platformer by Clever Endeavor Games where…

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun: Completing the Pokédex

April 9, 2024

Any mainline Pokemon game relies on the mechanic of having different species of Pokemon tied to specific locations in the game. These Pokemon are…

Critical Play – Spyfall

April 9, 2024

There’s no James Bond to be found here. Spyfall is a game by Alexandr Ushan which is published by Hobby World. It’s a social…

MDA – Splendor

April 9, 2024

Splendor is a game about collecting gems. Well technically the game is about collecting the most points, but the gems are what really matter….

Critical Play: Secret Hitler

April 9, 2024

“How does the game emphasize social deduction through its mechanics? Connect your analysis to the game’s formal elements.” Game: Secret Hitler Target Audience: Young…

Short Exercise: MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun (EB)

April 9, 2024

In online blitz chess, players take turns controlling their pieces which move in different ways (mechanic). Pieces can capture an opponent’s pieces (each has…

Critical Play: Social Deduction — One-Night Werewolf

April 9, 2024

One-Night Ultimate Werewolf heightens the chaos of the parent game Mafia by imposing a time limit and its mechanics of role assignment and actions….

Critical Play: Secret Hitler – Carmel Limcaoco

April 9, 2024

For our first Critical Play, my friends and I played Secret Hitler. Secret Hitler is manufactured by Breaking Games and was designed by Max…

Critical Play: Secret Hitler

April 9, 2024

For this week’s critical play, I played Secret Hitler with six of my friends. Secret Hitler was created by Max Temkin, Mike Boxleiter and…

Critical Play – Spyfall

April 9, 2024

For my first critical play, I have chosen the game Spyfall. Spyfall is a social deduction game created by Alexandr Ushan and published by Hobby World,…

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

  • Final CS247G Reflection
  • Critical Play on WorldBuilding: Cyberpunk’s Night City Doesn’t Have Races — It Has Lifepaths
  • Critical Play: Puzzles — EXIT: The House of Riddles
  • Critical Play: Mysteries & Escape Rooms — Cube Escape: Paradox
  • Protected: Independent Study Final Reflection

Recent Comments

  • Christina Wodtke on Personal Reflection
  • Christina Wodtke on Final Class Reflection – Nicholai K.
  • Christina Wodtke on 247G Final Class Reflection
  • Christina Wodtke on Final Class Reflection – Joseph Gu
  • Christina Wodtke on Final Class Reflection

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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