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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

P1 Writeup: The Golden Blueberry Awards

April 26, 2024

The Golden Blueberry Awards an absurdist improv game created by Andreea Jitaru, Angela Wei, Miranda Liu, and Zinnia Cooperrider Artist’s statement We designed The…

Project 1 Final Writeup – Writer’s Block [Team 15]

April 26, 2024

Artist’s statement  In “Writer’s Block,” we invite players into a whimsical world where creativity meets intrigue. Inspired by the thrill of social deduction and…

Mindmap for 5B.

April 26, 2024

Cold War: The Physical Deduction Game

April 26, 2024

Artist’s Statement “Cold War” is inspired by our love for both Capture the Flag and games like Werewolf. We wanted to create a physical…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 26, 2024

  “What Remains of Edith Finch,” developed by Giant Sparrow and available across various platforms such as iOS and PC, is a game that…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable (Quiplash)

April 26, 2024

Jackbox Party Pack is a collection of party games developed by Jackbox Games that is available on most current generation and last generation systems….

RWP 2024 – Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (Phuc)

April 26, 2024

** pictures coming soon as soon as I learn how to screenshot on Windows! ** On Wednesday, I got the chance to play Granblue…

RWP 2024 – Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (Ember Fu)

April 26, 2024

As someone familiar conceptually/by proxy with but with virtually zero experience playing fighting games, I was both excited and wary of playing Granblue. I’m…

RWP – Granblue Fantasy Rising Versus – Khaled Messai

April 26, 2024

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising was a classic anime fighting game in a long tradition of anime fighters. Like most fighting games that aren’t named…

Mayshu Zhan – Team 5 – Project 1: Social Mediation Game – Final Delivery

April 25, 2024

Artistic Statement for Guess Jarvis Our board game, Guess Jarvis, aims for social deduction. It brings people together at the Laughter Synthesis Festival in…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable

April 25, 2024

For my critical play, I played We’re Not Really Strangers by Koreen Odiney with some dorm friends and RAs. It’s a getting to know…

Mindmap: Game Design as Narrative Architecture

April 25, 2024

Mindmap: Game Design as Narrative Architecture Examples of the games: Embedded Narratives: Example Game: “The Last of Us” – A strong narrative-driven game where…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable

April 25, 2024

For this critical play, I chose the game Cards Against Humanity, co-created by Josh Dillon, Daniel Dranove, Eli Halpern, Ben Hantoot, David Munk, David…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

April 25, 2024

Skribbl

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 25, 2024

Critical Play – skribbl.io

April 25, 2024

This past week I played skribbl.io, a free multiplayer, online game that features a game similar to Pictionary but adapted for group play. Developed…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable

April 24, 2024

Name: We Are Not Really Strangers Creator: Koreen Odiney Platform: Deck of customized cards with prompts Target audience: Adults looking to get to know…

Critical Play — Scribbl.io

April 24, 2024

This week I played Scribbl.io which was released in 2017. The game was developed and published by ticedev as an online, free multiplayer game…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable

April 24, 2024

Introduction Skribbl.io is a free online multiplayer game that involves drawing and guessing developed by ticedev and published by algodextrous. Gameplay involves players taking…

Critical Play – We’re Not Really Strangers

April 24, 2024

We’re not Really Strangers is a ” getting to know you” style card game designed to have all players leave with a closer relationship…

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

  • Critical Play: Walking Simulators
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  • [Sketch note] Designer’s Notebook: The Role of Architecture in Video Games
  • Critical Play: Walking Simulators

Recent Comments

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  • P2: The Empathy Machine
  • Featured
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