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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: May 2024

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc – Team 15

May 7, 2024

Team 15: Angela, Ayana, Miranda, Regina 247G P2 Checkpoint 1 alternative link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ETCyHK5RXSCXHz2PfrIYbaUJjPDA8pvZLBLEEFVxhks/edit?usp=sharing  

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc — Jennifer Quach

May 7, 2024

Moodboard Spotify Playlist  3 Directions for the Game The emotions that I chose for the game to evoke are tension, curiosity, and the word…

P2 T10 CP1 Individual Brainstorm – The Labyrinth

May 7, 2024

Moodboard: Playlist: Concepts: General: Our team plans to develop a Greek-mythology-inspired Labyrinth-escape game. The plot involves our main character waking up in a ‘personal-hell,’…

P2 Concept

May 7, 2024

3 Directions of the game: Light-hearted, intriguing, humorous Fully digital escape room in RPG style: You piece together the night location by location. Each…

Team 16 Individual Checkpoint 1 – Houston Taylor

May 7, 2024

Spotify Playlist Note: It is a bit longer than 20 minutes because two songs are very long, you can use the first few minutes…

Checkpoint 1: Individual Deliverable – Regina Sevilla

May 7, 2024

3 Emotions Dominance Control over other characters as you work to become the boss Curiosity Desire to explore different levels Empowerment Feeling confident and…

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 7, 2024

For this critical play, I played Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture on PS5, a narrative-driven walking simulator by The Chinese Room. The game’s target…

Concept Doc 1 (Team 17)

May 7, 2024

Synopsis  This game is a seedling’s journey to find herself and her unique strength. Our main protagonist, Sapp, is an adopted seedling in a…

P2 Checkpoint 1 Individual Deliverable

May 7, 2024

Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7lJAPzopskjQAzxsn2xwQn?si=6fc05b68793a4ede Direction 1: You are a crow who just hatched from their egg. You chirp for your mother yet no one arrives, so…

P2 Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc – Team 5

May 7, 2024

Synopsis This game is about uncovering a hidden narrative, namely about a murder that takes place in an abandoned, dilapidated building. The player wakes…

Critical Play: Her Story (Mystery)

May 7, 2024

“Her Story” masterfully weaves its narrative into the mystery by utilizing a unique interactive mechanic of video clip databases and keyword searches, which not…

P2 Checkpoint 1: Individual Deliverable

May 7, 2024

Emotions: Thrill Mystery Horror Creepy Eerie Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYKSzhDfLcshYijkZeTjwPLMrfLfUk4kO&si=HjsBIZJNG5AhW4O0 Moodboard: Three directions: The Revenge: A samurai who lost his family and his wealth to an…

Gone Home | Critical Play: Mysteries

May 7, 2024

Developed by The Fullbright Company, Gone Home is a first-person mystery and walking simulator intended for audience 13 years and above who are interested…

Concept Doc 1 Individual Deliverable (Team 17- Phuc)

May 7, 2024

Direction #1 (Fantasy, Discovery, Emergent Narrative): The magical plant, Sap, must build its forest from scratch after a disastrous forest fire. As they construct…

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc (Edith Finch Style) – Alexander Worley

May 7, 2024

Emotions I want to evoke: Stress Chill Zen Moodboard: Spotify Playlist: Songs I added to this playlist: Directions for the game: A resource management…

Team 16 Individual Checkpoint 1 – Nils Forstall

May 7, 2024

Moodboard Playlist Link to playlist: Note: apologies–it is longer than 20 minutes since there are many long songs on here. Only the first 3…

[Project 2] Individual Checkpoint 1 – Jenny

May 7, 2024

Moodboard: Soundboard: a mix of mystical and light-hearted adventure with whimsical songs and a wisp of wistfulness or nostalgia    Direction 1: A…

“Rooted: A Plant’s Tale” Checkpoint 1 – Individual Component

May 7, 2024

As a recap, our game revolves around a seedling whose growth is stunted and is lost of their purpose in the world, traveling around…

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 7, 2024

Game Information Name: Life is Strange Creator: Dontnod Entertainment, published by Square Enix Platform: PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, IOS, and PC Target Audience: Ages 17+…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture; Amy Zhou

May 7, 2024

“Candy Crush Saga” epitomizes the addictive simplicity that has come to define modern mobile gaming, sporting an architecture that belies its ostensibly straightforward gameplay….

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

  • P3 Tiny Playable Prototype – Team Kinkajou
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Recent Comments

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Categories

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