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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: September 2024

Sketchnote: MDAO

September 30, 2024

IMG_3755 IMG_3756 IMG_3757 IMG_3758 IMG_3759 IMG_3760 IMG_3761 IMG_3762

P1: Introducing Serious Games

September 30, 2024

“A Slower Speed of Light” by Gerd Kortemeyer Product Owner, Philip Tan Staff Liaison, Ryan Cheu Programmer, Ebae Kim Artist, Designer, Zach Sherin Programmer,…

Sketchnote: MDAO – Arnav Mehta

September 30, 2024

P1: Introducing Serious Games

September 30, 2024

I played Stop Disasters, a game by the UN Office for disaster risk reduction. The game provides several options for disasters based in different…

MDAO Sketchnote

September 30, 2024

Simran Tandon – MDAO Sketchnote

Introducing Serious Games: PeaceMaker

September 30, 2024

This week, I played PeaceMaker by Impact Games. It covers the Israel-Palestine conflict, with the players taking on the role of either the Palestinian…

P1:Introducing Serious Games_Shirley

September 30, 2024

I played Stop Disasters, a simulation game produced by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). The game offers different regional environments…

Grace – P1

September 30, 2024

The game I played was EteRNA. This game is produced by Stanford Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This game…

MDAO Framework_Shirley

September 30, 2024

     

P1: Introducing Serious Games

September 30, 2024

“Influent” is a game by Rob Howland, who was initially sponsored by the Japanese government to make a game to aid in language learning…

Grace – MDAO Framework

September 30, 2024

IMG_0030

P1: Introducing Serious Games (Spent)

September 30, 2024

Game: Spent, made by a collaboration between McKinney and Urban Ministries of Durham. The game walks the player through a month of life, giving…

MDAO Sketchnote

September 30, 2024

Sketchnote: MDAO

September 30, 2024

Jason_Lin_MDAOSketchnote Sorry, big file! 🙂

P1: Introducing Serious Games

September 30, 2024

Title: Influent, by Three Flip Studios It’s a language learning RPG, where we play as a character who is trying to raise funds for…

Introducing Serious Games: Influent

September 30, 2024

“Influent” is a vocabulary-building language learning game developed by the University of Tsukuba’s Entertainment Computing Laboratory, led by game designer Rob Howland. “Influent” is…

Writeup: Stop Disasters!

September 30, 2024

Stop Disasters! is a strategy game created by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) to educate players about disaster prevention and how…

P1: Introducing Serious Games, Khushi

September 30, 2024

Stop Disasters! by United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction The game, Stop Disasters!, is about disaster risk reduction. Through this game, adults and…

MDAO: Sketchnotes

September 30, 2024

Introducing Serious Games – CellCraft – Arnav Mehta

September 30, 2024

CellCraft is an educational strategy game where players build and manage a living cell, producing organelles, generating energy, and fighting off viral infections. Through…

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: Worldbuilding – Sue Shen
  • Critical Play: Worldbuilding – Luke M
  • Sketchnote: Addiction by Design — Jack Ryan
  • Critical Play: Worldbuilding
  • Critical Play: Worldbuilding – Victor

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
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Categories

  • Featured
  • Project One
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  • milestone
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  • CS247G
  • Assignments
  • P1: those who play, teach
  • Lectures
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  • Project Four REFINE
  • Sketchnotes
  • P4: Refine a Game
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