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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 2025

Critical Play: Chance and Addiction

May 23, 2025

For this week’s critical play, I chose to play Brawl Stars, which is a game that my friends have been raving about but I…

Clash of Clans Critical Play — Tommy

May 23, 2025

Clash of Clans is a mobile game created by Supercell primarily for adolescents. While many adults play Clash of Clans, the game’s colorful, fantastical…

critical play league of legends

May 23, 2025

Background.  League of Legends is a free-to-play online strategy game developed by Riot Games. Since its release in 2009, it has grown into one…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Sue Shen

May 23, 2025

Game: Arknights Target Audience: Strategic mobile gamers; fans of anime, sci-fi, and tower defense mechanics. Creator: Hypergryph (China), published globally by Yostar. Platform: iOS,…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction — Kristine

May 23, 2025

This week, I playtested League of Legends, made by Riot Games, available for macOS and Windows computers. League’s “Terms of Use” state that the…

Maybe Go Fish is More My Speed

May 23, 2025

For one of our last (:cry:) critical plays this quarter, I decided to play one of the most addicting games I’ve played in a…

Critical Play #7 – Candy

May 23, 2025

After my favorite rhythm gacha game got shut down, I’ve been meaning to look for another rhythm game to fill up the void in…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction

May 23, 2025

I am sooo glad that this was think week’s critical play because last week I got addicted to a game (I’m not joking, I…

Critical Play: Games of Chance and Addiction

May 23, 2025

Valorant is a team-based FPS game published and developed by the well-known Riot Games, released in June 2020 for Windows. Recently, in 2024 it…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Sarah Teaw

May 23, 2025

I played Luigi’s Picture Poker, which was developed by Nintendo and is a minigame in Super Mario 64 DS and in New Super Mario…

Critical Play: Games of Chance and Addiction – Stella Li

May 23, 2025

Luigi’s Picture Poker (LPP) is a game adapted by Marcy4000 for itch.io, a platform that is accessible through web browsers and desktop apps like…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Daphne

May 23, 2025

I played Fortnite which is developed and released by EpicGames. It’s available on MacOS, Windows, game consoles (PS4, PS5, Xbox, Nintendo Switches, etc), and…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction

May 23, 2025

About the Game Pokémon GO is an augmented reality mobile game where the player explores the real world to find and catch Pokémon using…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – 24/7 Poker – Mateus

May 23, 2025

In this critical play analysis, the focus is on a game that has existed for over two centuries: poker. Originating in the early 19th…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction

May 23, 2025

I’ve been playing Hay Day on and off for years now. For most of that time, I thought of it as just a cozy,…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Yinlin Zhao

May 23, 2025

Hay Day is a mobile farming game created by Supercell, who is also responsible for other popular mobile games like Clash of Clans and…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction

May 23, 2025

I played “Episode: Choose Your Story”, a mobile choose-your-story game created by Episode Interactive. The game is targeted primarily towards young women, including preteens…

Critical Play – Games of Chance & Addiction

May 23, 2025

This week I played, or rather, relapsed back into League of Legends (LoL), developed by Riot Games for players 13+. I’ve played LoL on…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction

May 23, 2025

DISCLAIMER: I played the game on my PS5 so I dont have reference screenshots from my personal gameplay. I will search up images from…

Critical Play – Games of Chance and Addiction maya

May 23, 2025

In playing two online games, Blackjack (on the Washington Post’s platform) and Hay Day (a mobile farming simulator by Supercell), I explored how randomness…

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

  • Sketchnote: MDAO – Aiden
  • P1: Introducing Serious Games – Aiden
  • P1: Introducing Serious Games_Paprika
  • Introducing Serious Games – snoopy
  • MDAO – Judy

Recent Comments

  • snoopy on Games, Design and Play: Elements – Noe Chicas-Aranda
  • 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

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
  • 377G: Serious Games
  • SGSG

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