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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 2026

Critical Play: Walking Simulators – Leyth Toubassy

April 24, 2026

This week I played Journey by Thatgamecompany, originally released on Playstation 3 in 2012, and eventually making it to Mobile and Windows in 2019….

Jinhyo – Critical Play: Walking Simulators – Journey

April 24, 2026

Journey is a 3D, single-player, narrative-based puzzle walking simulator developed by Thatgamecompany, published by Sony Entertainment and Annapurna Interactive, playable on PlayStation, Windows, and…

The Gap We Have to Cross Anyway

April 24, 2026

Near the end of Bokura’s Planet, two people stand together laughing. They are convicts, strangers thrown together by a crashed spaceship on an alien…

Bokura, The Evolution of Trust, and the Bat: Why My Friend and I Kept Killing Each Other

April 24, 2026

The first time, it was an accident. I was testing out the controls and inadvertently managed to shove my buddy off the edge of…

In the Presence of One Another: BOKURA

April 24, 2026

Playing this game felt reminiscent of the two-player games, like FireBoy and WaterGirl, that I remembered enjoying so much as a kid — some…

Two Bokura Realities, One Trust

April 24, 2026

Trust’s often framed as something rooted in our understanding since youth, knowing someone well enough to believe in their intentions. But in Bokura: Planet,…

Edith Finch coverart

Critical Play: Walking Simulators — What Remains of Edith Finch

April 24, 2026

What Remains of Edith Finch (hereafter “Edith Finch“) is a narrative video game that reveals its layers slowly as the player moves forward in…

Find the Farm – Team Robin

April 24, 2026

Artist’s statement: This game transforms Stanford’s campus into a social map and a stage for playful deduction. Players locate one another through a series…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 24, 2026

I played What Remains of Edith Finch. It was developed by Giant Sparrow, and I played it on my laptop, but a bigger screen…

Bridging the Gap: BOKURA Planet and striving to understand

April 24, 2026

In my first playing of BOKURA: Planet, I knew I was in for a treat when Orange was killed and replaced by a parasitic…

Kalu Obasi – Critical Play: Walking Simulators (Journey)

April 24, 2026

What kind of name is Journey, anyway? In a landscape of titles like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes…

Bokura Planet: Where Does Trust Really Come From?

April 24, 2026

There is a small crossed-out microphone icon that appears on your screen at certain moments in BOKURA: planet. It means: don’t tell your partner…

A Short Hike Critical Play

April 24, 2026

The game A Short Hike is a walking simulator that is aimed at casual players who want a laid back and exploratory experience. It…

Jolie – Sketchnote: Designer’s Notebook: The Role of Architecture in Videogames

April 24, 2026

Also here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14U4FV9ESyYodNHzCGBH2sEoSzrYT1A21/view?usp=sharing  

Brooke Ballhaus Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 24, 2026

Dear Esther: Landmark Edition is a 2017 relaunch of a walking simulator originally released in 2012 by The Chinese Room and developer Robert Briscoe,…

What It Is Like To Be Someone Else

April 24, 2026

You wake to learn you didn’t have a son. You never had parents. You were a blank slate—alone. An assassin for hire. Your memories…

“What Remains of Edith Finch” Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 24, 2026

The game I chose for this critical play is What Remains of Edith Finch, a walking simulator developed by Giant Sparrow and available on…

What BOKURA: planet Teaches Us About Trust

April 24, 2026

[Beware spoilers for BOKURA: planet.] I’m terrible at deception games. I’m bad at lying, and I believe everyone should have access to all relevant…

Take the Leap of Faith (Many Times)

April 24, 2026

It was frustrating to play this game, to say the least. Having to figure out on the fly how to play the game while…

Walking Sim Critical Play- What Remains of Edith Finch

April 24, 2026

What Remains of Edith Finch (WREF) was developed by independent studio Giant Sparrow and was directed by creative director Ian Dallas. The game was…

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

  • Team quemisia Concept Doc
  • Sketchnote: Loops & Arcs
  • Sketchnote- loops and arcs
  • Sketchnote- loops and arcs
  • Individual Concept Doc – Nicholai K.

Recent Comments

  • jasonzz on Mooney Ranch
  • Sizhe Wu on Introduce Yourself – Carl
  • Christina Wodtke on Short Exercise: Learning to Play closely
  • Christina Wodtke on Short Exercise: Learning to Play Closely – Fruit Ninja
  • Aksel Kolasinski on Hi! I’m Mathias

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
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  • Critical Play
  • P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • Project Two
  • Project Four REFINE
  • P4: Refine a Game
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