What CS247G Taught Me About Games, Design, and Life
Before taking CS247G, I wasn’t really a gamer. When people brought up famous titles in class, I usually didn’t know them. But I signed up because I was curious about something deeper. Games have a unique way of keeping people hooked, and I wanted to understand the psychology behind that. To me, game design wasn’t just about building games—it was a way to learn how people think and behave. I wanted to see if the fun and motivation we find in games could be used to design better real-world products, or even help us navigate life better.
The weekly readings and Critical Play sessions were huge for me. One idea that really stuck was the “Magic Circle,” alongside the concept that playing is fun because our brains naturally love to learn. I also found it fascinating how willingly people accept and follow artificial rules once they step into a play space. My favorite moment was hearing George Fan talk about Plants vs. Zombies. He showed how he designed the game so his mom could easily play it without reading a giant manual. That was a big eye-opener: great design doesn’t force rules on you; it guides you without you even realizing it.
I tried using these ideas in our course projects. For our Project 2 murder mystery game, we used a strong story to build our Magic Circle. A good narrative naturally pulled players into their roles and helped them figure out what to do next without needing complicated instructions.
Of course, I ran into challenges. Since I didn’t grow up playing many games, I wasn’t familiar with common UI patterns. Building the game was also tricky. At first, our team tried making it in Unity, but it was hard to use and the result didn’t turn out well. So, I tried rebuilding the game using Codex. That turned out great, and it became our final version. Through playtesting, I watched how real users interacted with our interface, listened to their feedback, and iterated on the design. This taught me that while AI is a super efficient tool for building games, it’s still just a tool. What actually made the game work was the story, mechanics, and logic—mature ideas that we built and refined through testing. AI alone could never figure out what truly makes a game fun.
Looking back, CS247G gave me exactly what I was looking for. It proved that game design holds simple yet powerful wisdom for everyday life. If we can break down hard topics into fun, bite-sized experiences, we can help people learn with joy and handle heavy life problems with a lighter mindset.
If I keep working on games or future design projects, I want to focus on combining real learning with game mechanics. I want to build games that teach complex topics, like science, in a way where playing and learning feel like the exact same thing.
