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The Mechanics of Magic

The Mechanics of Magic

Game Design Writings by Students at Stanford taking 247G and 377G

  • 247G Syllabus
    • 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
  • The How and Why of Sketchnotes
  • Graphic Design Resources

Author: G. Garcia

Final Reflection

June 2, 2021

I came into this class totally green about game design. I casually enjoyed playing games, but by no stretch of the imagination consider myself…

Sketchnote: Cursed Problems

May 30, 2021

Cursed Problems in Game Design by Alex Jaffe

Critical Play of Theme Only Games: Battle Cats & Plants vs. Zombies

May 30, 2021

This week I played two theme-only, tower defense games: Battle Cats and Plants vs Zombies. Tower defense is a game genre where the goal…

The Banishment of Zuko: An Interactive Fan Fiction Narrative Game

May 27, 2021

Created by Rhett Owen, Krishnan Nair, Tonya Murray, Ghisly Garcia, Jacob LeBlanc, and Trey Holterman ARTIST’S STATEMENT  Inspired by the show Avatar: The Last…

Critical Play: Niya and Game Balance

May 22, 2021

About the game Niya is a delightfully balanced game designed by Bruna Cathala and published by Blue Orange Games. It is a 2 player…

Mindmap: Terror in Subnautica

May 22, 2021

Sketchnote: 10 Tips for Better Tutorials

May 17, 2021

How I Got My Mom to Play Through Plants vs. Zombies by PopCap’s George Fan

Critical Play: Goragoa

May 9, 2021

About the game I can confidently say that I have never played a game like Goragoa! It’s a deceivingly simple, yet complex video game…

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 9, 2021

Critical Play: Life is Strange

May 2, 2021

About the game This week I played the first episode of Life is Strange on my Mac via Steam. Life is Strange was developed…

Sketchnote: The Role of Architecture in Videogames

May 2, 2021

Designer’s Notebook: The Role of Architecture in Videogames By Ernest Adams

Sketchnote: Escape Rooms and VR

May 1, 2021

Laura E. Hall’s talk on Lessons from Escape Rooms: Designing for the Real World and VR

Walking Simulation: What Remains of Edith Finch

April 25, 2021

The game This week, I started to play What Remains of Edith Finch on my Nintendo Switch. It is a game developed by Giant…

Narrative Architecture: A Mindmap

April 25, 2021

Game Design Narrative Architecture by Henry Jenkins

Introducing: Devil Among Us

April 22, 2021

Artist Statement Welcome to heaven! Or so you think. Turns out, God has become pickier than before and now has a new rule for…

Sketchnote: Balancing Games: Chance and Skill

April 18, 2021

Sketchnote of Balancing Games: Chance and Skill

Visual Design of Games

April 18, 2021

This week, I read and completed the exercises in Christina’s Medium article on Graphic Design for Game Designers. We worked with the hilarious and…

Critical Play: One Night Ultimate Werewolf

April 17, 2021

This week, 10 of us got together over Zoom to play Werewolf online. We attempted to play the mobile version by Bezier Games, and…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture (Loops & Arcs)

April 13, 2021

Critical Play & Comparative Analysis: Avalon

April 13, 2021

This week, I played an online adaptation of the board game called The Resistance: Avalon. It is essentially a game of hidden loyalty (also…

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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

  • 247G Syllabus
    • 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
  • The How and Why of Sketchnotes
  • Graphic Design Resources

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Jasmine Steele – P3 Reflection (Clout Chasers)
  • The Mechanic is the Message – Charlotte Feng
  • P4: Refine a Game – Lost Voices – Charlotte Feng
  • P4: Black Friday Baking (Yasmine Mitchell and Grace Zhang)
  • P4 | Accelerate

Recent Comments

  • Christina Wodtke on P2 – Barrier or Bridge?
  • Christina Wodtke on P2 – Split
  • Christina Wodtke on P2: The Last Moment of Sun
  • Christina Wodtke on P2: Zauberkurg Kartoffel Farm
  • Christina Wodtke on P2: The Future We Deserve https://mechanicsofmagic.com/?p=13253&preview=true

Categories

  • mindmap
  • 377G: Serious Games
  • P2: The Future We Deserve
  • P4: Refine a Game
  • CS247G
  • Project One
  • milestone
  • P2: Games In Space
  • Critical Play
  • Lectures
  • Sketchnotes
  • Project Two
  • From the Instructor
  • Project Four REFINE
  • Assignments
  • Project Two: The Future We Deserve
  • ReadWritePlay
  • Project Three: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • SGSG

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