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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: awang23

Final Class Reflection

May 31, 2022

I learned a great amount through taking 247G, and the class greatly changed my viewpoint on what games can be. I’m grateful to have…

Sketchnote or Mindmap: Terror in Subnautica

May 26, 2022

Critical Play: Is this game balanced?

May 22, 2022

Hearthstone is a strategy game created by Blizzard Entertainment and available on mobile and PC. The target audience is people who enjoy playing card…

Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies

May 22, 2022

Critical Play: Puzzles

May 18, 2022

Introduction Wordle is a game created by Josh Wardle and published by New York Times. It is a browser-based game where players have six…

Sketchnote/Mindmap: Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games

May 18, 2022

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 6, 2022

Introduction Her Story is a game created by Sam Barlow that is available on several platforms such as iOS and PC. It is a…

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

May 5, 2022

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

May 1, 2022

Introduction Journey is a walking simulator game created by Thatgamecompany and Santa Monica Studio. It is available on a variety of platforms such as…

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

May 1, 2022

Examples: Evoked narratives: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery – This game builds upon elements of the Harry Potter universe, adding a fresh perspective. Enacted Narratives:…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture

April 30, 2022

Sketchnote: Balancing Games: Chance and Skill

April 27, 2022

Project 2: Moodboard, Playlist, and Description

April 26, 2022

Here are some emotions I hope our escape room game for project 2 will evoke: eeriness curiosity excitement   The following are a moodboard…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

April 17, 2022

Introduction  Apples to Apples is a judging game from Mattel. It is a card game using physical cards. The game creators recommend that it…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 17, 2022

Visual Design of Games

April 16, 2022

Cheese and Fonts Elements Core  Name of the cheese or font Input method for the player to indicate their guess Score Timer Supportive Navigation…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

April 13, 2022

  Overview, Theme, and Formal Elements For this competitive analysis, I analyzed Trivia Crack because it is a trivia-based social game in a similar…

Watch and Read: What do Prototypes Prototype?

April 12, 2022

The following are several questions our various game Prototypes might answer for our game, Risky Quizness: 1. How many different categories of quiz questions…

Skim & Watch: MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun

April 12, 2022

One game that I have enjoyed recently is a musical mobile game called Like a Dino! There are several mechanics that make up this…

Critical Play 1: Among Us

April 7, 2022

Overview  For the first critical play, I played Among Us. Among us is a social deduction game created by a game studio called InnerSloth…

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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

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  • 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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