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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: Ben Liao

Ben Liao — Final Class Reflection

June 2, 2022

Final Reflection Learning Process For the longest time, like many others, I had a very negative attitude towards the word “game.” It stems back…

Ben Liao — Mindmap: Terror in Subnautica

May 31, 2022

Ben Liao — Critical Play: Is this game balanced?

May 26, 2022

Critical Play: Teamfight Tactics Introduction This week, for my balance critical play, I played Teamfight Tactics (Set 7), developed by Riot Games on a…

Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies

May 25, 2022

Critical Play: Puzzles — Monument Valley

May 19, 2022

Critical Play: Monument Valley Introduction This week, for my puzzle critical play, I played Monument Valley, developed by Ustwo Games on an Android platform….

Ben Liao — Sketchnote Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games

May 17, 2022

Ben Liao — Critical Play: Mysteries

May 12, 2022

Critical Play: Life Is Strange (Chapter 1) Introduction This week, for my mystery critical play, I played Life Is Strange, published and developed by…

Ben Liao — Sketchnote: Designer’s Notebook

May 9, 2022

Ben Liao — Critical Play: Walking Simulators

May 5, 2022

Critical Play: Year Walk About the game For this week’s Walking Simulator Critical Play, I played Year Walk. The game was designed by Swedish…

Ben Liao — Sketchnote: Game Architecture

May 2, 2022

  Game I enjoy: I really enjoy the Starcraft II Campaign / story mode. They start the game very slowly with basic mechanics as…

Ben Liao — Mindmap Narrative Architecture

May 2, 2022

Ben Liao — P2 Concept

May 2, 2022

Moodboard   Spotify Playlist   Direction The first layout I had in my mind was an ordinary office space; we would embed the puzzles…

Sketchnote: Balancing Games: Chance and Skill — Ben Liao

April 25, 2022

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable — Ben Liao

April 20, 2022

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable For this week’s critical play, I played Skribbl.io, which was developed by @ticedev and developed on a…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 17, 2022

Blog Response: Visual Design of Games

April 16, 2022

Blog Response: Visual Design of Games Elements of Cheese or Font: Any number of players can play this game (supportive) Objective is to guess if…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis — Trial by Trolley

April 13, 2022

My critical play this week was about the board game Trial by Trolley, which is a humorous social game aimed at facilitating conversations and…

What do Prototypes Prototype?

April 9, 2022

Come up with 3-5 questions your various game Prototypes might answer: Are there issues with using different stages of life in the cards? In…

Skim & Watch: MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun

April 9, 2022

One of my favorite games to play in a group is Settlers of Catan. For me, the fun part of the game is the…

Critical Play: Spyfall

April 7, 2022

Critical Play: SPYFALL General Information Spyfall by Alexander Ushan Played as an online game Target audience The target audience of Spyfall is ages 13+ (according…

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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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Recent Posts

  • P4: SpaceBoi vs. The World
  • P4: i dream of dragons
  • P4: Chipot-play
  • P4 | Get Schooled!
  • P4: Interactive Fiction

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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