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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

Author: Jeffery Cai

P1 Reflection – Jeffery

October 15, 2026

I came into this project with a rather outdated view on learning games. In my mind, educational games were often designed to maximize learning…

P1: Cave Talk

October 14, 2026

CAVE TALK Game by snoopy, Sabrina Yen-Ko, Noé Antonio Chicas-Aranda, Jeffery Cai Overview:  KE-VI TU-KE mo ke zapo ke — sorry, let me rephrase!…

Precision of Emotion: A New Kind of “Fun” Approach in Educational Games Sketchnote

October 8, 2026

GDrive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RIyH6wgVSerNJHPIamhz2_0zMy7ZQW7h/view?usp=sharing (Stanford email)  

P1: Introducing Serious Games – CellCraft

September 29, 2026

I played CellCraft, a real-time strategy game that teaches cellular biology through the management of your very own cell. In the game, you control…

Sketchnote: MDAO

September 28, 2026

I tried using a Smash Bros “New Challenger Approaching” theme! Then I realized I needed to space to talk about the other stuff. So…

Games, Design and Play: Elements – Jeffery

September 26, 2026

Basic Elements of Table Tennis Players: The game can be played with either or 4 players, divided into two equal teams. Objects: The objects…

Final Reflection – Jeffery Cai

June 5, 2026

Throughout my life, games have been a central part of who I am as a person. When I was young, I learned how to…

Sketchnote: Onboarding in PvZ

May 27, 2026

GDrive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rvEIlFoEGiKdJFQBDgyagPZmhBjOQ2qg/view?usp=sharing

Critical Play: Games of Chance and Addiction — Umamusume: Pretty Derby

May 22, 2026

This week I played Umamusume: Pretty Derby (hereafter Umamusume). Developed by Cygames, the game was released on Android and iOS internationally in June 2025…

Sketchnote: Addiction By Design

May 20, 2026

GDrive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y6hx33aDIOS4aM1AH5HNlAvWSgJnX8H1/view?usp=sharing  

Critical Play: Worldbuilding — Hollow Knight

May 15, 2026

This week, I played Hollow Knight (hereafter HK) by Team Cherry. The game was released in 2017 on PC and then ported later to…

Sketchnote: Loops and Arcs

May 13, 2026

GDrive link here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YjPkUOmRunyc79TtmXzZr3OXRYA9HjhB/view?usp=sharing I’ve been playing a lot of the Arena mode in League of Legends lately, so I will talk about that!…

Critical Play: Puzzles — Fez

May 8, 2026

The game I played was Fez, which was created by Polytron Corporation in 2012. The game is HEAVILY targeted towards players (of all ages)…

Sketchnote: Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games

May 6, 2026

Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n-EbMm-ZIPd1C1CeeaMMOQ-J-UMFVSav/view?usp=sharing

P2 Concept Doc Individual Submission – Reithrodon Jeffery

May 4, 2026

Three directions for the game to go in: Doomscrolling sim: You send reels to the character(s) on screen in a sequence. Each reel sent…

Critical Play: Mysteries & Escape Rooms — Escape Simulator 2 (Dracula 1-3)

May 1, 2026

The game I played was Escape Simulator 2 (ES2), a video game developed by Pine Studio and released in 2025. The game is rated for…

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

April 28, 2026

Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TydRy7fTuU16nxkaLuBKnJPOov73nVP_/view?usp=sharing

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…

mindmap for narrative architecture

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

April 22, 2026

Drive link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MzRrYiTKnE_5F3Nz23BZX12oU-vTUmqd/view?usp=sharing Game choices are in the mindmap, written in red! Wasn’t sure if you wanted a brief explanation as to why we…

Game set for Secret Hitler

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – Secret Hitler

April 16, 2026

My group’s concept is a role-based social deduction game where players have the option to exchange voting power for private investigations on others. To…

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

Archives

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  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters – Saharat “Game” Laksanasut (สหรัฐ ลักษณะสุต)
  • Read & Play (Yuina)
  • Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters – Rachel Zhao
  • Read & Play: Game Design as Narrative Architecture: Jessica
  • Sketchnote for Zinesters (Yuina)

Recent Comments

  • dkkoba on Critical Play: Blood on the Clocktower (Bluffing, Judging, and Getting Vulnerable) – Sabrina
  • Jeffery Cai on P1: Cave Talk
  • syenko on P1: Cave Talk
  • snoopy on Games, Design and Play: Elements – Noe Chicas-Aranda
  • Christina Wodtke on Personal Reflection

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
  • P2: Games In Space
  • Critical Play
  • P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • Project Two
  • Project Four REFINE
  • P4: Refine a Game
  • Sketchnotes
  • Project Two: The Future We Deserve
  • From the Instructor
  • Project Three: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • ReadWritePlay
  • 377G: Serious Games
  • SGSG

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