Skip to content
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: Czhang

Final Class Reflection

June 3, 2022

Initially, I took this class because I heard and thought it would be a fun experience—we get to play and talk about games, and…

Mindmap: Terror in Subnautica

May 31, 2022

Critical Play: Is this game balanced?

May 27, 2022

For this critical play, I will discuss Settlers of Catan, a German-style board game designed by Klaus Teuber. The target audience is players of…

Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies

May 25, 2022

Critical Play: Puzzles

May 20, 2022

For this critical play, I played Factory Balls, a casual indie logic puzzle game developed by Bart Bonte. It is available on Steam, itch.io,…

Mindmap: Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games

May 18, 2022

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 15, 2022

For this critical play, I will discuss Gone Home, an interactive exploration simulator game developed by The Fullbright Company. It is available on Microsoft…

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

May 11, 2022

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

May 8, 2022

For this critical play, I played Places, a walking simulator game developed by @ktch0 which is self-described as “small and atmospheric 3D paintings where…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture

May 3, 2022

A game that I used to play a lot during elementary school is Lemonade Stand. You operate a lemonade stand and aim to make…

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

May 2, 2022

Examples Evocative spaces: Pottermore Enacting stories: Pokémon Embedded narratives: A murder mystery escape room game that I played once Emergent narratives: The Sims

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc (Individual)

May 2, 2022

Moodboard Spotify Playlist  Directions Dark boarding school aesthetic, murder mystery Assign roles to players, who are roleplaying students and staff at a dark…

Sketchnote: Balancing Games: Chance and Skill

April 25, 2022

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable: Cards Against Humanity

April 22, 2022

For this critical play, I will discuss Cards Against Humanity, an adult party game created by eight Highland Park High School alumni (Josh Dillon,…

Visual Design of Games

April 20, 2022

Elements of Cheese or Font Core elements: Prompt (i.e. “Tahoma”) Input (“Enter C or F”) Interactive answer (after a couple of seconds, the system…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 19, 2022

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis: Mafia

April 17, 2022

For this critical play, I played and will be discussing Mafia, which is a social deception game. Our team’s game also revolves around the…

What do Prototypes Prototype?

April 13, 2022

How do we balance the enjoyable roleplay segment with the functional murder mystery debate segment? This is an important question to answer because currently,…

Skim & Watch: MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun: Golf

April 13, 2022

For this blog post, I will be discussing the game of golf. Golf is a sport that involves using various clubs to hit the…

Critical Play: Spyfall

April 8, 2022

For this critical play, my friends and I played Spyfall. Spyfall was created by Alexander Ushan, and we used netgames.io to play an online…

Posts navigation

1 2 Next

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

  • 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

  • Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters – Ji Hong Ni
  • Sketchnote: Playtesting Alone! – Jasmine Steele
  • rise of the video game zinesters
  • Rise of the Video Game Zinesters Sketchnote
  • Sketchnote: Playtesting alone – Charlotte Feng

Recent Comments

  • sarakolb on Final Reflection Essay
  • sarakolb on P4: Refine a game
  • sarakolb on Project 3 Reflection Essay
  • sarakolb on P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • sarakolb on Create Project 4 Rubric

Categories

  • mindmap
  • 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

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Copyright The Mechanics of Magic. All rights reserved. | Theme by SuperbThemes