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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: Chu

Final Class Reflection

June 2, 2022

Before taking CS247G, I always imagined game designers to be some kind of mysterious, super smart, ultra creative people. Game design seemed very out…

Sketchnote: Terror in Subnautica

May 27, 2022

Critical Play: Is this game balanced? – Magic Awakened

May 26, 2022

One game that I love to play is Harry Potter Magic Awakened, a Harry Potter themed mobile game co-developed by Warner Bros. Games and…

Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies

May 23, 2022

Critical Play: Puzzles – Gorongoa

May 19, 2022

Gorongoa is a puzzle game developed by Jason Roberts. It is available on various platforms such as Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, etc….

Sketchnote/Mindmap: Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games

May 16, 2022

Critical Play: Mysteries – Year Walk

May 11, 2022

For this critical play, I tried out Year Walk, a creepy mystery game made by a Swedish game developer Simogo. It is available on…

Sketchnote: The Role of Architecture in Videogames

May 10, 2022

Critical Play: Walking Simulators – Dear Esther

May 5, 2022

I played Dear Esther, one of pioneers of first-person walking simulator games. Dear Esther was created by The Chinese Room and redeveloped by Robert…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture

May 3, 2022

  A game that I play almost everyday is Harry Potter: Magic Awakened. It is a meta game that includes many mini games within….

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

May 1, 2022

 

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc – Moodboard, Playlist, Directions

May 1, 2022

Moodboard Playlist Directions Undercover roommate: Story: Your roommate who is a straight A student and never misses class, does not show up for the…

Sketchnote: Balancing Games: Chance and Skill

April 26, 2022

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable — skribbl.io

April 22, 2022

For this play test, I chose to play skribbl.io. This game is a multiplayer drawing and guessing game. It is offered for free to…

Project 1: Social / Party Game — Movie Madness

April 21, 2022

Designed and created by: Chu Zhang, Sam Silverstein, Rebecca Jia, Grace Zhou Artist’s Statement Our vision for Movie Madness was simple: create a game…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 19, 2022

Visual Design of Games

April 18, 2022

Elements of Cheese or Font: Core A list of 50 words to guess whether they are the names of a font or a type…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – New Phone, Who Dis

April 14, 2022

Our team’s game is a type of hilarious comparison card game, so for the competitive analysis I chose to try out New Phone, Who…

What do Prototypes Prototype

April 12, 2022

Do the noun and verb cards fit in the plot cards to create something that makes sense? Our game asks players to fill out…

MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun – Overcooked 2

April 12, 2022

A game that I like to play with friends and family is Overcooked 2. Overcooked 2 is a game where players collaborate together to…

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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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  • April 2021
  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Playtesting Alone Sketchnote
  • P1: Those Who Play, Teach – corporate vision
  • P1: Those Who Play, Teach – Black Friday Baking
  • P1 – Those Who Play, Teach – Two-Man Show!
  • P1: Those Who Play, Teach

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

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