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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: Dilan

Final Class Reflection (Dilan Nana)

June 2, 2022

In a couple words to sum up this quarter in CS247, it has truly been the craziest shit.  Pardon my French, but imagine you…

Sketchnote: Cursed Problems

June 2, 2022

Critical Play: Theme Only Games

June 2, 2022

World of Goo World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game made by 2D Boy. It’s a digital game that I played on the…

Mindmap: Terror in Subnautica

May 29, 2022

Critical Play : Is ‘Secret Hitler’ Balanced?

May 27, 2022

Background For this week’s critical play, I played an incredibly memorable game for me: Secret Hitler. Although I have done critical plays on this…

Sketchnote: Onboarding – Plants vs. Zombies

May 23, 2022

Critical Play : Puzzles

May 20, 2022

Background Information: I played Monument Valley by Ustwo Studios on the IPhone/IOS platform. This is an adventure game that I think is best suited…

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 17, 2022

Critical Play : Mysteries

May 13, 2022

For this critical play, I played the game Life is Strange developed by Square Enix Ltd, DontNod Entertainment, Feral Interactive, Black Wing Foundation, and…

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

May 10, 2022

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

May 5, 2022

For my critical play, I played the game Dear Esther created by The Chinese Room and Robert Briscoe. During my couple hours of play…

Project 2: Moodboard – Dilan Nana

May 3, 2022

Three Emotions to Evoke Hope Uncertainty Curiosity Moodboards Spotify Playlist 3 Directions for the Game: Choose your own adventure User makes choices to continue…

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

May 3, 2022

Examples: Evocative Spaces Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Builds off of players existing knowledge of the Star Wars story-world and familiarity with characters/plots/landscape Enacting…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture

May 2, 2022

  One game I have been enjoying thoroughly is Farmers.io on the IPhone. This game has a pretty simple architecture, similar to other .io…

Sketch Note: Chance and Skill – Dilan Nana

April 26, 2022

Project 1: Social / Party Game — Court Case | Dilan Nana, Alahji Barry, Labib Rahman, Gustavo Vegas

April 22, 2022

Artist Statement  Do you like having a good argument with friends? Or have a real appreciation for making sure justice prevails? Introducing Court Case,…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable..

April 21, 2022

Overview For this critical play focused on bluffing, judging and getting vulnerable, I played Secret Hitler. The social-deduction game was created in 2016 by…

Sketch Note: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 19, 2022

Visual Design of Games — Dilan Nana

April 19, 2022

Completed Exercises:  Core:  The Play Quiz Button so the user can begin the game The score out of 50 to show the user their…

Competitive Play Analysis — Werewolf

April 14, 2022

Werewolf Werewolf is a “social deduction” game made by Stellar Factory. It’s a physical game that usually includes a card deck, however there are…

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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

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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

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