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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: Ethan Huang

Final Class Reflection – Ethan Huang

June 2, 2022

Before taking CS 247G, I had honestly never thought deeply about games, their mechanics, or how they elicited fun for different types of players….

Final Writeup: Botanimals

May 31, 2022

Project 2 Final Deliverables: Botanimals by Miranda Diaz, Ember Fu, Ethan Huang, Jasmine Steele, & Gustavo Vegas Design Process Artist’s Statement Botanimals hybridizes the…

Mindmap: Terror in Subnautica

May 30, 2022

Critical Play: Balance

May 24, 2022

The Basics Game: Brawl Stars is an online, multiplayer shooter game where players play with hero characters on different arena maps against other players….

Sketchnote: Onboarding

May 22, 2022

Critical Play: Puzzles

May 16, 2022

The Basics Game: Factory Balls is a casual indie puzzle game where players use a combination of moves to paint balls and match the…

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 15, 2022

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 11, 2022

The Basics Game: Virginia, a “first-person mystery adventure video game…[following] graduate FBI special agent Anne Tarver as she investigates her first case: the disappearance of…

Sketchnote: Architecture

May 8, 2022

Critical Play: Walking Sims – Journey

May 5, 2022

The Basics Game: Journey, an indie adventure game where you play as a “robed figure in a vast desert” interacting with the environment. Created by: Santa…

Sketchnote: Game Architecture

May 3, 2022

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc – Ethan Huang

May 2, 2022

Mood Boards Board #1 Words Bright Light-hearted Cute? Paper-like Time Colors Images Board #2 Words Gloomy Darker Classy Slow Quiet Colors Images Board #3…

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

May 2, 2022

Evocative: Call of Duty Enacting: Legend of Zelda: BOTW Embedded: Monument Valley Emergent: Minecraft

Sketchnote: Balancing Games: Chance and Skill

April 26, 2022

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable…

April 20, 2022

Overview For this critical play, I played the popular online multiplayer deception game Among Us. The game was developed by Innersloth and released in…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 19, 2022

Visual Design of Games

April 18, 2022

Exercises   Beautiful Game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BOTW) is one of…

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis

April 14, 2022

We designed a social card game themed around genetically modifying chickens. Our game has a build phase and a battle phase. Players in the…

Skim & Watch: MDA & 8 Kinds of Fun

April 11, 2022

After being introduced to Mario Kart Wii as a child, I was immediately hooked on the game and still steadfastly believe that it, along…

What Do Prototypes Prototype? — Ethan Huang

April 11, 2022

How does the game make us feel? When we play games, there is an expectation of what that game will bring – joy, chaos,…

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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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  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • P4: i dream of dragons
  • P4: Chipot-play
  • P4 | Get Schooled!
  • P4: Interactive Fiction
  • sketchnote: playtesting formally – alejandro cid

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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