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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: Ian Yue Han Ng

Play Like a Feminist: Stardew Valley

June 9, 2024

Stardew Valley is a farming simulator game released in 2016 by solo game developer ConcernedApe. Built for audiences of all ages who are seeking…

Narrative Architecture Mindmap

June 9, 2024

Enacted: Spider-Man: Miles Morales Embedded: Hollow Knight Evocative: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Emergent: Minecraft

Final Reflection

June 9, 2024

I really enjoyed the class overall! I’ve been very interested in game design for a long time (since the beginning of college, honestly, if…

Critical Play: Games of Chance

June 9, 2024

Texas Hold’em Poker is a game of chance, played using a standard 52-card deck without jokers, created in the early 1900s in Texas by…

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 18, 2024

Twelve Minutes is a mystery/thriller game developed by Luís António and Annapurna Interactive in 2021. The game contains sensitive themes, and is generally built…

Critical Play: Puzzles

May 18, 2024

Portal 2 is a puzzle game, playable on console or PC, and created by Valve in 2011. While it doesn’t have a particular audience,…

Short Exercise: What do Prototypes Prototype? (Ian Ng)

May 18, 2024

Does the story come across well enough through just the dialogue of the characters? This question is important because while our game is a…

P2 Group Checkpoint 1: Spiraling (Team 25)

May 6, 2024

Intro For years, nothing changed at Erevere Hospital. Day blended into identical day. But today, something is different. Your cell door, always locked, is…

P2 Individual Checkpoint 1 — Ian

May 6, 2024

Moodboard: Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ptD7lwWdsZDm8t2efipax?si=0b96e5a51ddc439a   Premise: You are in a mental hospital, surrounded by nothing but other patients that you can’t see, and with no way…

The Stanley Parable (Critical Play: Walking Simulators)

May 4, 2024

The Stanley Parable is a walking game, playable on PC, and created by Davey Wreden and William Pugh in 2013. While it doesn’t have…

Dare to Share – CS 247G Project 1 (Team 11)

April 27, 2024

Artists’ Statement We created Dare to Share as a fun party game to bring people together through the sharing of personal stories and experiences….

Critical Play — Cards Against Humanity

April 24, 2024

Cards Against Humanity is a judging/social game created by Max Temkin, Ben Hantoot, Eliot Weinstein, Daniel Dranove, Eli Halpern, David Pinsof, David Munk, and…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships (Ian Ng)

April 19, 2024

Critical Play — We’re Not Really Strangers

April 17, 2024

We’re Not Really Strangers is a party/social game created by Koreen Odiney, creator and CEO of the We’re Not Really Strangers company. Primarily targeted…

MDA Analysis: Rhythm Doctor

April 9, 2024

Rhythm Doctor is one of my favorite games of all time. It’s a one-button indie rhythm game, which is exceedingly simple in its mechanics….

Critical Play: Social Deduction (iyhn8192)

April 9, 2024

Spyfall, at its core, is a mafia-esque, unilateral competition social deduction game that requires players to figure out who is the spy in the…

Formal Elements: Mind Map (Ian)

April 4, 2024

Introduction – Ian Ng

April 4, 2024

Hi everyone! I’m Ian (he/him), and I’m a senior/final year coterm studying CS (AI track, surprise surprise.) I have a bunch of favorite games,…

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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  • June 2021
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  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Joaquin Sketchnote 5: Addiction by Design
  • Sketchnote: Addiction by Design
  • Sketchnote: Addiction by Design
  • Sketchnote: Addiction by Design – Andrew
  • Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies

Recent Comments

  • amaru on Critical Play: Mysteries & Escape Rooms – Amelia Chen
  • suyeshen on Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable – Sue Shen
  • Izzy on P2: AI Judgment Day
  • Izzy on P2: The Future We Deserve – The Broadcast
  • Izzy on P2: Pokemon The Next Adventure

Categories

  • Featured
  • Project One
  • P2: The Future We Deserve
  • milestone
  • 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
  • Sketchnotes
  • P4: Refine a Game
  • 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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