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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: Krystal Li

Read & Play: Working With System Dynamics (Shapez.io) – Krystal Li

November 4, 2025

[Sketchnote of Fullerton’s Working with System Dynamics & Cook’s Loops & Arcs.] HD Version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IqFYicQigHDE8nmSXcvqQzOXhExUiMnH/view?usp=drive_link Overview For this Read & Play, I decided to…

P2: Reflection – Krystal Li

November 1, 2025

The sort of fun I wanted to create with two houses was a mix of humor and emotional reflection, something a little funny, but…

P2: two houses – Krystal Li

November 1, 2025

two houses One moment, your marriage is ending. The next, you wake in a different world where every tragedy reflects another. Every choice brings…

P2 Refined Prototype – Krystal Li

October 27, 2025

Link to Renpy files for download: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zvM0WZl4F9cp1wAqo8TsF3MCM2NrvD04?usp=sharing In this new iteration, I added character sprites and backgrounds to bring more visual depth to the…

P2: Map, premise, project plan – Krystal Li

October 20, 2025

Premise: In this game, Vincent, a man who is on the verge of a divorce has a fight with his wife before being hit…

P2: Playtest – Krystal Li

October 20, 2025

My game, tentatively titled Undying Love,  is a narrative-driven IF game where players take on the role of Vincent, a middle-aged man on the…

Tiny Playable Prototype – Krystal Li

October 16, 2025

I made a tiny playable prototype for my game that transports a middle-aged divorced man named Vincent into the world of Romeo and Juliet….

Read & Play: Game Design as Narrative Architecture – Krystal Li

October 15, 2025

For this assignment, I decided to play Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC), which is a visual novel game created by Team Salvato in 2017,…

Sketchnote: Rise of the Video Game Zinesters – Krystal Li

October 13, 2025

High Quality version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pGJ86Kd1roDdSSRe0TWWu5WCEpIOpLtf/view?usp=sharing    

P1 Reflection on 1792 – Krystal Li

October 12, 2025

I was part of Group 2, and we made the game 1792, (prev. Let Them Eat Cake). When our group first got to talking…

Precision of Emotion Sketchnote – Krystal Li

October 7, 2025

P1: Introducing Serious Games (Spent) – Krystal Li

September 30, 2025

Spent is a serious game developed by the McKinney Agency for the Urban Ministries of Durham, that offers a unique perspective on poverty. The…

Sketchnote: MDAO Framework – Krystal Li

September 29, 2025

Games, Design and Play: Elements – Krystal Li

September 24, 2025

Identify the basic elements in a game of your choice (actions, goals, rules, objects, playspace, players). One of my favorite games is Neko Atsume,…

Final Class Reflection – Krystal Li

June 9, 2024

Growing up, I was always playing games with my family, and it was something that bonded my siblings and I together since we have…

Sketchnote: Addiction by Design – Krystal Li

June 2, 2024

Critical Play: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – Krystal Li

May 29, 2024

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a fighting game created by Masahiro Sakurai along with Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. The game was published…

Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs. Zombies – Krystal Li

May 25, 2024

Sketchnote: Puzzles in/as Games – Krystal Li

May 23, 2024

Sketchnote: Role of Architecture in Video Games – Krystal Li

May 17, 2024

Posts pagination

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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

  • 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

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