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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: mavital

Final Reflection – maya

June 6, 2025

Before this class, I never really saw myself as a “gamer.” I’ve played some casual games here and there, but I always thought game…

Critical play – play like a feminist

May 30, 2025

One Night, Hot Springs is a short and sensitive visual novel that lets players step into the shoes of Haru, a young transgender woman…

Sketchnote -PVC

May 27, 2025

Critical Play – Games of Chance and Addiction maya

May 23, 2025

In playing two online games, Blackjack (on the Washington Post’s platform) and Hay Day (a mobile farming simulator by Supercell), I explored how randomness…

addiction by design sketch maya

May 21, 2025

Critical Play – Puzzles – The Room

May 8, 2025

   I played the mobile game The Room by Fireproof Games. The game is for users 10+ who love escape rooms and puzzle mysteries….

Puzzles sketchnote maya

May 7, 2025

P2 Concept Doc – Team 11

May 6, 2025

Our concept doc was made in Google Slides   Concept Doc slides   here are our individual posts: cole – https://mechanicsofmagic.com/2025/05/04/checkpoint-1-concept-doc-individual-deliverables-cole/ barney – https://mechanicsofmagic.com/2025/05/03/checkpoint-1-concept-doc-individual-delivarables/…

Checkpoint 1 – individual

May 4, 2025

Thinking art deco travel poster theme for each landmark someone visits on the scavenger hunt, which is just a normal map maybe tagged with…

Team norms: Team 11

May 2, 2025

P2 Members: Barney, Cole, Maya, Jess Team Norms   Try to be on time for class, meetings, etc.  Being open to scheduling or the…

Escape room critical play: Tiny Room Stories: Town Mystery

May 1, 2025

developed by Kiary Games Ltd., is a mobile puzzle game that combines the logic of escape rooms with the immersive qualities of interactive storytelling….

Role of Arch – SketchNote

April 30, 2025

Walking Simulator Critical Play

April 25, 2025

I chose to play babbdi, it tells the story by forcing the player to move through and explore an eerie, unsettling world where everything…

Mind Map Narrative architecture

April 22, 2025

using notability

Competitive Critical Play

April 15, 2025

I played Nacho Stack, which is a tabletop game created by professor puzzle games a UK based game designer and manufacturer of games and…

Sketchnote – Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 14, 2025

Sketchnote 2  made with notability!

Critical play – we’re not really strangers

April 10, 2025

I played the mobile version of we are not really strangers that was shared in the slack chat. This is originally a card game…

Short ex. Prototypes – Maya

April 9, 2025

How might we design the prompts such that the game actually work with everyone’s household items?1. This is important to answer because if we…

Maya’s sketchnote 1

April 7, 2025

what games are and aren’t sketch notes. I used ipad and notability!

MDA & 8 kinds of fun Maya Avital

April 7, 2025

Growing up, my little sister and I used to spend our free weekend mornings playing Indiana Jones Lego games on the Xbox. We did…

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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Recent Posts

  • CS199 W26 Reflection: Space Game by Ngoc
  • CS 399 W26 Reflection — Space Game and Loose Lips
  • The Wizard’s Codex: CS399 Winter 2026
  • Space Game EOQ Reflection – Krystal Li
  • Protected: P2 Refined Prototype — amaru

Recent Comments

  • EvvrryyDDY2 on Critical Play: BABBDI
  • Male Monitor – Seminar Group 2 on Through the Looking Glass: Gendered Gazes in Video Games 
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  • brysigg on P2: The Empathy Machine – Angela Mao
  • brysigg on P2: The Empathy Machine

Categories

  • P2: The Empathy Machine
  • Featured
  • Project One
  • milestone
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  • 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
  • P4: Refine a Game
  • Sketchnotes
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