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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: Ngoc

Sophomore studying CS!

CS377G Class Reflection by Ngoc

December 12, 2025

Coming into the Class Coming into the class, I already had some familiarity with game design concepts from CS247G, including ideas like player agency,…

P4: Blank Canvas

December 12, 2025

Reintroducing Blank Canvas. Play here via Itch.io: https://knockdev.itch.io/blank-canvas  NOTE: On first load, it may take your browser a bit. You will get a black…

P3: Reflection by Ngoc

November 22, 2025

Fig 1. An animation I drew in 1.5 hours that added literally nothing to the game’s system but people liked it a lot !…

P3: Stayin’ Alive

November 22, 2025

Stayin’ Alive a systems game by Lucas W, Leyth T, Krystal L, and Ngoc T Find our game here: Link to Stayin’ Alive. If…

Sketchnotes/Response: Game Balance by Ngoc

November 18, 2025

Refer to featured image. I’m not sure why it’s not letting me embed my picture.

P3: Playable First Draft (EcoSystem)

November 10, 2025

“EcoSystem” by Lucas, Ngoc, Leyth, and Krystal Find the first draft here: https://lwcoding.itch.io/ecosystem (PW is: lizardman377g) Fig 1. Image of P3 game’s progress and…

Read & Play: Cult of the Lamb (Systems Games)

November 4, 2025

Overview Cult of the Lamb is a 2022 hybrid roguelike action-adventure and colony management simulation developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital….

P2: Reflection by Ngoc

November 1, 2025

Reflection Mechanics & Types of Fun The main mechanics of my game are: (1) viewing other people’s artworks and deciding if they were created…

P2: “Blank Canvas”

October 31, 2025

Introducing Blank Canvas. Play here via Itch.io: https://knockdev.itch.io/blank-canvas  Note: Please use WASD (or arrows) with W/up and S/down to navigate, E to toggle interacts…

Read & Play: Rhetoric of Video Games

October 28, 2025

Notes Animal Crossing and Economic Simulation Animal Crossing is an “animal village simulator” where players engage in everyday life—working, trading, and customizing homes. Central…

P2: “Blank Canvas” Playtest 10/27

October 27, 2025

Since I am a bit behind due to a busy weekend, I do not have a playable link where the game is published, but…

P2: “Blank Canvas” Playtest 10/19/25

October 20, 2025

Playtest 10/19/25 Player: Alex, a college-aged student. Alex is not an artist, but does not like AI art. Observations:  Fig 1. Conversation with first…

P2: Introducing “Blank Canvas”

October 20, 2025

Premise In Blank Canvas, you play as a struggling artist trying to make ends meet in New York City. With a father who doubts…

Read & Play: Game Design as Narrative Architecture by Ngoc

October 16, 2025

Game Design as Narrative Architecture Sketchnotes Game Overview and Target Audience “I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin’ Good Dating Simulator” is a…

P2: Tiny Playable Prototype

October 16, 2025

Tiny Prototype My prototype was a small segment of my game, consisting of you naming yourself, interacting with a wandering man who is interested…

P1: Reflection for Heartland

October 11, 2025

Heartland Introduction Heartland is a 3-4 player educational game about farming in the Central Valley. The gameplay consists of collecting supplies (like resource cards…

P1: An Adventure Through Heartland

October 10, 2025

✧₊∘ Welcome to Heartland ∘₊✧ Farming in the Central Valley created by: Lucas Wang, Sebastian Hochman, and Ngoc Tran Overview California’s Central Valley feeds…

Precision of Emotion by Ngoc

October 7, 2025

1. Shifting Ideas of “Fun” Old idea: “Fun is learning” — Raph Koster’s view. Reality check: There’s a divergence between what designers/educators and players…

Serious Games: Applying the MDAO Framework to EteRNA

September 30, 2025

Introduction The game I played is EteRNA, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University, with early leadership by Jeehyung Lee, Dr….

Sketchnotes: MDAO by Ngoc

September 30, 2025

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

Archives

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Recent Posts

  • Protected: P2 Refined Prototype — amaru
  • Protected: P2 Playtest Prototype — amaru
  • P4: It’s just a burning memory
  • Reflection Seb
  • P4: Giant Steps V2: Welcome To Tall’s

Recent Comments

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

Categories

  • P2: The Empathy Machine
  • Featured
  • Project One
  • milestone
  • P2: The Future We Deserve
  • 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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