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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: sebastianblue

Hi, I’m Sebastian. I’m a composer, sound designer, storyteller, and student at Stanford majoring in Music and Theater. I’ve written musicals, designed sound for plays, designed lots of puzzles and built escape rooms and narrative games—including an annual murder mystery party where the guests always regret trusting me. I’m drawn to interactive experiences that blend emotion, humor, and surprise, and I’m especially interested in how game mechanics can carry meaning (or at least make people scream in a fun way).

Reflection Seb

June 9, 2025

I’m very glad I took this class. It is the first time I’ve enrolled in a class outside of the School of Humanities (can…

Play Like A Feminist

May 30, 2025

Game: Purrgatory (2021) Creator: Darvin “Niv” Heo Platform: itch.io / Steam (Windows, Mac) Target Audience: Fans of narrative games, visual novels, and LGBTQ+-inclusive storytelling…

Onboarding in PVZ

May 29, 2025

Balatro and Addiction: Who’s The Monster in Frankenstein, Really?

May 23, 2025

Target Audience: Roguelike fans, card game lovers, strategy-heads who enjoy depth disguised as luck. Game Name: Balatro Creator: LocalThunk Platform: PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox…

Games of Chance Sketch

May 20, 2025

Critical Play – tLoU

May 15, 2025

Game: The Last of Us (Remastered) Developer: Naughty Dog Platform: Playstation, PC Target audience: Fans of narrative-driven action games, players interested in dystopian settings,…

Sketchnote- Loops and arcs

May 13, 2025

Puzzles as Games – Seb

May 8, 2025

Game: Riven (2024 Remake) Target Audience: Fans of narrative-driven puzzle games, ages 13+, namely players who enjoy slow, exploratory gameplay and atmospheric storytelling. Game…

Sketchnote – What are the types of puzzles?

May 6, 2025

Group 8 P2 Concept Doc – Clearing

May 6, 2025

Appendix: Individual Deliverables

Individual Concept Doc – Sebastian Hochman

May 6, 2025

Directions: 1. The Quiet Reckoning A slow-burn, meditative version of the game. Focused on atmosphere, lore, and emotional discovery. Combat is rare, stylized—more like…

Sebastian Critical Play – Blue Prince

May 1, 2025

Name of game: The Blue Prince Creator: Hato Moa and Denis Mikan Platform: PC (I played on Mac with a controller) Target audience: Fans…

Sketchnote Architecture

April 30, 2025
AI Mockup

Project 1: Lie To Me

April 25, 2025

1. Artist’s Statement Why We Made “Lie to Me” We created “Lie to Me” to give young adults who crave deeper, more meaningful friendships…

Walking Simulators – Critical Play (Sebastian)

April 24, 2025

Game Name(s): The Stanley Parable, Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch Creator(s): Davey Wreden for Stanley Parable, Campo Santo for Firewatch, Giant Sparrow for…

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture – Sebastian

April 22, 2025

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis – Survivor

April 17, 2025

Target Audience: Survivor: The Game is designed for casual party gamers ages 8+, encouraged that the players are fans of the TV show, but…

Sketchnote: Game Design Patterns for Building Friendships

April 15, 2025

Short Exercise: What do Prototypes Prototype – Sebastian

April 10, 2025

How can this basic concept become a game? Making some kind of prototype to test different aspects of the game (I suppose this is…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable… – Sebastian

April 10, 2025

Game: Wavelength Creator: Alex Hague, Justin Vickers, Wolfgang Warsch Platform: Physical board game (also available as an online/mobile version) Target Audience: 2–12 (nice!) people…

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

  • Games, Design and Play: Elements – Huijun Mao
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  • Games, Design, and Play: Analysis
  • Games, Design and Play: Elements — amaru
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Recent Comments

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  • Christina Wodtke on Read, Write, Play: Starcraft 2 – Varsha
  • Christina Wodtke on Reflection Seb
  • Christina Wodtke on Final Class Reflection – Mateo LF

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
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