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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

Category: P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences

Mindmap + Response: Working with System Dynamics – Ellie

December 15, 2024

Values, Arcs, and Loops in our P3 Game   Values Our game, Cooking Pals, puts the player in the position of a restaurateur opening…

P3: Reflection

November 25, 2024

Developing Cooking Pals proved to be much more difficult of a challenge than I initially anticipated, especially when it came to designing and modeling…

P3: Reflection – ISPS

November 24, 2024

InterStellar Postal Service was such a fun systems game to work on! Before reading about and making one, I was pretty unclear on what…

P3 Reflection – Helicopter Parent – Sam Jett

November 24, 2024

Prior to this project, I had already been a part of a team which built a systems game: Sunnyvale, CA, which modeled the system…

P3: Reflection (Khushi)

November 24, 2024

Before engaging with the P3 systems game project, I viewed systems games as complex and often daunting. My limited prior experience suggested they involved…

Cooking Pals—P3 T5

November 23, 2024

Team 5 – Gracielly Abreu, José Davila, Butch Nasser, Ellie Vela, Haven Whitney Overview/Artist’s Statement (Note that this game went through major revisions and…

ISPS: Reflection

November 23, 2024

Before playing ISPS, I expected a systems game to focus heavily on strategy and interconnectedness, where success depends on mastering mechanics and managing resources…

P3 Reflection — Helicopter Parent

November 23, 2024

Helicopter Parent wasn’t the first game our group attempted to create. Our first game concept was Addendum, a game about pork barrel politics and the ways…

P3: Helicopter Parent

November 23, 2024

A game by Arnav Mehta, Grace Xu, Sam Jett, and Seamus Allen. Artist Statement  Helicopter Parent is a game about the extreme rigor parents…

P3: Reflection – Mayshu

November 23, 2024

Initially, I approached the project with curiosity but limited understanding of how systems games could translate intricate mechanics into a cohesive and enjoyable experience….

P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences – Fiximupim – Team

November 23, 2024

Fiximupim is a satirical dating game that uses humor and irony to explore the complexities of relationships, personal growth, and societal expectations. It is…

P3: Playtest Prototype – ISPS

November 20, 2024

We playtested with a few Stanford students outside of class and they gave us helpful feedback on how to adjust the minigames. At the…

P3: Reflection – Grace

November 19, 2024

The game Helicopter Parent simulates the college admission system from the parents’ perspectives. Acting as helicopter parents, players send their two children to various…

P3: Concept Map – Group 1 – “Fiximupim”

November 13, 2024

“Fiximupim” concept map for the system:   “Fiximupim” concept map for the game: Core Gameplay Loop: Includes Character Selection, Trait Management, Activities, and Conversations…

P3: Playable first draft – InterStellar Postal Service (ISPS)

November 12, 2024

Playtest When we were figuring out how to most effectively playtest for InterStellar Postal Service (ISPS), we decided that it would be most useful…

Working With System Dynamics – sam jett

November 12, 2024

Yesterday, we decided to change directions on P3 and work on a college-prep game instead of a bill addendum game. The game, Helicopter Parent,…

Working With System Dynamics: Helicopter Parent

November 12, 2024

Our game concept is Helicopter Parent, a worker-placement game where highly-involved parents shuffle their kids from activity to activity to get them into the…

Working With System Dynamics – Grace

November 10, 2024

The game Addendum is designed to reflect the US system for policy making, particularly the addendums that are added to policies to facilitate their…

P3: Tiny Playable Prototype – InterStellar Postal Service

November 7, 2024

Team Members Zoe Clute, Asher Hensley, Ana Nguyen, Houston Taylor, Thanh Tieu Background We are making a digital game about the system of the…

P3: Tiny playable prototype

November 7, 2024

Our team developed a very minimal prototype for the game The Purrsuit of Happiness, a survival game about fulfilling Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a…

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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  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Sketchnote: Loops & Arcs
  • Sketchnote: Loops & Arcs
  • Sketchnote: Loops & Arcs
  • Sketchnote: Addiction by Design – Ilaria
  • Loops and Arcs – Mai Mostafa

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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