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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: Critical Play

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist – Kai Ssempa

June 17, 2025

Shira Chess’s “Play Like a Feminist” invites us to see games through a feminist lens, not just in terms of representation, but in how…

Critical Play: Games of Chance and Addiction – Kai Ssempa

June 17, 2025

Back in high school, my brother and I used to play this game called Clash Royale. It’s made by a company called Supercell. It’s…

Critical Play: World Building – Kai Ssempa

June 17, 2025

I downloaded Celeste on my Switch a couple years ago! I loved being able to dive back into it for this assignment. Celeste is…

Critical Play – Storyteller

June 13, 2025

The puzzle game I decided to play for the critical play was Storyteller! I’d seen clips of it on Tiktok and other platforms, so…

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist

June 11, 2025

About the Game One Night, Hot Springs is a narrative-driven visual novel created by npckc, an independent Japanese game developer. The game is available…

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist (Kelly Bonilla Guzmán)

June 10, 2025

dys4ia, created by Anna Anthropy—a prolific game designer, writer, and educator—invites players into a deeply personal narrative chronicling her experience as a trans woman…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Clare

June 9, 2025

For this critical play, I played Yahtzee which I was previously unfamiliar with. As a dice game, the outcome of each set of rolls…

Critical Play: Rules and Onboarding

June 8, 2025

FIFA has a very frustrating onboarding experience. Every year they re-release the game with minimally changed mechanics. However, the mechanic changes aren’t major, they’re…

Critical Play: Mysteries & Escape Rooms

June 6, 2025

Overview: The game I played for this critical play was the box game Escape the Room: The Cursed Dollhouse. This game was developed by…

Crit Play – Feminist Gameplay

June 6, 2025

I played the game “with those we love alive” which was an exploration narrative-based Twine game by Porpentine in which you first create your…

Critical Play: Worldbuilding

June 6, 2025

  Overview: For my critical play, I decided to revisit Super Mario World, a 2D platformer developed by Nintendo EAD and created by Shigeru…

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist

June 6, 2025

Overview For this critical play, I decided to play With Those We Love Alive, an interactive fiction game created by Porpentine and available to…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction

June 6, 2025

Overview For this critical play, I decided to try out Blackjack, the classic casino card game that’s all about getting as close to 21…

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist – Whayden Dhamcho

June 5, 2025

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a story-driven, exploration-heavy, action-adventure, single-player game developed by Eidos Montréal and produced by Square Enix for mature audiences…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Whayden Dhamcho

June 5, 2025

Fortnite is one of the most popular and well known games of all time, and that’s for a reason. Developed by Epic Games, Fortnite…

Critical Play – Walking Simulator – Babbdi – Andreas Lorgen

June 2, 2025

For my walking simulator critical play, I decided to play Babbdi (I actually purchased What Remains of Edith Finch on Steam before realizing it…

Critical Play – Play Like a Feminist – Andreas

June 2, 2025

For my Critical Play, I decided to play “Queers in Love at the End of the World.” Queers in Love at the End of…

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist – Evan

June 1, 2025

For this week’s critical play, I play Doki Doki Literature Club. A game by Team Salvato which can be played on a computer (I…

Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – jess

May 31, 2025

Target Audience and Game Info: I played Poker on 247 Free Poker, a free browser game made by 247 Games. The platform is web-based…

Critical Play – Worldbuilding – Andreas

May 31, 2025

For my critical play on worldbuilding, I decided to play the game Wizard101 on my computer.  The game was developed by KingIsle Entertainment in…

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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

  • Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist – Kai Ssempa
  • Critical Play: Games of Chance and Addiction – Kai Ssempa
  • Critical Play: World Building – Kai Ssempa
  • Critical Play: Puzzles – Kai Ssempa
  • Pixel Runway — Or, What Games Teach Fashion‑Tech About Joyful Retention

Recent Comments

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

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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