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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: CS247G

Untitled Fruit Game: Concept Doc

May 2, 2022

Untitled Fruit Game (Concept Doc)

Checkpoint 1: Individual Concept Doc

May 2, 2022

For our Escape Room, we want to build a tense narrative around the setting of a secretive office environment. We aim to embody 4…

Checkpoint 1: Secrets of Stanford Concept Doc

May 2, 2022

Checkpoint 1: Ulo’s Individual Concept Doc

May 2, 2022

Hi everyone! Just dropping by to share my individual concept doc for project 2! Here is my mood board for Secrets of Stanford:  …

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc (Individual)

May 2, 2022

Moodboard Spotify Playlist  Directions Dark boarding school aesthetic, murder mystery Assign roles to players, who are roleplaying students and staff at a dark…

Checkpoint 1: Concept

May 2, 2022

Emotions Wistful, hopeful, enchanted. Types of Fun Discovery, challenge, fellowship. Narrative Approach Mainly an emergent narrative, with either embedded or enacted narrative elements depending…

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc

May 2, 2022

Emotions: Wistful, Enchanted, Hopeful Moodboard:             Type of fun: Challenge, fellowship, discovery Narrative approach: A mix of enacted and…

Project 2 Checkpoint 1: Individual Brainstorm

May 1, 2022

Moodboard:   Spotify Playlist: Concepts: Concept 1: Kinds of fun: Challenge, Narrative, Fellowship, Sensation Narrative: The characters are in an abandoned/creepy hospital where a…

Project 2: Checkpoint 1 Individual Brainstorm

May 1, 2022

Moodboard Spotify Playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0HBNNEuJFKwPO3dmLxSbZr?si=b29c6bfc99dc4df5 Concept 1 Your kingdom will run out of money in 10 days so you need to speed run and find…

P2 – Individual Concept Map

May 1, 2022

Initial Mood Board Thinking, imagining, visualizing! Here are my individual initial ideas for our game, focused on space and environment. Below is a mood…

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

May 1, 2022

 

Mindmap: Narrative Architecture

April 30, 2022

Evocative Spaces: Marvel’s Spider-Man Enacting Stories: Lego Marvel Super Heroes Embedded Narrative: Friday the 13th: The Game Emergent Narratives: As a simmer I have…

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc – Individual

April 30, 2022

Mood Board Spotify Playlist Spotify Playlist 3 Directions for Game [Ideation 1] Player has a home base. They are living in Antarctica and each…

Checkpoint 1 Individual Mood Board, Playlist, and Directions for Game

April 30, 2022

Mood Board Spotify Playlist 3 Directions for the Game

Sketchnote: Game Architecture

April 30, 2022

5_3 Sketchnote

Checkpoint 1: Concepts (Kyle Nguyen)

April 30, 2022

Of the three mood boards I made, the one that was the most exciting was a retro space-themed mood board about a game where…

Checkpoint 1: Concept Doc (INDIVIDUAL)

April 29, 2022

Moodboard Music Art from Disco Elysium, Dishonored, and Deathloop Theme, Story, and Setting I’d like to pursue Player plays as a single or a…

P2 Moodboard, Playlist & Directions

April 28, 2022

Mind Map Playlist: Directions: Direction Kinds of fun Narrative approach 1. Escape room –> prison on a lost island need to complete challenges like…

Project 2: Moodboard, Playlist, and Description

April 28, 2022

In our escape room, we are hoping to evoke emotions of excitement, mystery, eeriness, and curiosity. I think this can be achieved by a…

Blog Response: Visual Design of Games

April 28, 2022

Cheese or Font Exercises Game Elements Core “PLAY QUIZ” button Name of item to guess Answer box Previous/next item buttons Score Timer “REPLAY” button…

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

  • Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction
  • Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction – Andrew
  • Critical Play: Games of Chance & Addiction
  • Critical Play: Games of Chance and Addiction – Lisa Ing
  • Sketchnote: Addiction by Design

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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