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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: ReadWritePlay

Through the Looking Glass: Gendered Gazes in Video Games 

June 8, 2023

In her landmark paper, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey (1991) discusses the role of the male gaze in cinema, defining the male…

Stardew Valley Has Taken Over My Life

June 7, 2023

[dancing at the Flower Dance] Rating: 9/10   I played Stardew Valley this quarter and it has taken over my life. It’s been two…

Hollow Knight: A Refreshing Metroidvania

June 6, 2023

★★★★★★★★★✰ [9/10 stars] Hollow Knight’s gameplay isn’t unique. It’s similar to other existing platformers or metroidvanias. However, its charm that draws you in is…

Hollow Knight, TDLR: I’m in deep.

June 4, 2023

Rating: 9/10   I got to play Hollow knight this quarter and it has slowly become one of my favorite games (I hit 10/15…

Stardew Valley: To farm or not to farm? 

June 2, 2023

★★★★★★★✰✰✰ [7/10 stars] While I only played Stardew Valley for a few hours, I felt like there were so many different things to explore…

RWP: Undertale

June 1, 2023

I actually started playing Undertale during the spring break before this class began. It took me until the week we discussed it in class…

RWP: Stardew Valley

May 31, 2023

Stardew Valley was a game that I got to play for the first time thanks to this class. Though I was only able to…

Read Write Play: Mystic Messenger

May 30, 2023

After playing Mystic Messenger and reading the paper titled “Investing Time for Your In-Game Boyfriends and BFFs: Time as Commodity and the Simulation of…

RWP: What Remains of Edith Finch

May 30, 2023

What Remains of Edith Finch, a first-person exploration game developed by Giant Sparrow and published by Annapurna Interactive, was an incredibly immersive, and as…

Read Write Play: Stardew Valley

May 29, 2023

After playing Stardew Valley and reading “Playing in the global ‘village’: a comparative analysis of capitalist ideologies in Stardew Valley and Story of Seasons”…

Read Write Play: Undertale

May 29, 2023

After reading “The Rhetoric of Video Games” by Ian Bogost, I began to think about the rhetoric of Undertale. One key theme that is…

Edith Finch and Playing in First Person

May 29, 2023

What Remains of Edith Finch is known to me as one of the prime examples of the “walking simulator” genre. I had partially played…

Read Write Play: Catan

May 29, 2023

After reading the essay on Catan, it was really interesting to think about the values that games instill in players and the extent to…

Hollow Knight, Metroidvanias, and Storytelling

May 29, 2023

Before playing, I didn’t think that Hollow Knight was about a kingdom of different bugs and insects. The Knight just seemed like a cute…

RWP: Mystic Messenger – Amy Lo

May 26, 2023

Mystic Messenger is a mobile dating simulator game developed and published by Cheritz. When it was released in 2016, it quickly gained popularity among…

Read Write Play: What Remains of Edith Finch

May 23, 2023

When I began playing “What Remains of Edith Finch,” I knew that it was a walking sim and expected that narrative and discovery would…

RWP Week #4: Undertale – I’m a “good person”, right?

May 17, 2023

I think it’s very hard to say something insightful about Undertale that hasn’t been said already. It’s a game that’s essentially been analyzed to…

RWP: Hollow Knight

May 16, 2023

Upon loading Hollow Knight, I was engulfed right off the bat with a tidal wave of sense-pleasure. Everything felt so satisfying — the animation…

RWP: Hollow Knight

May 13, 2023

Hollow Knight, the critically acclaimed action-adventure video game developed by Team Cherry, invites players into the mesmerizing underground kingdom of Hallownest. In Hollow Knight,…

Read Write Play: Hollow Knight

May 12, 2023

My initial reaction while playing Hollow Knight was that the fighting art and sounds were extremely intense. Many times when I swiped my sword,…

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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

  • P1: Introducing Serious Games (Emma Wong)
  • Apply MDAO to Daybreak
  • Sketchnote: MDAO – Saharat “Game” Laksanasut (สหรัฐ ลักษณะสุต)
  • P1: Introducing Serious Games – Sabrina Yen-Ko
  • Introducing Serious Games – Stop Disasters! – Saharat “Game” Laksanasut (สหรัฐ ลักษณะสุต)

Recent Comments

  • snoopy on Games, Design and Play: Elements – Noe Chicas-Aranda
  • Christina Wodtke on Personal Reflection
  • Christina Wodtke on Final Class Reflection – Nicholai K.
  • Christina Wodtke on 247G Final Class Reflection
  • Christina Wodtke on Final Class Reflection – Joseph Gu

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
  • 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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