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The Mechanics of Magic

The Mechanics of Magic

Game Design Writings by Students at Stanford taking 247G and 377G

  • Library
    • 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
    • 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: SGSG

Shana’s Stanford Senior Reflection (Shana E. Hadi)

August 8, 2023

Hello, world! I struggled to begin and end this senior (+ coterm) reflection, partially because I framed this as “MY LAST STANFORD ASSIGNMENT, EVER”…

P3: Reflection

March 9, 2023

Boba Bliss is a game that tries to balance challenging the player with thinking about business strategy and providing a casual, relaxing, and cute…

P3: The Game of Unexpected Consequences — Boba Bliss

March 9, 2023

Game: Boba Bliss Team members: Yasmine Mitchell, Grace Zhang, Isabelle Lee Writeup link: P3 Writeup Game executable

P3: Overgrowth Reflection (Kyle Nguyen)

March 9, 2023

The biggest lesson I learned from making Overgrowth was how to be comfortable with complexity. Systems games are incredibly complex, and something I didn’t…

P3: Spaceboi vs. The World Reflection

March 9, 2023

Going into P3, I knew I wanted to help make a digital game so I was grateful when both Nick and Alejandro agreed to…

Sketchnote: Rules & Tutorials

March 9, 2023

P3: Game of Unexpected Consequences – Overgrowth🌲🔥🌲🔥🌲

March 7, 2023

Designers: Shana Hadi, Annie Nguyen, Kyle Nguyen, Ji Hong Ni We believe that the green design of cities will decide if we survive the climate…

Game Balance Sketchnote

March 6, 2023

P3 Reflection

March 6, 2023

Get schooled! is a systems game that may be the nerdiest project I have ever made! In this game, players each take on the…

Working With System Dynamics (Kyle Nguyen)

March 2, 2023

We’re making “Overgrowth,” a game about building a sustainable city. Players are challenged to draw resources from the environment while ensuring they’re not disrupting…

Working with System Dynamics; Values, Loops and Arcs in Overgrowth 🌲🔥🌿🔥🌳

February 27, 2023

Values In the larger picture of our game, we aim to increase understanding and awareness about forest preservation, and how human actions (of different…

Working With System Dynamics

February 27, 2023

For Sugar Rush, our game, some values that we are trying include involve awareness of how food companies market sugar to influence our consumption,…

P2: The Future We Deserve — i dream of dragons

February 21, 2023

“i dream of dragons”    Hook The human population has dwindled – only seven small villages scattered at the foot of a mountain remain,…

P2: The Future We Deserve — Accelerate

February 20, 2023

Note: It’s better to play my game blind here! My game takes place in the year 2073; the US doesn’t exist and has fractured…

P2: The Future We Deserve (Hacking 101)

February 18, 2023

GAME LINK *Can either play now or wait till you read up to and including the premise.* Overview: In the beginning, when thinking of…

P2: The Future We Deserve – with what eyes

February 18, 2023

<<o>> with what eyes <<o>> You can play the story here, before or after you read the documentation! : ) https://shanaeh.itch.io/with-what-eyes <<o>> Overview <<o>>…

P2 | Village

February 18, 2023

My Interactive Fiction is about an imaginary world where everything seems to be set in an unchanging utopia. The player plays a character that…

Don’t Say Gay: Choose Your Own Misadventure

February 16, 2023

Link to Game In Don’t Say Gay: Choose Your Own Misadventure, you are a queer educator in Florida on the day the Don’t Say…

P2 – My Sister’s Beetles (Kyle Nguyen)

February 16, 2023

    Play My Sister’s Beetles before reading further. Password: cs377g Overview I made My Sister’s Beetles to explore grief through interactive fiction. In…

P2 – Benthamic

February 16, 2023

Project 2: The Future We Deserve The Game – Benthamic Link : https://nfeff98.github.io/benthamic/ – best enjoyed in fullscreen. Walkthrough: no real puzzles in the…

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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
    • 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
    • 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

  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Useful Link Round Up
  • CS 247G – Outstanding Assignments
  • Shana’s Stanford Senior Reflection (Shana E. Hadi)
  • Beyond the Valley: How Mods Affect Games like Stardew Valley
  • Final reflection + Thank you note!

Recent Comments

  • Christina Wodtke on Shana’s Stanford Senior Reflection (Shana E. Hadi)
  • Ilee on RWP: Experimental Games
  • phuctran on Hollow Knight, Metroidvanias, and Storytelling
  • phuctran on RWP Week 6 – Hollow Knight: please play this game oh my god its so good ahhhhh
  • phuctran on RWP: Hollow Knight

Categories

  • CS247G
  • P1: Social Games
  • mindmap
  • P2: The Future We Deserve
  • Project One
  • milestone
  • Assignments
  • Lectures
  • P2: Games In Space
  • Critical Play
  • Project Two
  • Sketchnotes
  • P4: Refine a Game
  • Project Four REFINE
  • From the Instructor
  • Project Two: The Future We Deserve
  • ReadWritePlay
  • Project Three: The Game of Unexpected Consequences
  • 377G: Serious Games
  • SGSG

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