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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

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

May 1, 2024

Dear Esther, created by The Chinese Room and published by Curve Digital, is a narrative-driven exploration game that has helped define the “walking simulator”…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators – What Remains of Edith Finch (Steve)

May 1, 2024

(I remember briefly watching “What Remains of Edith Finch” gameplay back in high school, and I was fascinated by its dark story. I’m really…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

May 1, 2024

“Dear Esther” is an adventure game developed by The Chinese Room in 2012, and arguably the original walking game that started the genre. With…

Critical Play — Firewatch

May 1, 2024

I sat down intending to play just the first hour or two like the assignment description encourages… But Campo Santo got me. And I’m…

Sketchnote: Game Design Narrative Architecture

May 1, 2024

Evocative: Lego Star Wars Battlefront II Enacting: Hollow Knight Embedded: Firewatch Emergent: Minecraft

Critical Play: Walking Simulators – What Remains of Edith Finch

May 1, 2024

I played “What Remains of Edith Finch” earlier this week on PC and got through most of the story. “What Remains of Edith Finch”…

Critical Play – Walking Simulators (Journey)

May 1, 2024

For this week’s critical play on walking simulators, I decided to play the game Journey. Journey is a wordless exploration game where the player…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 30, 2024

For this week’s critical play, I finally played The Stanley Parable. I remember when this game was really popular during middle school, and I’m…

Game Design Narrative Architecture

April 30, 2024

Critical Play: Walking Simulators (Year Walk) – Oluseyi

April 30, 2024

Year Walk is a first person adventure game released by Simogo in 2013 for iOS platforms. It has since been released for Windows PC,…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 30, 2024

Places is a walking game that focuses on unbridled and unguided exploration, with atmospheric sounds and immersive visuals. Given the indie nature of the…

Critical Play | Walking Sim | BABBDI

April 30, 2024

How does walking tell the story?   Target audience: 16+ Name of the game: BABBDI Game’s creator: Lemaitre Bros. Platform of the game: Steam,…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators

April 30, 2024

For my Critical Play, I chose to play Babbdi, a first-person exploration experience where the description of the game as written on the platform…

Critical Play: Walking Simulator — What Remains of Edith Finch

April 30, 2024

For my critical play, I played What Remains of Edith Finch, developed by Annapurna Interactive, on the iPhone. This is an adventure walking simulator…

Narrative Architecture – Mindmap – Caleb Liu

April 30, 2024

NarrativeArchitectureMindmap

[Critical Play] What Remains of Edith Finch

April 30, 2024

For my critical play, I played What Remains of Edith Finch. Although I know many friends who had played this game, I didn’t really…

Narrative Architecture Mindmap

April 30, 2024

Critical Play: Journey, a Walking Simulator

April 30, 2024

Journey is a “walking simulator” developed by Thatgamecompany, available on Playstation, Windows, and iOS. Its target audience is (I believe) “non-gamers,” who are looking…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators – Dear Esther

April 30, 2024

Dear Esther was published in 2012 by The Chinese Room. It can be played on the PC, certain consoles, and iOS devices. Dear Esther…

Checkpoint 0: Team Norms – Team 15

April 30, 2024

Team Members: Regina Sevilla, Ayana Griffin, Angela Wei, Miranda Liu Communicate if you will be late or not be able to complete your assigned…

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

  • Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants Versus Zombies — Jack Ryan
  • Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies – Myan
  • Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies – Daphne
  • Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies
  • Sketchnote: Onboarding in Plants vs Zombies

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
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  • SGSG

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