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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

P2: “The Sixth Face” (Team Bathyergus)

August 14, 2026

Team Bathyergus: Xingyi, Ellie, Claire, Dana, Hazel Artist’s Statement The Sixth Face is a single-player puzzle videogame for the Playdate system centering on Vincent…

Final Class Reflection-Emily Su

August 14, 2026

Learning to Design Through Play Before taking this class, I thought play simply meant doing something fun that helped people relax and feel happy….

Final Class Reflection_Vivian

August 14, 2026

I chose this class because I am looking for a specific stream of my major (Computer Science). I am not a big fan of…

Final Class Reflection

August 14, 2026

Before this class, I thought of games as a primarily aesthetic and strategic experience. I had played games of chance mixed with strategy like…

Clare’s Final Class Reflection

August 14, 2026

I hadn’t been much of a gamer before this class. The only games I had played were a few RPGs and MOBAs like Honor…

P2: Level Design and Architecture – Felix Producto

August 14, 2026

A game by Owen Sample, Noah Leibert, Marcus Polson, and Nicholai Khitrykh Artist’s Statement: The original concept of Felix Producto was to create a…

Final Class Reflection – Marcus Polson

August 14, 2026

I came into this class loving games, video games, board games, card games, everything. Because I loved games, I wanted to make games, but…

Final Class Reflection – Nicholai K.

August 14, 2026

Before this class, I had always experienced games from a player’s perspective, focused more on the forward-facing parts of the game. With what I…

Final Reflection- Gavin Patton

August 14, 2026

I took this class for a few reasons, chief among them was that a class about game design that wasnt just about video games…

P2: Echos of Home

August 14, 2026

Echos of Home Team Niglarodon: Vivian RU, Yunming HUANG, Yan CHEN, Lebriz Bal CLAYTON Artist’s Statement: “Echoes of Home” explores a simple yet deeply…

Protected: Final Reflection

August 14, 2026

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Final Class Reflection – Yunming Huang

August 14, 2026

Before taking Design for Play, I thought of games mainly as something designed for people to have fun in their free time. A game…

Protected: Final class reflection

August 14, 2026

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Final Class Reflection

August 14, 2026

Before taking 247G, I mostly thought about games from the perspective of a player. When I played games like CS2, Cyberpunk 2077, or Red…

Personal Effects: P2 Level Design and Architecture

August 14, 2026

Personal Effects Game (recommended to download and play locally instead of online): https://alisteraxer.itch.io/personal-affects GitHub: https://github.com/bk-game/p2-game Final Playtest Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv2nJBD76Sc   Artist’s Statement The year…

Final Reflection

August 14, 2026

I really enjoy a good board game. Having mechanics that reward different types of strategies each play through like Dominion come to mind. But…

Aksel – Final Class Reflection

August 14, 2026

Did I walk into Design for play thinking I would make a game about cow ranching and another about impending vines? No, I did…

Protected: Final Class Reflection

August 14, 2026

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

8 Kinds of Fun

August 14, 2026

The Binding of Isaac is a game built around Discovery: each run gives me a chance to find an item combination I have not…

Critical Play: Her Story

August 14, 2026

What happens when a murder mystery gives you no detective to control and no crime scene to explore? In Her Story, you start by…

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

Archives

  • August 2026
  • July 2026
  • June 2026
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  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • September 2020
  • February 2017

Recent Posts

  • Final Class Reflection
  • Sketchnote or Mindmap: Cursed Problems
  • Final Class Reflection from Alex
  • Final Review – snoopy
  • Protected: Learning to Play Again

Recent Comments

  • ban on Protected: Learning to Play Again
  • Aksel Kolasinski on Level Design and Architecture-Rhizoplagiodontia-The Cold City
  • ban on Final Reflection
  • ban on Aksel – Final Class Reflection
  • Christina Wodtke on Protected: Final Class Reflection

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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