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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

Conclave: A Prayer Simulator — P2

November 1, 2025

Alt Title — Conclave: A Totally Celibate Dating Simulator What if no one wants to have a prayer session with you? Welcome, dear brother…

P2: two houses – Krystal Li

November 1, 2025

two houses One moment, your marriage is ending. The next, you wake in a different world where every tragedy reflects another. Every choice brings…

Reflection p2

November 1, 2025

This project was unlike anything I have ever made before. Going in, I did not expect a text-based game to feel so emotional or…

P2: The Empathy Machine

November 1, 2025

Unsent Drafts: P2 The Empathy Machine Before you step into the inbox, know this: Unsent Drafts isn’t just a story about what has been…

P2: Reflection

November 1, 2025

My experience of P2 overall was that I felt very challenged but felt very fulfilled by what I learned from it. Before I started,…

P2: Refined Prototype

November 1, 2025

Time: 10/29 Version: Complete Video Game (10/29) Participant: Ryan Esteban Loo (student of CS377G) Recording Link here. (Main discussion in the last 4 minutes and…

P2: Reflection – Tianze

November 1, 2025

Previously, I liked huge, complex stories. I loved constantly adding new plots, embracing ‘maximalism’. But the consequence was that I often ‘designed games’ without…

P2: Reflection

November 1, 2025

Before making my game Before making an interactive fiction game, I assumed all IF games were similar to Episode—story-driven experiences with branching choices and…

Read & Play: Working with System Games

November 1, 2025

In my sketchnote, I made separate sticky notes for different parts of the information I wanted to retain. Yellow sticky notes with lines contained…

P2: Reflection

November 1, 2025

Overall, I really enjoyed making my IF game.  First, it was a creative writing exercise that was long overdue. I feel like so much…

P2 Playtest Prototype

November 1, 2025

Due to delays in meeting assignment deadlines, I prioritized attending office hours in order to work on the game with the teaching assistant available…

P2: Reflection by Ngoc

November 1, 2025

Reflection Mechanics & Types of Fun The main mechanics of my game are: (1) viewing other people’s artworks and deciding if they were created…

P2: Reflection [Chronos]

November 1, 2025

A science fiction game, set in the far off corners of space. An archivist, struggling to categorize a stranger’s experience. Over the past three…

‘Anchor’ Reflection

November 1, 2025

‘Anchor’ was my first real attempt at creating an interactive fiction. As a child I’d written short choose-your-own adventures in the margins of my notebooks,…

P2 Reflection

November 1, 2025

IF wasn’t a term I was familiar with before starting this project, and I think at the beginning I was having trouble conceptualizing what…

Erosion: Reflection

November 1, 2025

I hadn’t played IFs before this class, but early on, I realized that they were a great format to explore ethical dilemmas. As such,…

P2: The Empathy Machine [Chronos]

November 1, 2025

featured image credit: ESO/S. Brunier Link Playable link: https://looseleft.itch.io/chronos CONTENT WARNING: This game deals with themes of psychosis, dissociation, schizophrenia, isolation, and suicidal ideation….

P2: Anchor

November 1, 2025

Overview: You are — well, you. Everybody has something that is important to them — something that is so integral to their identity that,…

P2: It’s just a burning memory – Tianze Shao

November 1, 2025

Read a patient’s memory on a retro terminal … Returning to the last day of summer, you will experience a story about sunflowers and fireworks, betrayal and salvation,…

Answer Me – P2 CS377G F2025

November 1, 2025

Overview Game link – CONTENT WARNING: SUICIDE If you or someone you love needs to talk, please dial 988; there you will find someone…

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

  • November 2025
  • October 2025
  • September 2025
  • June 2025
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  • February 2025
  • December 2024
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  • December 2023
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  • October 2023
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  • August 2023
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  • 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

  • Sketchnote: Playtesting formally
  • Sketchnote: Playtesting Formally
  • Natural Ecosystem Playtest #1
  • P3: Tiny playable prototype
  • Read and Play: Working With System Dynamics

Recent Comments

  • LostInDesign on P2: two houses – Krystal Li
  • LostInDesign on P2: The Empathy Machine
  • LostInDesign on P2 Empathy Machine
  • LWCoding on P2: It’s just a burning memory – Tianze Shao
  • LWCoding on P2: Anchor

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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