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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

Play-by-Play: My First 60 Minutes with The Banner Saga

May 10, 2021

The Banner Saga felt like a rushed first date: it was trying to push as much information onto me as possible, and I was…

Critical Play: Hypnospace Outlaw

May 10, 2021

Introduction For this assignment, I played Hypnospace Outlaw, 2019 game designed by Jay Tholen and published by “No More Robots” on the platform Steam. In…

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 10, 2021

Critical Play: Puzzles: The Almost Gone

May 10, 2021

For this critical play I chose to play The Almost Gone (iPad). The game is set in a house/neighborhood, where the player has to…

Her Story Critical Play

May 10, 2021

Overview Her Story is a game developed by Sam Barlow initially released on Windows, MacOS, and iOS, though it was later released for android…

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 10, 2021

Sketchnote: Puzzles in Games, Puzzles as Games

May 10, 2021

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 10, 2021

Game: Year Walk Creator: Simogo Platform: iOS, macOS, Windows Target Audience: New & experienced gamers who have access to one of the platforms listed Formal Elements & Aesthetics…

Puzzles Mind Map

May 10, 2021

Critical Play: Her Story

May 9, 2021

Her Story is a detective video game designed by Sam Barlow. The target audience is adults interested in crime and mysteries. I played on…

Critical Play: Life Is Strange

May 9, 2021

For this critical play, I decided to play Life is Strange, a game developed Dontnod Entertainment. Players take on the role of Max, a…

Critical Play: Mysteries – Gone Home

May 9, 2021

Gone Home is described as a Story Exploration video game. The entire gameplay consists of walking and looking around the house and picking up…

Critical Play: Goragoa

May 9, 2021

About the game I can confidently say that I have never played a game like Goragoa! It’s a deceivingly simple, yet complex video game…

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 9, 2021

Critical Play: Mysteries (Gone Home)

May 9, 2021

For this critical play, I tried out Gone Home, a walking simulator mystery developed by the Fullbright Company. I played the game on iOS,…

Mind map: puzzles

May 9, 2021

Sketchnote: Puzzles in/as Games

May 9, 2021

Critical Play: Mysteries

May 8, 2021

For this week’s critical play, I played Year Walk, a horror-mystery-puzzle game developed by Simogo. Although this game was initially released for iOS and…

Sketchnote: Architecture in Video Games

May 8, 2021

Sketchnote: Puzzles

May 7, 2021

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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

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Recent Posts

  • Final Class Reflection
  • Final Class Reflection
  • Final Class Reflection – Ore
  • Final Class Reflection
  • 247G Final Reflection

Recent Comments

  • anthonyx on RWP: 80 Days
  • uphatak on Escape ResX Print and Play
  • Dsilva on P2 Team 15 Games in Space Project: Escape ResX
  • jrest on P2 Team 15 Games in Space Project: Escape ResX
  • jrest on Escape ResX Print and Play

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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