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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

Tag: Critical Play

Critical Play: Mysteries & Escape Rooms – Kai Ssempa

April 28, 2025

I’ve heard of Life is Strange before. I sort of remember first seeing it on the App Store. I’ve heard references to it many…

Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging and Getting Vulnerable – Kai Ssempa

April 28, 2025

I think one of the most powerful mechanics in Among Us is the way players communicate. There are imposters hiding in plain sight—quite literally…

Claire – Critical Play: Bluffing, Judging, and Getting Vulnerable

April 10, 2025

The game I played was Among Us, which is an online multiplayer bluffing game created by Innersloth. Among Us can be played on a…

Critical Play: Play Like a Feminist (Jailia Y)

May 27, 2024

The Game of Life, initially created by Milton Bradley in 1860 and later modernized by Bill Markham and Reuben Klamer, is a board game…

Critical Play: Games of Chance (bsalt)

May 21, 2024

For this week’s critical play, I played World Series of Poker: Texas Hold’em Game website. To preface, I have played poker through both the…

Critical Play: FreeSlots (Games of Chance)

May 20, 2024

In my exploration of slot games, I played an online version with a friend (we each played on our own laptops and took turns…

Critical Play: Games of Chance (Jailia Y)

May 19, 2024

Blackjack is a card game that requires strategic thinking and luck. According to the Crescent School of Game and Bartending, blackjack originated in French…

Critical Play: Puzzles (Jailia Y)

May 12, 2024

Factory Balls is a puzzle game that blends creativity with strategic thinking. It was created by Bart Bonte and targets players that enjoy problem-solving…

Critical Play: Mysteries (bsalt)

May 8, 2024

For this week’s critical play, I chose to play Year Walk, a horror-puzzle game developed by Simogo. The game is intended for older audiences…

Critical Play: Mysteries (Jailia Y)

May 6, 2024

Life is Strange is an episodic game created by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix. It is targeted for young adults that enjoy…

Critical Play: Places

May 1, 2024

Places is a walking simulator game created in 2013 by jlv. It is playable online through a web browser, as well as through Linux…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators (Jailia Y)

April 30, 2024

Babbdi is a first-person exploration game that prompts players to explore the city and figure out how to leave. It was created by Sirius…

Critical Play: Walking Simulators (bsalt) [SPOILERS for Firewatch]

April 30, 2024

Link to photos I took during my playthrough [contains spoilers]: https://firewatch.camera/RedBurrAbyss/ Content Warning: Themes of familial struggles, death, loss of loved ones, immense guilt,…

Critical Play: Places (Walking Simulator)

April 29, 2024

In my exploration of the game Places, an online walking simulator seemingly for ages 8+ by jlv, I found myself immersed in a series…

Critical Play: Judging and Getting Vulnerable (bsalt)

April 24, 2024

For this week’s critical play, I decided to explore a gamemode found on Minecraft’s most popular multiplayer server: Hypixel. I wanted to explore a…

Critical Play: Skribbl.io

April 23, 2024

Skribble.io is a multiplayer judging game created in 2017 by ticedev. The game can be played online through its website. As an online game,…

Critical Play: Judging in Skribbl.io

April 22, 2024

Skribbl.io, an online multiplayer game for ages 7+ created by ticedev, offers a platform where players engage in drawing and guessing to communicate and…

Critical Play: Judging Games (Jailia Y)

April 22, 2024

skribbl.io is a multiplayer drawing and guessing game. It was created and published by ticedev on the website Crazy Games. It is suitable for…

Two dancers in a dance battle against one another.

Critical Play: Competitive Analysis “Freestyle Prompt Dance Battles” (bsalt)

April 16, 2024

Note: Video clip is available upon request. Audio clip is provided for assignment, but video is withheld for consent/anonymity reasons. For this week’s critical…

Roads, Armies, and Tiger Moms (A comparative analysis of Catan and our developing game)

April 15, 2024

Catan Target Audience: 3-4 players aged 10+ Game Creator: Klaus Teuber Platform: Board game Tiger Moms Target Audience: 4-6 players aged 10+ Game Creator:…

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

  • Protected: Critical Play: Worldbuilding
  • Critical play: world building -jess
  • Critical Play: Worldbuilding
  • RWP: Frog Fractions
  • Cookie Clicker : RWP

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
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