Dear podcast lovers: I'm still here, but moving to an every other week release schedule for the rest of the year, to clear out a bit of space in my schedule for a couple other projects.

I have a new podcast episode up-a conversation with everyone's favorite Ludokultist, @ludokultur.bsky.social! my.playful.work/probably-des...

New episode is live! This is the rest of the conversation with @trampolinetales.com and @newobject.bsky.social wherein we talk about the right medium for a game and vibing. my.playful.work/probably-des...

@trampolinetales.com on slot machines

@newobject.bsky.social on the latest episode

I had a great time yappin' on Probably Designed. Give it a listen!

New episode of Probably Designed is live! This week we have the first of a two-part conversation with @trampolinetales.com (dev/designer of Luck Be A Landlord and Maze Mice)and @newobject.bsky.social (dev/designer of Ballionaire). Blog/transcript version is here: my.playful.work/probably-des...

I like this.

@bastionland.bsky.social Hey there! I've been working on a game design podcast, and I'd be very interested to talk to you in my next round of conversations. I think I'd like to do a short series about maps, and I think what you've done with the maps in Mythic Bastionland is very interesting!

We will have AGI before Linux has a unified copy+paste.

Episode 4! @calmpewter.games and I yapping about multiplayer. Please, to enjoy: YT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAWa... Transcript: my.playful.work/probably-des... and RSS in the normal places: rss.com/podcasts/pro....

Harry hosted this excellent podcast where I got to be a guest speaker alongside Eddie Cai, the designer of StarVaders! We chat about various designs of randomness but specifically about card pools in deckbuilders and other card games. Both episodes are now out.

Subway stations should be asymmetric so you can orient yourself on the platform more quickly. Feel free to reach out for details if you’re designing any subway stations.

I'm at the Berlin GameScene Talk and Play in a little booth to talk about the podcast (or anything else you wanna chat about). We can also play the WIP rover game: liminal.games/planetaryrov... Or Mosa Lina. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Come by and say hi!

New episode of Probably Designed is up today! This is part 1 of 2 with Eddie Cai @pengonauts.com and Kev Chang @boxdragon.bsky.social Enjoy! It’s also in the normal podcast listening places. my.playful.work/probably-des...

Love this metaphor from @ezra-szanton.itch.io ! youtube.com/shorts/fx7GT...

@ezra-szanton.itch.io on input and output randomness:

The second episode will go live next Tuesday. It's the first episode of a two-part banger with @pengonauts.com and @boxdragon.bsky.social (Star Vaders and As We Descend). Info on the rest of the season/sign up for email (transcripts, other articles, etc) here: my.playful.work/new-podcast-...

The first espisode of the new podcast is live! This is my conversation with @ezra-szanton.itch.io and randomness and game design in general. The podcast and transcript are available here but you should also be able to find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. Enjoy! my.playful.work/probably-des...

Am I the only soulslike enjoyer who doesn’t really like boss fights? 🙈 I really appreciate the craft that goes into the combat and boss design, but I’m mostly in it to learn maps and level routing. The bosses are something I need to pass through to get to more maps. To me bad maps == bad souls like

Instead of expecting what you want from other people, try thinking about what other people want and figuring out where things intersect.

REPOST: I made a last minute change, let's use this URL... I’ve been making podcast about game design over the past few months, and it’s almost ready to share! The premise: conversations with game designers about how design interacts with randomness and chance. my.playful.work/new-podcast-...

I’ve been making podcast about game design over the past few months, and it’s just about ready to share! The premise: conversations with designers about how they and their designs interact with randomness and chance. Starts next Tuesday! open.substack.com/pub/harrydea...

I'm convinced that auto-correct is getting steadily worse as AI language models get "better."

I think we're currently enduring questionable-attempts-to-capture-low-hanging-fruit phase of the AI hype-cycle.

new study on vibe coding dropped pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

I don’t think superintelligence is an existential threat. It’s superstipidity that we need to be worried about.

The idea here is to use MCP as a data boundary, to help users maintain and manage data exposure. It's an idea that's built into MCP, but it hasn't been the focus–folks seem to have have been more interested in just wrapping existing tools up for agentic use cases. open.substack.com/pub/harrydea...

One more version of the same story. AI summaries (with no attribution) are killing the sites that they crawled to get the data.

1/Like Big Tech, US built platform infrastructures for the world. Now, it is squeezing those platforms for power. In short term, dependence is hard to break. In long term, US risks it all. New w/@himself.bsky.social in @wired.com on the enshittification of US power. www.wired.com/story/enshit...

“You hearby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to use your Content…” 😬

The Case for Personal Data Ownership open.substack.com/pub/harrydea...

LLMs are to expertise what Velveeta is to cheese

sometimes you need to treat yo self

Instead of talking about "vibe" or AI-assisted coding, I think we should refer to it as "performing a seance" with our precursor programmers.

It’s always the magic hour.

The enshitification of chatbots seems extra dangerous for mental health.

Wishlist Mr. Magpie's Harmless Card Game on Steam! 👁️Push your luck 👁️Game breaking "perks" 👁️Escape Sunbright Pharma store.steampowered.com/app/3616280/...

Aspirational self-portrait

doodles

Today is World Radio Day! www.unesco.org/en/days/worl... It seems as good a time as any to share my weird, ongoing collaged radio project of found cassettes, field recordings, b-roll, and other strangeness: seanceonline.de Enjoy!

Today I did a micro-game jam as a solo dev. And by that, what I really mean is that I spent 4 hours in Aseprite making chicken leg animations, followed by two hours making sprites move around on a tiny tile map.

I'm looking for modern examples of games that use the player RL context in some way for either a mechanic or to influence narrative. Can you think of any games that I have missed in the past 5 years that blur the in-game and real life experience of players?

streaming with @seances.bsky.social now: www.twitch.tv/seanceonline

New day, new platform! I'm following the inspiration of seeing Escapism and Make-Up last weekend by listening to this Ian Svenonius interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=keoP... Interviewer: "You liked the idea of having a body..." IFS: "Well, it's just, you know what I'm used to." Bon appetite!