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Probably Designed

Probably Designed

Written by: Harry Dean Hudson
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About this listen

A podcast about designing for randomness, and designers who use, abuse, or manage chance and variance in their work.

The podcast explores systems and design that are built around chance.

While the podcast isn't exclusively about games, game design spends a lot of time in this space.

Beyond games, conversations with other kinds of designers: composers and instrument designers who use random elements, speed and no-hit runners (who design routes to minimize variance), various engineers, process designers (who have to manage the random behavior of humans), etc.

I'm Harry Dean Hudson, a lifelong math, games, and systems nerd. I'm a hobbyist game developer and I'm passionate about play and games.

I have a masters degree in Communication and Digital Media from the University of Washington, where I focused on games as communications media and the interaction of digital media and intellectual property.

Playful Work 2025 Art
Episodes
  • We Love Uncle GCB

    We Love Uncle GCB
    Nov 11 2025

    In this week's episode, I had a conversation with Gabe Carleton-Barnes. Gabe is actually an old friend of mine, and this conversation is a little bit different from what you've heard so far on the podcast because Gabe isn't a game designer.

    Gabe is a professional Magic the Gathering player. So we've talked a lot about collectible card games, drafting, and these sorts of things, and I thought it'd be really interesting to get a high level perspective from a player. So our conversation spanned a bunch of topics from drafting, to deck design, but mostly from a high level player's perspective.

    Links

    GCB Tournament record on MTG Elo Project

    Sickening Dreams and Psychatog

    GCB - The Beauty of Bad Cards

    History of Psychatog decks on YouTube

    Second Sunrise (Eggs) and Valakut in Pro Tour RTR

    Transcript is here: https://my.playful.work/probably-designed-we-love-uncle-gcb/
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    51 mins
  • Conversation with a Ludokultist (Fabian Fischer)

    Conversation with a Ludokultist (Fabian Fischer)
    Oct 29 2025

    In this week's episode we have a conversation with Fabian Fisher. Fabian is a game designer and developer here in Germany, and he's worked on quite a few games. Some highlights are Crimson Company, Hyperdome, and his most recent game Rack and Slay, which is a roguelike billiards game. Fabian has also done a ton of writing. I recommend you check out his, his website, Ludokultur.de. I'm really excited to bring you this episode with Fabian because I think that he's a really interesting person and he's also really kind of a pillar of community for game design.

    Fischer Game Design

    Ludokultur

    Keith Burgun Games

    Rack and Slay

    Prosperous Universe

    Crimson Company

    The Bazaar

    Mosa Lina
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    57 mins
  • Bonks in a Lucky Maze: Brian Long and Dan DiIorio (Ballionaire and Luck Be A Landlord)

    Bonks in a Lucky Maze: Brian Long and Dan DiIorio (Ballionaire and Luck Be A Landlord)
    Oct 14 2025

    This week's episode is a continuation of our conversation with Dan DiIorio of Luck Be A Landlord and Maze Mice, and Brian Long, dev and designer of Ballionaire. Our conversation kicks off from my, at this point, repeated take about roguelike deck builders and board games, and leads us somewhere in the zone of the vibe-y-ness of PUBG.

    • Luck Be A Landlord on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/14...
    • Ballionaire on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/26...
    • Dan's Blog: https://blog.trampolinetales.com/
    • Brian on Moby Games: https://www.mobygames.com/person/2910...
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    44 mins
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