Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #10: Iron Hearts in Hearts of Iron
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Release Date: 01/29/2025
The Hypothesis: Volume 2, Episode 4: GEN CON
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Greetings, Alchemists. At the start of this month, we were at Gen Con, where we held our second annual Gen Con Ludological Alchemists panel, involving more Alchemists and Golems than ever before. Many of you joined us, including several brand new alchemists, and all participated in the goleming. Listen to learn of our triumphs and failures! None of them would be possible without you. Also, check out for images from the event. None of them are worth the full one thousand word standard allowance, but each of them are worth at least seven hundred and forty words, so they're still fairly...
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The Hypothesis: Volume 2, Episode 3
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Hello seekers of knowledge, Here you will find the third installment of Volume 2 of the Hypothesis. Continuing our interview format, this month’s victim is none other than me, your humble narrator. In this recording Sam & Christopher torment me using the self-same questions with which I tortured them. We invite you to compare and contrast our outlooks and answers. And who should our next victim be? We’re plan to extend this series and interview other designers, subjecting them to the same 20 questions about their backgrounds, experiences and outlooks regarding game design. Ever...
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The Hypothesis: Volume 2, Episode 2
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Hello seekers of knowledge, We again apologize for the untimely unseemly delay in launching this our latest episode. We continue to stumble into a web of technical snares. Due to these seemingly insurmountable obstacles, we are reverting to audio only for the time being. Volume 2 Sam and Luke are way behind on their game design writing, if you hadn’t noticed. So for Volume 2 of our Hypothesis, Christopher and I decided to change the format of the podcast. For this volume, we shift to an interview format. We’re interviewing designers about their backgrounds and processes. Luke developed a...
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The Hypothesis: Volume 2, Episode 1
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Hello my seekers of knowledge, We apologize for the untimely unseemly delay in launching this our latest episode. Volume 2 Sam and Luke are way behind on their game design writing, if you hadn’t noticed. So for Volume 2 of our Hypothesis, Christopher and I decided to change the format of the podcast. For this volume, we shift to an interview format. We’re interviewing designers about their backgrounds and processes. Luke developed a list of questions that we're going to ask each designer, so that at the end of the series we can compare and contrast answers. Oh and also, we’re trying out...
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Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #12: Looking back on a year of Ludological Alchemy
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Greetings astute alchemists, In this our twelfth episode, we ramble through our preamble discussing Christmas music, knock-knock jokes, online scams and modern art. After we amble through those brambles, Christopher takes us through a year of our mail bag of comments and questions. We hope you find the chaos of our 12th recording both diverting and informative. — Luke & Christopher !
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Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #11: Designing to Teach Game Design
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Greetings, alchemists. Once again, we dive into an arcane topic, but this one has a bit of a metatextual level: we speak of teaching the subject of game design. Christopher has many questions for Luke, who has answers, experience, and even some questions of his own. We discuss subject matter, students, things to consider from the academic side of things, and how the teacher can even consider themselves. Interested in becoming more of a subject matter expert? Check out the !
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Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #10: Iron Hearts in Hearts of Iron
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Players of Games, As a game designer, playing other games is important to the design process, especially games orthogonal to your area of expertise. In Episode 10 of Ludological Alchemy’s Hypothesis we broaden our remit to discuss a topic adjacent to roleplaying games: war games. Specifically in our case, Hearts of Iron 4 by Paradox Entertainment. Luke introduced Christopher to the game a couple of years ago and since then they’ve played weekly becoming embroiled in a number of gritty, closely-fought campaigns. In the recording, they reflect on how they play the game and how it has...
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Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - A Random Encounter with Tom Bombadil
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
Dearest listener, Here we present to a special episode. Normally, we limit such special episodes to paid subscribers, but we enjoyed this discussion so much we wanted to share it with everyone. Please enjoy and if you’re so compelled, put a few goldberries in our yellow hat. TOM BOMBADIL. Merry old Tom is a denizen of the Old Forest, northeast of the Shire in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. He’s an odd character, seeming unlike the elves and powers of the world. Even Elrond’s council discusses Tom’s queer nature and what use he could be in the quest to destroy the Ring of Power. In fact,...
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Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #9: In All Fairness
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
We know that for many, today is a day known as "Christmas Day", however, we here at Ludological Alchemy celebrate a more esoteric event: the final episode of our podcast The Hypothesis for the year 2024. Our first year of podcasting and blogging has been tumultuous, perilous, enlightening, frustrating, joyous, fraught, and entirely worthwhile, by our estimation. However, rather than looking back on this year in this episode, we instead bring you an altogether different experience. This very month, only a few weeks ago, Luke and Christopher met in person in the Lair of the Crane, where we...
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Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis - Episode #8: Ten Rules of Roleplaying Games
Ludological Alchemy: The Hypothesis
We return to undertake a challenge. What rules must one adhere to when crafting roleplaying games? We develop a list of ten of them. Listen to follow our journey! Technical note for our listeners: Recording this episode seems to have triggered some mild curse. Christopher appears to have angered some kami of audio, a gremlin of podcasting. Thus the recording required two attempts over the course of three months, and this was the best we could do. That said, the audio quality is not up to our usual standards. Before we record our next episode, we’ll burn some sage in the corners of...
info_outlinePlayers of Games,
As a game designer, playing other games is important to the design process, especially games orthogonal to your area of expertise. In Episode 10 of Ludological Alchemy’s Hypothesis we broaden our remit to discuss a topic adjacent to roleplaying games: war games. Specifically in our case, Hearts of Iron 4 by Paradox Entertainment. Luke introduced Christopher to the game a couple of years ago and since then they’ve played weekly becoming embroiled in a number of gritty, closely-fought campaigns. In the recording, they reflect on how they play the game and how it has affected them as friends and game designers.
To see a bunch of images and commentary on our experiences, check out our substack!