Polytechnicast - Interactive Storyteller

Not sure when exactly the marketing push should have started with Word Turtle Island but I do see it needs to be happening now. In this epsisode of the Polytechnicast I'm exploring the creative challenge I started to do daily video posts, while also doing more marketing, while also getting Word Turtle Island ready for it's next updates in June and hopefully 1.0 in July. Remember that time I thought it'd be ready soon a couple years ago? This estimate is more credible but also please be kind considering the source is an optimistic busy artist. Related Links and Resources Rob Stenzinger (@robstenzinger) on TikTok Get exclusive merch and private journal posts via my paywall art blog and m

Two main topics this episode. First it's what I've been learning so far with making small videos while exploring topics like teaching interactive design, show and tell about Word Turtle Island, and even video blogging inspired by the old Art Soundoff creative challenge. Second it's about reaching a point of saturation in learning by researching with people playing my game. The bulk of this I recorded into my watch while running errands so the audio isn't great, but I've reviewed and edited and gotta say there's a lot of good ideas, examples, and encouragement here well worth your background co-working audio time. Related Links and Resources Get exclusive merch and private journal post

Last episode of the Polytechnicast I shared some projects I'd begun and was about do dive into. These are the spinning plates driving this episode. Did any fall? Are there more plates spinning? Related Links and Resources Fourthwall - Rob Stenzinger's Workshops + Creative Designs + Merch Store Word Turtle Island - The Arcade Machine - Photos From Woodworking to Electronics to Finished Cabinet at Midwest Gaming Classic Previous episode: Polytechnicast - Teaching Interactive Design and Word Turtle Island Arcade Machine Teaching Interactive Design on TikTok Word Turtle Island on Google Play Word Turtle Island on Steam Word Turtle Island on Itch (free demo available) Ask Me Anything

Sharing some work in progress and what led me to this point - getting back into teaching interactive design and how I've begun making a physical arcade machine for my game Word Turtle Island. In a nutshell I have a few months of ambitious work and this is my planning and thinking about it all. Outline: Starts with how I focused on making WTI for 2.5 years, summary of why and how that came about. Learning from 6 months of further iteration, marketing, and being published as an early access game. Big take away is: thankful for the time to learn enough to make enough to discover the strong version of WTI, wishing that space for other folks and projects. Current situation: improving the in

A question from someone who knows someone who met me at 2D Con. Every person's path is their own but it's also fun to learn how olther folks got to where they are. Related Links and Resources Word Turtle Island on Google Play Word Turtle Island on Steam Word Turtle Island on Itch (free demo available) Ask Me Anything — Blog of an Interactive Storyteller Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make Buy or wishlist Word Turtle Island on Steam. Take one of my classes about collaboration, creativity, and UX design: Skillshare Get the game Guitar Fretter, an action puzzle that makes a game of memorizing the note positions on a guitar. Now with

Earlier this summer I visited Columbus Ohio to visit my friends Anne and Jerzy Drozd. Part of the plan for our visit was to make some creative experiments together, one of them is this very recording with Jerzy. For the first time I can think of both he and I are launching products at the same time. Both projects took years of development. Both we made solo. His project is the book The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue and mine is the action + cozy game Word Turtle Island. In this episode, a special crossover of Thunder Punch Daily + Polytechnicast, Jerzy and I navigate stories of why we made these projects and how we're facing the significant task of marketing

A new ask me anything form. Some example topics to ask me about like why I made a game for 2.5 years without publishing a whole lot about it publicly. And most important - it's official that Word Turtle Island is going to be available publicly as an early access game on Steam and Google Play June 21, 2024! Related Links and Resources Word Turtle Island - Details Plus Official Trailer Word Turtle Island - Press Kit Word Turtle Island on Google Play Word Turtle Island on Steam Ask Me Anything — Blog of an Interactive Storyteller Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make Wishlist Word Turtle Island on Steam. Take one of my classes about colla

Wort and Portia from Word Turtle Island About 2.5 years. That's how long I've been working on Word Turtle Island to get it ready to publish as an early access game. It's about the right time to be getting the word out and to get myself into practice with showing up social. Practicing being more present even if it's chaotic and inconsistent. Such as this 20 some minute audio podcast. Hi. Related Links and Resources Tell The Damn Story, 305: How To Dive into Game Writing, And Make Words A Positive Weapon - YouTube Word Turtle Island on Steam Word Turtle Island — Blog of an Interactive Storyteller Sign up for my newsletter Games and C

This is Spell, the magical cat who hosts a save place to practice spelling words. In the middle of working on my next big game Word Turtle Island, where you use words as weapons to battle creatures taking away the books of power, the idea for Spell's Spelling came to me. In this episode of the Polytechnicast I reflect on how this came about and how sometimes a project that takes time away from another project can be worthwhile. Related Links and Resources Spell's Spelling Practice Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast Take one of my classes about

In the overlapping circles of feasible, viable, desirable, what is the emphasis and culture practiced? I received a question via my Mastodon account about minimum lovable product vs minimum viable product. @Nycteris@mastodon.art: "So @robstenzinger I was just reading about “minimum Lovable product” vs “minimum Viable product” because you want to have enough features to maximize love of a core group of users - do you think this is a real strategy?" Related Links and Resources Audiences and Principles to Help Create Meaningful Products Instead of Bolt-On-UX — Blog of an Interactive Storyteller More posts and extras like coaching sess

W-O-R-D up. Reflecting on game development and how it feels affirming in a way that other video game projects meet delays. I thought I'd have Word Turtle Island ready for first or even early access by now yet I also feel good about how it's coming along. Related Links and Resources Why are so many video games delayed and cancelled? - Verdict Why Video Games Are Delayed So Often More posts and extras like coaching sessions at my Buy Me a Coffee page (coaching sessions are all sold out again, stay tuned) Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast Take

Prototype cards for my creative warm up cards game Doodle Creatures Have Needs. An update about Word Turtle Island and a few other projects I tried to finish this month. Related Links and Resources More posts and extras like coaching sessions at my Buy Me a Coffee page (coaching sessions are all sold out at the moment) Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast Take one of my classes about collaboration, creativity, and UX design: Skillshare Get the game Guitar Fretter, an action puzzle that makes a game of memorizing the note positions on a guitar.

In this episode I ask why I've posted so few things in 2022. It's a bit about what I'm currently working on and it's also something I've been trying to figure out for years. Related Links and Resources More posts and extras like coaching sessions at my Buy Me a Coffee page Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast Take one of my classes about collaboration, creativity, and UX design: Skillshare Get the game Guitar Fretter, an action puzzle that makes a game of memorizing the note positions on a guitar. Now with Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. Join Skillshare via my

Whether the work that you take on is building on skillful work in the past or not, things got to the way they are for some reason. Now you're here. In this journal I share reasons to find others past work as useful research and signals to help instead of joining a narrative that it has little to no value. Even if that past work wasn't well done, it holds clues and questions to dig into. Related Links and Resources Day One - a journal app Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast Take one of my classes about collaboration, creativity, and UX design: Listening Like a Coach (Video Workshop and PDF Material

Have you been part of an organization that seems to repeat projects that don't learn much from one another? It's a thing I've wondered: why do companies forget? This episode of the Polytechnicast I journal about group memory and wonder if it would be helpful to remember what different teams have tried and learned in the past. Is it because we resist repeating other peoples stories? Related Links and Resources Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge, join the class at Skillshare or download your own copy at my workshop store. Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter, be in the know of what I'm making and learning about. Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support

Any path that brings you to journaling about your art, here I share some context around planning what you'd want to get out of your journaling plus choosing and creating prompts that are a good fit for what you want. Related Links and Resources Art Soundoff Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge, join the class at Skillshare or download your own copy at my workshop store. Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter, be in the know of what I'm making and learning about. Rob's Products and Ways to Support the Polytechnicast Get Guitar Fretter, an action puzzle that makes a game of memorizing the note positions on a guitar. Available on iOS, Android, Windows 10, and MacO

Something I'm grateful for is to be on a learning adventure together with folks I've worked with. At times I get questions from folks who listen to the show and folks I've been on teams with in the past. I'm going to include all this in a category of listener questions and make a few Polytechnicasts based on these questions. In this episode I get a question from a colleague who is wondering about practicing communication skills coming from a product team and engineering perspective. How could this help with understanding and communicating your own philosophy and values in a collaboration? Related Links and Resources Interactive Storyteller blog Sign up for my newsletter, be in the kn

The emotional work of discovering, including, representing, and collaborating in design is what I explore in this think aloud journal. This recording didn't start as a Polytechnicast or even an exploration about UX Mindset but that's where I found myself going. Since the beginning of 2021 I've been blogging every day on my Interactive Storyteller blog. I hope you'll join me there too as I talk about illustrating, making games, and UX design. It's very much the prose form of the Polytechnicast. Related Links and Resources Interactive Storyteller blog Introduction to the UX Mindset Series Polytechnicast - UX Mindset - Creative Roadblocks Then a Book Outline #artsoundoff — Blog of an In

Here I explore some of the reasonable and unreasonable goals I had for this month of journaling and developing the UX Mindset series. Practicing this kind of thing helps you meet your own creative process quirks and explore ways to change and work around those quirks. I recorded so many more rough draft journals than I posted, at least 2:1 if not 3:1. It helped me explore the big topic and discover a concept for a UX Mindset book. We'll see where the UX Mindset series goes from here. Probably be back on the Polytechnicast, certainly will be in upcoming workshops, and a good chance I'll persue developing a book. Related Links and Resources Introduction to the UX Mindset Series UX Mindset

Actively learning is a lot like using applied research. It's a very useful place to work from, you can be confident enough to proceed making things yet not too confident to prevent learning as you go. We setup teams and organizations to sink or swim based on too much certainty. We're certain often from a combination of ego and efficiency seeking without adapting until expensive mistakes happen. What if we practice being confident enough and setup teams to actively learn instead? And the UX Mindset series continues! Related Links and Resources Introduction to the UX Mindset Series UX Mindset for Business UX Mindset for Software Engineering UX Mindset for Designers UX Mindset for Artists