Polytechnicast

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 Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make

• 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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels.
• Join Skillshare via my referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.
• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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 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 referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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.

@[email protected]: "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 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 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 referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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 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 referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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. Now with Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels.
• Join Skillshare via my referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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 referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• [Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app](

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 Materials), add to your leadership and collaboration skills. Get it on Gumroad or Skillshare
  • Drawing User Journey Maps, make meaningful products with visual collaboration and narrative that combines many perspectives. Get it on Gumroad or Skillshare
  • Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge, find your fun and useful approach to your own creative challenge or a public one, whether you draw, code, write, create a recipe that works for you. Get it on Gumroad or 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 referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• [Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app](

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 the Polytechnicast

• Take one of my classes about collaboration, creativity, design:
  • Listening Like a Coach (Video Workshop and PDF Materials), add to your leadership and collaboration skills. Get it on Gumroad or Skillshare
  • Drawing User Journey Maps, make meaningful products with visual collaboration and narrative that combines many perspectives. Get it on Gumroad or Skillshare
  • Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge, find your fun and useful approach to your own creative challenge or a public one, whether you draw, code, write, create a recipe that works for you. Get it on Gumroad or 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 referral link which gets you 1 month of Skillshare Premium for free.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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 MacOS!
  • Features 4 or 5 string bass, 6 or 7 string guitar, multiple play modes, difficulty levels, and more.

• You can buy me a coffee with an option to send a note along.

• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcast app

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 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 MacOS!
  • Features 4 or 5 string bass, 6 or 7 string guitar, multiple play modes, difficulty levels, and more.
• Creative design coaching services, workshops, and ebooks for ux design, creative coding, creative challenges, goals, and storytelling in Rob's store
  • Drawing User Journey Maps to Gather Ideas and Collaborate
  • Customizing Your Next Creative Challenge
• Subscribe to the Polytechnicast RSS feed in your podcatcher