Polytechnicast - Interactive Storyteller

Get the App

Polytechnicast - Interactive Storyteller

Rob Stenzinger

Art journal podcast by Rob Stenzinger, sharing thoughts on his various creative projects and adventures ranging from creating comics, videogames, to interactive design.

Polytechnicast - Understanding An Artist and Indie Game Developer's Business
Album art for episode featuring a sketch of a conversion funnel for selling indie games

Making Lexilotl, my latest game which is a crossword puzzle run where you get a clue and three tries to solve a puzzle and can keep going until your tries run out. I had planned on making ad supported right away but ran into a roadblock and went a different way. Here's the story of that and some of my other explorations in making money by making games. Also, a negative comment on one of the Lexilotl announcement videos gave the the idea to explore this topic.

Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
- Get exclusive merch and private journal posts via my paywall art blog and merch store at Fourthwall
- 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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
27 February 2026, 11:51 pm
Polytechnicast - Lexilotl is My New Game In Progress - Also Voiceover
It's been a busy few months and I'm glad to be back and share some updates, fun projects, and encouragement here on the Polytechnicast. Word Turtle Island is out in the world now 4 months along and I started making my next game already. It's a word puzzle crossword style game called Lexilotl.

Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
- Get exclusive merch and private journal posts via my paywall art blog and merch store at Fourthwall
- 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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
29 December 2025, 10:54 pm
Polytechnicast - Word Turtle Island 1.0 and Winning an Award at 2D Con
Word Turtle Island is now 1.0. Four years in the making and here it is. Officially released on Apple's App Store, Steam, Google Play, and Itch! I share what it's like now with it officially the full version, things I would and wouldn't recommend doing again looking back at the development path of WTI, and a bit about the game I'm prototyping next. Also: WTI won an award for art direction!

Related Links and Resources
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
- Get exclusive merch and private journal posts via my paywall art blog and merch store at Fourthwall
- 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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
1 September 2025, 3:09 am
Polytechnicast - Showing Up to Practice
An intertwined creative challenge: make a more ambitious game than I've made before, make it work as a business, and succeed in marketing it well. In this Polytechnicast I focus on the marketing part of that challenge and what I've learned these past few months publishing a video every single day. Especially the adapting from being stressed about aspects of it to finding framings and habits to make it sustainable, meaningful, and still figuring out the effective part.

Related Links and Resources
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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
28 July 2025, 1:29 pm
Polytechnicast - Daily Short Video Creative Challenge Plus Word Turtle Island Progress
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
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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
15 June 2025, 3:57 am
Polytechnicast - Researching Your Game Enough to Learn Enough
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
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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
29 May 2025, 3:44 pm
Polytechnicast - Experiments Progress aka Metaphorical Plate Spinning
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
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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
19 April 2025, 8:33 pm
Polytechnicast - Teaching Interactive Design and Word Turtle Island Arcade Machine
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 instant visual/story/promise of WTI via
  - feeling the urge to teach again
  - feeling my overall social connections are too small of a bubble both online and in person
  - inspired by projects like Springboard for the Arts' Rural Urban Solidarity
- Then the ambitious plan: a combination of projects to grow my online and in person connections, teach interactive design with an advocacy focus, and increase sales of my games and teaching. In short: make games and teach interactive design. More specific:
  - WTI Arcade Machine + Regional touring show/tell this game and teaching indie game creating
  - Build WTI to full 1.0
  - Teach interactive design for free on TikTok and soon also YouTube
  - Publish new paid classes, starting with Paper Prototyping for Interactive Design
Know of any places and people to connect with who'd like a visit from me on my Word Turtle Island Indie Game Dev Tour? Send me a message!

Related Links and Resources
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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
31 December 2024, 9:08 pm
Polytechnicast - How to work within the gaming industry - a question via my blog
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
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 Lefty Flip in the full version and a free demo version with 9 levels. NOW ON STEAM
- 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
19 November 2024, 8:06 pm
Polytechnicast Special - Growing Your Creative Business with Jerzy Drozd
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 to reach the people we know will enjoy what we made. It's a lot like an episode of the Lean Into Art cast which was special to revisit for me, hope it will be for you too.

Related Links and Resources
- The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue - pre-order Jerzy's new book about a bear who catalogs and keeps safe powerful magic items, one day a wizard steals the most powerful artifact, now this academic homebody has to embark on a dangerous adventure and team up with allies to set things right
- Jerzy Drozd - Teaching Artist and Cartoonist
- Word Turtle Island - Details Plus Official Trailer - action + cozy game where you both battle with words as weapons and recover after by tending bookshelves.
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
25 July 2024, 10:41 pm
Polytechnicast - Word Turtle Island - Available Friday June 21
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
- 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
18 June 2024, 5:06 am
More Episodes? Get the App