Art journal podcast by Rob Stenzinger, sharing thoughts on his various creative projects and adventures ranging from creating comics, videogames, to interactive design.
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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!
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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?
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Fourthwall - Rob Stenzinger's Workshops + Creative Designs + Merch Store
Previous episode: Polytechnicast - Teaching Interactive Design and Word Turtle Island Arcade Machine
Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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:
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!
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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.
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make
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!
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Games and Classes Rob offers and Ways to Support What I Make