@robstenzinger
Game and UX designer, current project Word Turtle Island now in early access on Steam. Also made Guitar Fretter, This Panda Needs You, Game Construction Kit. Husband, dad, progressive. Links to blog, games, contact at https://linktr.ee/robstenzinger
New Polytechnicast: Understanding An Artist and Indie Game Developer's Business. Making Lexilotl, my game crossword puzzle run - you get a clue and three tries to solve a puzzle and can keep going 'til your tries run out. Planned on ad supported right away but then a roadblock and change in strategy
Playing Lexilotl again where you play a series of mini crossword puzzles. This time the clue is "trade". Smaller words and puzzles are easier in some ways if you get where the clue is leading but can also be extra challenging when the clue is a mystery.
#indiegames
#wordgame
Playing Lexilotl, crossword puzzle run. The clue is "rhyme". Along the way I think aloud how I choose my letters to guess, often informed by years of playing games like Scrabble and Words With Friends where you get a feel for what letters are safer to guess because they're more common.
#indiegames
Thank you, Carol! If you happen to have an Android phone using Google Play or a Steam PC eventually, hopefully soon Lexilotl will be on those devices too.
So excited to share this with you, it's been a fun and intense development cycle starting right after I published Word Turtle Island to 1.0.
Free to play twice a day and that limitation is removable via in-app purchase
Lexilotl, my new word puzzle crossword run game is now available Apple iPhone + iPad! It's a letter and word guessing puzzle where once you reveal all the words you get to continue onward to new clue and crossword. Three mistakes will end your puzzle run
apps.apple.com/us/app/lexil...
#indiegames
Ep 90: Role of Art in Hope, Resistance, Protest, Resilience. Kate and I return to the show at a heavy moment in our Minneapolis and wider Minnesota community. We talk about in any times and especially tough times how we build community and find resilience through learning, community, and making art.
Show and tell about making the word puzzle game Lexilotl as followup to my word action game Word Turtle Island.
See a whole puzzle round play out as I ask myself why I made a word action game before making a word puzzle game.
#indiegames
#gamedeveloper
#journal
#wordgame
Thank you IGDA MN community! for the acknowledgment and celebration of all of us who published this year!
#gamedeveloper
#indiegames
#igdamn
Received this token as a way to celebrate publishing a game in 2025. Word Turtle Island reached 1.0 this August and is on: Steam, Itch, Google Play, and Apple App Store. Reminds me that it's important to show up and share and even repeat sharing in a variety of ways.
How many hats do solo game creators wear? And why is it 20 jillion? It's part of the endeavor that I love but also get a bit overbooked switching between them all - business, marketing, coding, art, music, publishing, and support. I'm lucky that Godot published version 3.6.2 with new build templates
Start of a poster I've yet to finish, based on my take on the story of DragonBall Z. Quirky flawed characters who seek to improve and are a sort of found family which all that I enjoy immensely. Lots of messages one can take from DBZ, for me it's: "let's make one another as strong as possible".
Asking Psyduck what's up. This little guy I bought from a discount bin at a cool toy shop in Columbus OH called Big Fun. It had drained batteries and a broken speaker. Took a speaker from an old laptop and little repair later Psyduck is a delightful voice reacting fun creature.
Whatβs next for the WTI arcade cabinet? This past 10 months this prototype has been on the road and Iβve learned a lot watching people play. What should be in the next version?
#arcade
οΏΌ#indiegames
#gamedeveloper
#typing
#wordturtleisland
How do you value your creative experiments? Lately I've been posting both still and animated colorful rectangle landscapes evocative of 8bit video game background art. I don't have a specific plan for these, only to follow my want to play and explore yet I can also see I'm learning.
#creativity
#art
The filled rectangles often lead to 8bit sort of pixel-esque style landscapes.
Curious if you folks have fun drawing with rectangles or other non traditional ways to get your sketches on paper or digital page.
Some examples of drawing with rectangles: simple outlines and filled are two different yet fun paths to sketch and play visually.
My robot/mecha series is one of my favorites yet I have a bunch more. Often I do these as a relaxing thing at the end of the day.
#illustration
#journaling
I find them useful for illustrating my messages, posts, presentations, and even as placeholder art in a game or design document. Also when facilitating meetings or doing sketches and doodles to take notes. They can do a lot with only a few lines
#drawing
#creativity
#stickfigure
#sketch
#whiteboard
My favorite kind of stick figure placeholder art: H+BALL characters! Quick demo of how to create cartoony, fun, easy to draw characters primarily made of two shapes.
youtube.com/shorts/_JVS0...
Spell is the name of the cartoon cat who hosts the game, someday I need to tell the story of how Spell and friends got together.
robstenzinger.itch.io/spells-spell...
#indiegames
#educationalgames
#spelling
Spell's Spelling helps folks practice spelling words. Made this playful way to practice spelling words, the HTML version is playable anytime in your browser and a purchasable Mac and Windows version.
youtube.com/shorts/ZRNgd...
These sketches are about the interstitial scenes where Pick and Crunchy discuss learning guitar, share encouragement, and give bits of background story.
It's on a number of platforms: Apple, Steam, and Itch.io.
#indiegames
#gamedeveloper
#guitargame
#guitarfretter
#journaling
#sketches
#guitar
Do you play guitar and or like guitar themed action-puzzle games? A while back I made a game called Guitar Fretter which features 4 and 5 string bass and 6 and 7 string electric guitar where you match notes to survive waves of creatures trying to take your confidence.
youtube.com/shorts/_seLd...
Up next are a lot more refinements, artwork, sounds and fun gameplay twists to make it something more quirky and special.
Are you into word puzzle games? Check out this prototype word game I'm making. It's getting to the point where the basic things like input and layout and succeeding or failing at solving the puzzle are all in place.
youtube.com/shorts/AaICV...
#gamedeveloper
#indiegames
#wordpuzzle
#wordgame
Then when you wish you can unlock battles, go there, and when you do you get to choose the difficulty you face. Sort of a risk reward trade off but at any level you do get some reward and can eventually solve the game even if you play on low difficulty.
Designed a second one to remind me how I'd like the library home base aka the book sanctuary to flow.
The book sanctuary is a place to help books and readers and get rewarded to level up your character and loot. In a way you farm bookshelves and grow from it.
What helps you focus when you're building a game feature that takes a while to create? Sometimes I'll make posters to be around that remind me of key ideas and details. These are examples I made for Word Turtle Island.
One poster I made for how I'd like the battle encounters to flow.
Made these two posters to guide level design in my game Word Turtle Island.
youtube.com/shorts/6194P...
#indiegames
#gamedeveloper
#gamedesign
#journal
#posters
#creativity
Here are three posters I designed, each featuring robot(s)/mecha creatures. One of my designs I keep refining and need to make some prints of someday.
#posters
#lineart
#mecha
#scifi
#robots
#illustration
