When you're developing a product strategy, or a new set of features for an existing product, you need to find a way to capture, and also communicate that strategy to the world. That's very important, because as you create your vision, you'll need allies, supporters and sponsors - and being able to convey the idea … Continue reading Product elevator pitch
Annoying levels in Lemmings
Okay, I have been playing Lemmings recently - the original version on the Amiga. I uncovered a few shitty levels that I couldn't quite figure out right-away, but found they're very well designed. Look at this beginning - the goal is one screen to the right, but that's less complicated - the beginning is the … Continue reading Annoying levels in Lemmings
Upgrading an Amiga 500, WHDload and disk trouble
With a little more time on my hands, I finally decided to plan and progress with some of my old and retro hardware and put them to meaningful and fun use. I have had two Amiga 500s for a while now, both in fair condition, and decided to keep one was pristine as possible, with … Continue reading Upgrading an Amiga 500, WHDload and disk trouble
Character and player on a journey
When you are designing a piece of software, service or functionality, sometimes, you need to take the user on a journey with you. Especially in a new experience that users haven't engaged in before, or you need the user to complete certain steps as a means to an end, you need to keep them motivated … Continue reading Character and player on a journey
Game disk archiving
I am collecting the hardware and software from my past to preserve and show-display them in my home office for my personal pleasure. I have grown up with an Amiga 500 and an Amiga 2000, then later a 486/60MHz and later a Pentium with 200MHz. Especially the Amiga 500 has gotten me to start playing … Continue reading Game disk archiving
Planning collecting of telemetry for the thermostat
Over in the other blog post, we discussed the idea of introducing telemetry to measure a feature's success and inform how to move forward with the feature or solution. Ideally, we would know early on in the development process, what telemetry we'd need, to make further decisions, and ensure health and usefulness of the feature. … Continue reading Planning collecting of telemetry for the thermostat
Playing on real retro hardware
I've asked ChatGPT what it thinks about playing games on retro/old hardware vs. emulation: Playing retro games today is super easy: for many games, there are remakes that still run on modern computers or consoles - you can find them on your favorite gaming platform, like steam, which has a "Retro" tag for search, or … Continue reading Playing on real retro hardware
Telemetry and insights into your product
Something that's quite incredible in this modern, ever-connected world, if you're working on a product team, is that you could be getting a wealth of insights from the thing you're building. It must have been hard in the days where you had your product run on isolated machines and never heard back from it after … Continue reading Telemetry and insights into your product
Guiding a user through a story
I am playing Maniac Mansion on my C64 at the moment. After I've successfully found and purchased it off of ebay, in a very good condition with all of its original big box, including its contents: Box Manual Poster of announcement board Response card for purchasing merch The 5.25" disc - still working! …I wanted … Continue reading Guiding a user through a story
Upgrading how video from the Amiga 500 is displayed
I have been looking into improving the video output on my Amiga 500 that I use for playing, capturing screenshots and capturing video. Not that the video quality was bad, but you could notice that there were distortions in the screenshots and the captured videos. It was more noticeable on my 1080p monitor that I … Continue reading Upgrading how video from the Amiga 500 is displayed
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