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 →

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 →

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 →

The crawling, walking, running thermostat

One of the classic tricks of Product Management and design thinking is the "crawl-walk-run" approach of breaking down a larger project in to smaller, digestible and easier-to-tackle work packages. Like a small human child, a new product isn't born immediately running, but will take time to crawl on all fours. After, the child will learn … Continue reading The crawling, walking, running thermostat →

What sucking adventure games tell product managers

I am reading a lot of blogs and papers that people write about their thought processes for the craft their good at. Not all are strictly product management, some are from similar fields. I consume a lot of adventure game content these days, and if you look at game design for adventure games, there's a … Continue reading What sucking adventure games tell product managers →

Hint systems in point-n-click adventures

If you remember the fun of late 80s and early 90s point-and-click adventure games, you may remember that the internet wasn't a thing back then. When you ran into a puzzle that you couldn't solve right away, you had to try things out. Or power down and come back later … when you thought hard … Continue reading Hint systems in point-n-click adventures →

Operational TCO of your product

I keep four chickens that keep the slope on the side of our property under control. They do the weeding, I do the feeding, they produce eggs. Clearly there's a few tools that I need to clean their chicken house, fences that need maintaining so they don't escape or foxes that break in. I tore … Continue reading Operational TCO of your product →

Conquering levels in Lemmings

The more I play Lemmings, the more I realize that I tackle different levels quite methodically with the same set of steps, before I attempt in solving them. Right at the beginning of the level, when the lemmings start to fall out of the ceiling trapdoor, I would use the "Pause" button to pause the … Continue reading Conquering levels in Lemmings →