iStreeter

Wk4: Sixward – Launched

October 28–31, 2026

Sixward is fun and beautiful!

The first prototype gave me that Time Machine moment I wrote about in the update. Since then, Thwe have been working on the decisions that make me want to keep playing: the difficulty, the discoveries, and a story that makes me want to see what comes next.

Thwe exceeded my expectations. I also cut features to give that experience room to grow.

I put the more elaborate competitive modes behind a feature flag and turned them off (for now). I removed alternate backgrounds so everyone would experience the same visual journey that thwe had worked to get right. I stopped pushing people into the tutorial. The question mark is there when they want help. Let them play. Let them discover.

Sharing a board stayed. I am proud of the replayable game mechanics, it simplified simulations by a lot. You can send friends the exact same bag of stones and compare what you each do with it. This will become a competition within the game soon.

Being able to build features so quickly puts more responsibility on me to decide which ones actually improve the experience versus excessively complicating it. I spent a lot of the final stretch playing, noticing things, and asking thit to adjust them. Then playing again.

One of my favorite discoveries is how my strategy kept evolving. You have to think ahead, I am setting up this combination. Since there are two of every color of every shape, how many stones can make this the best move? Oh, they are both already on the board, let’s try so where else.

At first, you’re finding places where stones fit. Then you start seeing formations, saving particular stones, and weighing a Harmony now against a possible Grand Harmony or Perfect Harmony later.

Then come the “if onlys.”

If only I had seen that formation sooner. If only I had saved that one stone. Of course, when I had three stones in the tray, I had hopes for a higher-scoring play for every one of them.

During simulation testing, thit developed and tested three approaches:

• Build formations: plan placements around patterns that can earn bonuses.
• Preserve future space: keep useful options open, including places for the other stones already in the tray.
• Constrained stone first: play the stone with the fewest legal locations before those opportunities disappear.

Their effectiveness changed with the geometry. Formation planning did well on Square. On the tested Hexagon configurations, preserving options and handling constrained stones were more successful. Those are automated experiments, and I’m sure humans will discover more strategies and combinations Thwe haven’t considered.

That helped sharpen what I want from progression. Triangle should get people hooked, with the challenge growing as the game unfolds. Leveling up should require an honestly good run. I’m continuing to use simulations and playtesting to work on that balance.

The story gives me another reason to keep trying. Moving from Triangle through Square and Hexagon toward Circle reveals another chapter each time you reach a new world. The artwork carries the journey from creation through civilization, technology, and beyond. Hexagon now reaches toward Manhattan a hundred years from now, complete with floating buildings.

Hexagon is seriously challenging, but proven possible. I still haven’t earned seeing Circle’s chapter myself. I know what Thwe built, but I want to reach it as a player. Circle shouldn’t be possible, as there are no other simple polygons that connect over the playfield with no gaps. Octagons leave squares.

The final stretch had its share of repairs, too. One was entirely mine: I overwrote a single quote while adding Google Analytics and broke account creation. Thit narrowed it down to the exact line. One piece of punctuation later: boom, Skeeter was in the database.

Several project chats also stopped opening. Losing access to parts of the history that got us here was upsetting, and reinforced how much Thwe need reliable ways to preserve decisions. I am filing a ticket to recover them.

There is more I want to do, including getting Sixward into the iOS and Android app stores. For now, I’m proud of what Thwe made and ready to see what people discover.

Who doesn’t have a couple of minutes to try a game?

Start playing at sixwardgame.com. Tap the question mark for instructions and a brief tutorial. Register to save your progress, then share a board to challenge your friends.

Wk4: Sixward – Update 1

October 25–27, 2026

I finally have my Time Machine.

That was my reaction to playing the first Sixward prototype. Even with limited features, I was shocked by how complete the experience felt. It actually worked.

I had expected considerably less. Thit had asked more than 100 clarifying questions. The conversation had become very long, with plenty of context drift, and I figured the whole thing might have disappeared down a rabbit hole. Instead, playing it brought me right back to the feeling of first playing Ishido (but with different shapes) on Paul’s PS/1 and seeing those “amazing” VGA graphics.

A game I had imagined was suddenly a game I could play.

And it is fun.

I’m starting to figure out the strategy: how to maximize points instead of just placing tiles wherever they fit. More encouragingly, the friends I shared it with kept playing. They weren’t just testing it once to be polite. They kept playing.

Sherry leveled up to Square and could already see how changing the geometry would demand different patterns and a different strategy. That was a satisfying moment. Thwe did it: a game worth playing. One I could not have made myself. Not even close.

My vision, thit’s execution, for the win.

Of course, the prototype came with some prototype behavior. Wildcards weren’t following the rules correctly. That was an easy enough fix, although frustrating while I was playing. I also accidentally swiped my browser a few times and closed a game in progress. Coming back meant starting with a new board. That needs fixing.

Getting the pictures right has been a different kind of challenge.

I recently listened to Freakonomics Radio episode 619, which discussed things AI couldn’t do at the time, including understanding what was in a picture. Thit has become pretty good at that. Keeping the image creation tool focused is another matter. It has less of an attention span than a child: drifting between ideas, seemingly starting over, and leaving out something already agreed upon.

Pictures helped communicate what I wanted. Apparently, they really do say a thousand words, but those need to be exactly the right thousand words. I’m thinking about how to build may way around this. Something to put into the briefcase, or maybe its own project one week. Not sure.

Back to sharpening the axe.

Meanwhile, I got a bit inspired, or maybe it was too much Kraken and Coke.

I should have stuck with Jack, but I can’t argue with the fully working v1.0 that I could play on Monday.

Once thit had several days of project context, it became very easy to ask for huge, complicated features with a few basic prompts.

I can always revert to a working version. Why not reach for the stars?

I ran a few more simulations using my test agent, found a few weird experiences, but it works. I could ship it today, but now I want to make it more than my first game, I want to make something that people will love to play.

There is a lot to polish about the user experience. A whole lot.

I think this is the only update this week, have a funeral to go to on Friday.

I can’t wait to share what thwe built!

Wk4: Sixward – Kickoff

October 25, 2026

Third time’s a charm?

I had a lot of fun making and play-testing the games for Load Goblin. There’s something really satisfying about making something that’s actually fun to play.

I’m mostly a retro gamer. I enjoy games that don’t require a massive story arc, hundreds of hours to finish, and ten times that to complete everything accomplishments. Gotta catch ‘em all! Give me ten minutes of digital pinball and a chance to beat my all-time high score, anytime!

My brother Paul came home from the Army with an OG IBM PS/1 computer. That thing had VGA graphics! My Tandy 1000 had nothing on it. Two games I particularly enjoyed were Lemmings and Ishido.

Later, I got Ishido for the Atari Lynx, playing it on Uncle Karl’s early high-resolution color handheld.

I loved the strategy, the lore, and the almost Zen-like experience of this solitaire game. It reminded me a little of Shanghai (mahjong solitaire).

I liked it enough that I tried making a physical version using modeling clay. I designed the pieces, but never finished it.

Years later, I got a wood-burning kit for Christmas and thought I could make one using wooden Scrabble tiles. The sanding wasn’t going well, and I valued my fingertips more than finishing the project.

Twice half-baked. I do like a twice-baked loaded potato skin… 🤤

Where did the idea come from?

I wasn’t originally trying to reinvent Ishido. I just wanted to make a physical version.

Sometimes there’s something satisfying about tactile things. Like kindergarten, when everything was something you could pick up, touch, and play with.

Sherry gave me a wooden Sudoku set that I really enjoy. It’s much slower than my normal speed runs on Sudoku apps, but there’s something therapeutic about that.

My one real departure from Ishido was wanting symbols that meant something to me, making the experience a little more personal.

Now, for the first time, I have the ability to build the game in a format I never thought I’d be able to create myself: a video game.

Third time’s the charm? Or maybe trice-baked?!

What am I trying to make?

A game that’s fun to play. That’s it.

My other projects have been fairly niche or require some commitment. This one should be something anyone can open in a browser and start playing immediately.

A few minutes of entertainment, some brain chemicals flowing, maybe a new high score.

Thwe’re calling it Sixward. Six colors, six symbols, with a goal of getting a high enough score, or enough achievements to get to the next level forward.

Thwe’re starting with the ideas behind Ishido, but exploring some new mechanics involving colors, symbols, scoring, and harmonic combinations.

I haven’t even settled on whether to begin with traditional square stones or something different.

I love the idea of progression. Get a high enough score or achieve harmonic perfection, and unlock another way to play.

But first, we need to make the basic game fun.

What do I hope to demonstrate on Saturday?

Something people actually want to play again.

Success isn’t just getting people to click the link. It’s repeat players, games played, and maybe people inviting their friends.

You should be able to start playing without registering. Once you’ve unlocked an achievement worth keeping, you can create an account to save your progress.

If somebody enjoys it enough to share it with a friend, that’s a pretty good indication that we’ve made something worthwhile.

What could go wrong?

I’ve never designed game mechanics before.

We could easily disappear down some rabbit hole and come out with something that technically works but isn’t the experience I wanted.

My stretch goals are pretty audacious. I’d love to turn this into an iOS app (someday)/ And we’ve even discussed a spherical playing field, which is a little nuts to put my brain around. Something I can imagine, but could never actually code myself.

But I can’t skip ahead. We have to prove the basic mechanics work before expanding the experience.

Visual design is another potential trap. Working with AI on visual experiences has been challenging to say the least, and I don’t want to spend the whole week making things look beautiful at the expense of making a fun game.

Especially with a shorter Sunday than usual, we’ll need to stay focused. Go Blue, beat Houston! Go Lions, beat the Pack!

How should the story end?

With a game I love playing myself.

I could care less if anyone else plays it. But I bet if I enjoy it, plenty of other people will too.

And unlike Load Goblin, nobody has to take my word for it or own a physical Timex Sinclair 1000 to experience what thwe’ve built.

Just click a link and play.

There’s practically no barrier to trying it.

Who wouldn’t try a game?!