Unshipped

A podcast about the things that never launched. Every episode, someone walks us through a project that died — the startup that ran out of road, the feature that shipped to nobody, the album that never got mixed, the building that was never built. What it was, how far it got, and the exact moment it became clear it was over. We are not interested in the tidy lesson at the end. Most of these stories do not have one. We are interested in the part everybody skips: what it was actually like to be inside a thing that was quietly failing, before anyone was willing to say so out loud. New episodes every other Tuesday. Hosted by Nell Farrow and Vikram Sethi.

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The game that took nine years and shipped to 340 people

Rosalind spent nearly a decade on a game that sold 340 copies in its first month. She is remarkably clear-eyed about why, and it is not the reason you expect.

Rosalind Ky joins us to talk about the nine years she spent building a game that, on release week, sold 340 copies. We get into the four full rewrites — and Rosalind makes an argument that has stayed with us since we recorded it: that each rewrite was not a technical decision at all, but a way of not finishing. As long as the engine was being rebuilt, the game could not fail, because it had not yet been seen. Also discussed: the specific Tuesday in year six when she knew; why she kept going for three more years anyway; and the surprisingly happy thing that happened to those 340 players. This is our most-shared episode, and it is the one we get the most email about.