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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • Here’s a weird one I had a half-baked idea for: Tower Defense Metroidvania. The idea is that your an acolyte of a temple (or a mechanic in a space station, whatever), and there’s an armed group trying to force their way past the temple’s traps and defenses to get to the heart of the temple and steal the macguffin; that’s going on in a little horizontal track at the top of the screen, and meanwhile the rest of the screen is Metroidvania gameplay as you navigate the interior of the temple (or space station) to activate defenses, acquire magical relics, and eventually awaken the temple’s guardian spirit. You lose if the bad guys get to the heart of the temple, you win when you successfully gather everything you need to awaken the guardian. In the meantime, you have to decide when and where to spend resources (including time) shoring up the “normal” defenses (that delay the attackers) and when you need to just push onward to awaken the guardian.




  • I thought it was really good! It’s got some great QoL improvements that I wish they had backported to the base game, honestly. Also, it addresses some flaws in the end of the base game, making it a clearer what was supposed to have happened (while still leaving some stuff open, it is a Xeno game after all).

    Also, I won’t spoil anything but if you’re a long-time fan of the series there’s a lot to like.





  • There are times when it’s useful to engage these people, though never for the purpose of convincing them. Sometimes, there’s an opportunity to provide a counterpoint for anyone else “listening” who hasn’t yet been sucked into crazy-town, to help keep them away from that path.

    I like to put it that “science education isn’t a cure, it’s a vaccine”; you can’t realistically change the mind of someone (especially of a stranger) who’s already bought in to a mindset like this; but in some cases, you can help prevent it from spreading.

    That said, if you’re not particularly good at e.g. public speaking, or science outreach, or whatever, you can end up playing into a troll’s hands (assuming you’re interacting with an intentional troll and not just a deluded person). So it can be tricky, and personally I’m not very good at it.