Tower Defense, The Apocalypse, and YOU!

Tower defense games are games in which you have a limited amount or resources available to build towers to defend your safe space from waves of enemies. Each wave defeated gives way to a stronger wave and loot you can use to build more or upgrade existing towers. [Like real life, except with do-overs!]

I like to say things like, “I’m not obsessed with [thing I spend time that should be allotted to other things doing].”

Sometimes I’ll be playing my tower defense game and not realize that an entire flight from Phoenix to Boston has passed me by. Hm… But it’s not because I want to, it’s because I must—I’m the God of Front Doors! I must protect my nouns.

This week (month?) that statement is directed at a tower defense game on my phone called Castle Defense (or Castle TD once it’s downloaded…) Creative moniker’s are not a staple of the genre.

The thing about tower defense games though, is it’s not really about “fun,”“survival,” or even “winning”. It’s about PERFECT!

I don’t know what’s on the other side of that opening but it’s by duty to protect it. Protect it from super fast pigs and hearty Pterosaurs. Maybe there’s a genetic mutation factory and a  pre-school on the other side of the wall and every creature that gets through is morphed into an even more terrible monster with a hunger for innocence incarnate?

I like to think about tower defense games in terms of survival preparation. I might not have everything I need to do the job that needs doing—Surviving—but I’ll need to sort out HOW? I can’t just spam the landscape with trip wires if an air attack is possible.

How can tower defense games help you prepare for the apocalypse?

Continue reading “Tower Defense, The Apocalypse, and YOU!”

The Mythical Land of Safety and Security and Free Food

It’s in the North. Unless you’re from the North, then it’s in the East. Well if, like me, you’re in the Northeast, it’s in Canada or out West. Maybe down south in Florida.

Wherever it may be, it’s a vague and general direction far from where you currently are. There’s someone in your party who wants desperately to go there. It’s the brand new Promised Land where fast food and hot showers still exist, who wouldn’t want to go there? A Smarty Pants is who.

Just like weight loss pills that not only work but also won’t eventually blow your heart up or destroy your metabolism, it doesn’t exist. Never wholly at least.

Continue reading “The Mythical Land of Safety and Security and Free Food”