Friday Weekly June 20, 2025

What's Going On

Just a quick check in without any particular focus other than to say howdy. If you just want audio centric updates feel free to keep scrolling

Happy Friday everyone! I've regrettably had to leave the safety of my hovel so I'm coming at you from somewhere over the cascades this week. Well, I'm writing it up here anyway. Not going to send it until I get back down.

I'll keep it a bit brief this week as well since I'll be plenty distracted by family and friends. Mostly Kunal if we're being honest since he loves to ask me light hearted questions like "what are the ways to self actualize". So I'll hit some of the big updates from places, share a couple of fixations, and you all hopefully have a great weekend out there.

See you, space cowboy

Apos 𝒙 updates

Tom is out galavanting in a tropical paradise somewhere so this is just a couple quick updates until he gets back

Rock Lobster has finished production and we are going to receive units to photograph next week. Expect a launch in July
Next few projects are still in infancy and we are not fully ready to share. Expect updates and Interest Check pages once we are getting more clear on the vision on some of these. So watch this space

Our Weekly Fixations

These are some of the things we're currently obsessed with around here. Music, science, tools, toys, etc. Hopefully we'll find something new and interesting for you every once in awhile, because knowing is half the battle.

Sean
Recently Backpack Battles entered full release after about a year of early access on Steam. It’s a round based game about purchasing and organizing a synergistic inventory full of trinkets, bags, and weapons, then watching an automatic face-off against a snapshot of another player. Rounds of buying/organizing, then battling, repeat until you win 10 times, or lose 5 times. With maximum keywords it’s an Asynchronous PVP Deck Building RPG Inventory Management Autobattler.

One of the great design features of this game is that there are no timers. Similar to turn based single player games, you have unlimited time to plan and optimize your strategy. But due to the PVP nature of this game, your victories always feel earned, as another actual player was bested, even if it wasn’t in real time. It’s a great game to play while watching a video on the side, or on handheld PCs like the Steam Deck.

This game also indirectly satisfies a niche that hasn’t really existed, a PVP turn based puzzle game. I’ve always enjoyed real time PVP puzzle games like Tetris, Puyo Puyo, or Puzzle Fighter, but in terms of turn based PVP puzzle games, they tend to turn more card-based. This game is essentially an RPG themed jigsaw puzzle that is PVP. I don’t think there’s anything else like that.
Really the biggest negative to this game is the art style and theme, which some will consider a bit off-putting, as it kinda evokes olde english art mixed with creepy anime dolls.

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Kunal
Just read Seneca "On the Shortness of Life" - A short book about shortness which has a long lasting impact