July 2, 2026
In Defense of the Hexagon
Squares are for spreadsheets. Triangles are for warning signs. The hexagon, meanwhile, is the only shape that lets a tile touch six neighbors at once without anyone having to apologize for the geometry. We didn't choose hexagons because they're trendy — we chose them because a square grid makes every conquest feel like filing taxes, and a hex grid makes it feel like an ambush. Bees figured this out millions of years ago. We're just catching up, minus the honey.
June 18, 2026
Why the AI on 'Ruthless' Doesn't Like You
We get the emails. "The Ruthless bot captured my entire flank in four moves, is it cheating?" No. It's just not burdened by ego, fatigue, or the temptation to check its phone mid-match. It evaluates the board, finds the move that hurts you most, and takes it — the same way a chess engine doesn't care that you "were saving that bishop for later." If it's any consolation, it doesn't celebrate either. It just moves on to ruining someone else's afternoon.
May 30, 2026
A Brief, Overdue Apology to Everyone We've Ever Overwhelmed
In Zaplattice, when a spreading Zap meets an enemy tile, it doesn't politely cancel out — it grinds the defender's power down, and the moment that power hits zero, the tile flips to the attacker's color. Like two people reaching for the same subway seat, except one of them actually takes it. We've watched replays of "perfect" strategies get overturned this way more times than we can count. It's a small, humbling reminder that in this game — much like in life — sometimes nobody shares, and the tile just changes hands.
May 9, 2026
The Corner Tile Appreciation Society
Nobody drafts corner tiles first. They have fewer neighbors, less reach, and a reputation for being where good expansions go to stall out. And yet, late-game, it's almost always a quiet corner tile holding the line while the center of the board turns into a war zone. This post is dedicated to the corner tiles: overlooked, underestimated, and — when the dust settles — often the reason you still have a board at all.