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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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I've been following the Free Stars development for a while. First there was that huge legal drama with Stardock that got resolved in a really weird way. Now (and admittedly this is much less eventful) every blogpost has some political crap buried within it. I'm not sure if the two original Toys for Bobs devs are super progressive, or their staffers developers are the super progressive ones, but it's kind of funny to have a giant dev progress update and then have a picture of you protesting fascism in front of the Washington Monument and talking about what a shocking year it's been politically.

I hope it gets out of Kickstarter Development Hell. The Escape Velocity Override remake, "Cosmic Frontier Override", was not so lucky. The devs wasted a bunch of time poorly rewriting everything and then apparently Peter Cartwright, the original creator, died while this all was going on. Maybe it'll keep going. The remaining dev is incentivized to keep going, because he somehow made a Patreon account a year or two after the kickstarter to get even more free money to develop freelance.

Or maybe I don't hope it gets out of Kickstarter Development Hell. How can I hope to defeat leftism if I play every game and watch every movie that leftists make? Maybe it's better if they just waste the money of other leftists and desperate 40 year olds. I am also a zoomer who played Ur Quan Masters, by the way. It was really good.