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TIMELINE BLASTAR — HELP

🎮 CONTROLS

🔫 WEAPONS (hotbar)

• Slot 1 · 🔫 Bullets — infinite, upgrade with powerups. GLASSCANNON ship fires twin cannons.
• Slot 2 · 📢 Megaphone — parodius-style single giant shout (SEGFAULT, RTFM, L+RATIO…). Slow fire rate, lingers ~3s, high damage. Also hits arcade enemies.
• Slot 3 · 💣 Nuke — 3 per run. Instantly kills post boss + every enemy on screen. "@handle NUKED!" overlay. Nuked handles never reappear in your in-game feed. This is local to the game only — it does NOT block, mute, or otherwise touch the user on X.
• Slot 4 · 🎉 Celebrate — rainbow emoji spray, triggers "CELEBRATED!" + crowd cheer. Positive vibes, also hits enemies.
• Slot 5 · 🎭 Meme Blaster — 3-word rainbow meme burst (SKIBIDI, RIZZ, GYATT, SKILL ISSUE…). Also hits enemies.
• Slot 6 · 💬 Comment Gun — speech-bubble shots. First hit on an X post pauses the game + opens a comment modal to reply for real via X API.
• Slot 7 · ❤️ Like Gun — pink heart shots. First hit on an X post sends a real Like via X API + shows "+❤ LIKED!" toast.
• Slot 8 · 🔭 Discovery — shines a wide light-blue cone upward. If it connects with an arxiv paper, the game pauses for 20 seconds so you can read the abstract. SPACE or ESC skips. Also: the 📤 button on the hn-bar shares that paper's link + summary to your X feed.

📖 STUDY WEAPONS (the curiosity row)

• 📜 Wiki Gun — fires scroll bullets. Hit a post → spawns a small Wikipedia card with the lead paragraph for an interesting word from that post. Card drifts upward + fades after ~10s. Free, zero damage, source: Wikipedia REST API.
• 💡 Grok Gun — fires lightbulb bullets. Hit a post → a 5s "💡 ASK GROK" chip attaches with five actions (🔍 Fact-check, 📚 Find the source, 🎯 Counter-argument, 🌍 Translate to German, 👶 Explain like I'm 5). Each action opens Grok in a new tab with the prompt + the post URL pre-filled. One tab per chip; we don't pay any Grok cost (it's a referral). Free, zero damage.
• 📖 Etymology Gun — fires book bullets. AI picks the single most encyclopedia-worthy word in the post; the etymology appears as a ribbon under the post for ~10s. Wiktionary first; AI fallback for neologisms is tagged (per AI, unverified). Free, zero damage.
• 🧠 Memetic Gun — fires brain bullets. Layered analysis: first shot reveals the post's hook (the phrase that pulled you in + why it works) for 3 COINS. Second shot tags every rhetorical device in the post (anaphora, appeal-to-authority, strawman…) for 5 COINS. Game pauses 20s per layer; SPACE/ESC skips. Hit "💾 Save Card" on the overlay to download a 1080×1080 share-card PNG.

🎒 INVENTORY (press E)

• 🔵 Neon Pulse — fast cyan single shot
• ⚡ Tesla Arc — three-bullet fork that reconverges
• 🟢 Plasma Stream — high-rate green stream w/ jitter
• 🟣 Phase Cannon — slow purple slug, fat hit area
• 🔷 Geo Cube — triple blue cube spread
• 🌀 Spiral Vortex — counter-rotating twin orbit
• 👁️ Eye Beam — wide red 7-bullet sweep
• 🎨 Penrose — optical illusion: hue-rotating staircase
• 🌈 Moiré Wave — interleaved sin-wave pair
• 🐍 Snake Spiral — hue-rotating snake trail

🎯 SOURCES / MODES

All in the Level Selector dropdown on the title screen + the OPTIONS panel.

• 💎 Premium · 𝕏 Blast My Timeline — OAuth, blast your real X home feed. Costs COINS per post read.
• 💎 Premium · ⭐ Blast a Custom Handle — type any @username; loads their latest 10 tweets on demand. COINS per read.
• 💎 Premium · 🔗 Blast a Custom Post — paste any X post URL; loads that single tweet + the cached TBPN timeline as continuation. COINS per read.
• 🆓 Free · 💎 Timeline of the Day — latest 50 X tweets sorted by reach with 25% random shuffle in the bottom 12 slots.
• 🆓 Free · 𝕏⭐ Shooting Stars (presets) — curated handles refreshed daily: elonmusk, realDonaldTrump, sama, garrytan, jensenhuang, naval, paulg, pmarca, balajis, jamji_jamaramji, PalmerLuckey, MTSlive, tbpn, nikitabier.
• 🆓 Free · 🧬 Monster Timeline — Elon's feed, with a 13-theme dungeon-keeper monster behind every post.
• 🆓 Free · 🟧 Hacker News Blastar — live HN front-page.
• 🆓 Free · 📚 Arxiv Blastar — latest cs.AI papers as bosses (title + abstract + author + category pills).
• 🆓 Free · 🧬 PubMed Blastar — biomedical research feed.
• 🆓 Free · 🎧 Podcast Blastar — 12 curated shows + iTunes search; each EPISODE becomes a boss-post. 30s of the actual episode audio fades in on boss spawn at 30% volume and cuts hard on kill. Music ducks while the preview plays. The preview audio is fetched directly from the podcast's public RSS-published mp3 — we never proxy or re-host it, never record it into your blast clip, and podcasts can opt out by removing the file from their feed.
• 🆓 Free · 💥 Blast The Mix — pick any combination of X, HN, Bluesky, Mastodon, RSS, YouTube Podcasts, Arxiv via the source picker.
• 🌌 Space Porch — chill mode (from Player Menu / Options). No enemies. Rocking chair, falling posts, ghostly highscore apparitions drifting across the sky. After ~15s an arcade cabinet drops in — click + drag a coin into the slot → swooshes you back to the title screen.
• 🗺️ Memetic Universe Map — living map of human-knowledge sources as planets. Blue ring = connectable, green ring + tractor beam = currently connected, red ring = blocked API. Click a planet to connect.
• 🏆 Hall of Fame — fullscreen demoscene-style highscore page (top 25). Auto-opens after 30s of title-screen idle.

🚀 SPACE GARAGE (Player Menu)

• SCOUT — HP 3, FIRE 6, SPD 1.0. Standard balanced fighter.
• IRONBACK — HP 5, FIRE 12, SPD 0.75. Heavy armor, slow guns.
• GLASSCANNON — HP 2, FIRE 3, SPD 1.15. Twin-cannon rapid fire — two hits and you're out.
• ONE-OF-ONE — Procedural ship seeded & re-rollable. Auto-tinted with colors extracted from your X avatar.

🎬 CLIPS + SHARING

• Every kill auto-records from spawn to destruction + 5s afterglow.
• Press X anywhere to trigger the primary share button in whichever modal is open.
• X-mode one-click "Reply on 𝕏" posts the clip as a real reply. Optional 🎤 ADD COMMENTARY records webcam with green-on-black CRT filter and composites as PIP.
• Every share pauses the game. When you close the modal, a 3-2-1-GO countdown resumes play — no ambushes mid-post.
• All sharing stays in-game (no tab jumps). Intent-URL fallback only if you're not connected to X.

⚔️ COMBAT

• Arcade enemy waves spawn every 12s. Score = posts×100 + enemies×10 + waves×500.
• Kill streaks trigger announcer: DOUBLE KILL → TRIPLE KILL → MEGA KILL → MONSTER KILL → GODLIKE (via retro C64-style TTS).

🎬 GAME OVER + HIGHSCORE CARD

• Game-over screen embeds your 1200×1200 shareable highscore PNG: hero avatar, rank (ROOKIE → BLASTER → KILLER → NUKER → LEGEND → ELITE), 2×3 stats grid, grid of this-session's blasted targets with their avatars.
• POST HIGHSCORE TO X is a one-click direct post — no redirect page.

👤 PLAYER MENU SECTIONS

• 👤 Profile — X avatar, rank tier, lifetime stats, END SESSION & SHARE HIGHSCORE.
• 🚀 Space Garage — 4 ship presets (SCOUT / IRONBACK / GLASSCANNON / ONE-OF-ONE). Tap a card to equip.
• 🚀 Ship Config — live preview of your equipped ship (real in-game renderer + X avatar in cockpit), cockpit source (X / upload / classic), tint swatches (apply immediately).
• 🏆 Hall of Fame — fullscreen demoscene-style top-25 page. Manual-open from OPTIONS or auto-opens after 30s of title-screen idle.
• 🌌 Space Porch — enter chill mode.
• 🗑️ Nukelist (collapsible) — manage handles you've nuked. Local to the game only — these users are NOT blocked on X.
• ⚙ Advanced Settings (collapsible) — video config (auto-popup mode, bitrate, full-session recording, silent-audio toggle), reset.
• 🧪 Custom Blast Targets (collapsible, bottom) — paste custom post text + image for targets.

⭐ SHOOTING STARS

• Curated presets are free for everyone — refreshed daily (elon, nikitabier, trump, sama, garrytan, tbpn, naval, paulg, pmarca, balajis, MTSlive, ashleevance, FoundersPodcast, PalmerLuckey, jasonjoyride, beffjezos).
• Or type any custom @handle to load their latest 10 tweets on demand (costs COINS).
• Scored and ranked like every other mode.

🪙 COINS

• How to get COINS: purchase-only during the test phase.
• Buy packs: 🪙 BUY COINS button opens the shop. Starter $5 / 500 · Power $15 / 1,650 (+10%) · Hyper $50 / 5,750 (+15%) · Ultra $100 / 12,000 (+20%). Real VAT invoice emailed via Stripe; credits land instantly after payment.
• Spend on premium feeds: 1 coin per X post read (Blast My Timeline, Custom Handle, Custom Post).
• Spend on cosmetics: Porch items (see below).
• Sharing is free for everyone — replies, comments, likes, highscore posts, video shares — uncapped. The viral motor stays open.

🏡 SPACE PORCH — COSMETIC UNLOCKS

• Opened from Player Menu → 🌌 SPACE PORCH → 🛒 PORCH SHOP.
• Items: 🦩 Flamingo (50) · 🛸 Saucer (80) · 🌵 Cactus (60) · 🪩 Disco Ball (180) · 🔭 Telescope (120) · 🎨 Neon Sign (150) · 🗼 Antenna (100) · 🏆 Trophy Shelf (200).
• Public profile at /p/<your-handle> — shareable link-back to X + lifetime stats + porch grid + recent battle history.

⚔️ BLAST BATTLE — 1v1 MULTIPLAYER

• Queue: click ⚔ BLAST BATTLE from the start screen → matchmaking overlay → paired with another waiting player.
• Goal: first to 3 round wins (KO or time-up). Round-win pips at top of screen.
• Controls: WASD/Arrows move (locked to your half) · Space shoot · Q pong-reflect · Esc forfeit.
• Powerups (orbs spawn mid-arena): ⚡ Rapid Fire · 💥 Big Shot · ✳ Triple Spread · 🛡 Shield (blocks one hit).
• PONG mode (Q): your ship becomes a paddle — incoming bullets bounce back at 1.35× speed and hit the shooter. Budget is 10 seconds per round, shown as a bar over your ship. When empty the mode locks for the round (🚫 icon).
• Stats shown: battles · wins · losses · shots fired · hits dealt · damage dealt/taken · KO wins · reflects · powerups collected.
• Sounds: distinct tones for your shots vs opponent · pong-ping (triangle wave) · round-won arpeggio · powerup pickup.

👤 PROFILE EDIT (Phase 1)

• Top-right ✎ EDIT link (visible when X-connected) opens the profile editor.
• Fields: bio · display name · avatar · up to 5 linked accounts (X, Bluesky, Mastodon, website, YouTube, other).
• Defaults cloned from your X profile on first login. Your public page at /p/<handle> links back to those externals.

💡 TIPS

• Posts take progressive damage — cracks at 66% HP, heavy damage at 33%, chunk missing under 20%.
• Every 3rd post morphs: breaks into word-swarm enemies before reforming as 1.5× HP end-boss.
• Nukes ignore HP, instantly kill, and hide that handle from your in-game feed only — never affects the user on X.
• Music: Wild Love always plays first (start screen → first level). Then sequential rotation: 42nd Element → Rabbithole Maximizer → Docu X Ⅰ-Ⅳ. Uncheck any track in 🎵 to drop it from rotation.
• Space Porch always opens with the chill Docu X tracks unless you've selected something else in 🎵.
• Detached monsters break free instantly after spawning behind the post and orbit wide; they share HP with the post (kill the monster → post explodes too).
• Mobile: rolling-replay clip captures full ~10s, recording bitrate auto-tunes for iOS Safari.