Glass Newsroom · Games

Source Pack Defense

A stream of claims is marching down the wire toward the front-page gate, and none of them have been checked. Place verification towers — official sources, community context, the human review gate — along the route and stop what you can. Every claim that reaches the gate unverified costs credibility. This is the pipeline, weaponized. Watch the off-pack citations: most of the desk can’t touch a claim that cites a URL outside the pack. Primary sources can.

Ink95Wave 1/20Score 623Kills 0Combo ×1.00
Map
Source Pack Defense playfield — claims march a wire toward the front-page gate.
Q freezes the wire · E runs a correction down one lane

Next on the wire

  • ×5

Spend your ink: place new towers, then click any tower to upgrade it. A clean wave (zero leaks) grows your combo and pays more ink.

Pick a floor and toggle auto-waves above · pick a tower (1–5), then click an open tile to place it · click a tower to upgrade or sell · Q holds the wire, E runs a retraction · arrows + Enter play it on keyboard · Esc clears · off-pack citations and armored citations only fall to Official Sources and the Human Review Gate.

Powered by real telemetry

The waves read the Glass Newsroom feed before they form up. The 15 QC rejections logged in the recent window become extra hallucinated claims (one per three rejections, capped at six, spread from wave 3 on); the 1 rotted link become extra broken-link enemies (capped at four, from wave 4 on); and past 25 failure-shaped events — 42 at last count — every wave from 6 up runs one claim larger. Rough week on the feed, rough night on the desk. Same waves for everyone reading the same feed snapshot.

The night

A full edition runs 20 waves, escalating from a handful of hallucinated claims to a back half thick with armored citations and viral spikes. 3 astroturf mid-bosses break up the mid-game, and the finale crowns the wire with 2 hype headlines at once. By default the next wave auto-sends after a short, skippable countdown — flip Auto-waves off to send each one yourself, or hit Send now to skip the wait. The preference sticks.

The floors

Pick a floor before you start — each lays the wire out differently and the larger ones give you a deeper desk to build:

The Wire

12×7

The intro desk. One S-curve from the slush pile to the gate.

The Long Desk

14×8

A wider, taller floor. The wire switchbacks the long way around.

The Fork

13×7 · 2 lanes

Two lanes. Claims split after the slush pile and rejoin at the gate.

The Coil

13×9

The largest floor. The wire winds in tight vertical sweeps to the gate.

The desk

Official Source

60 ink · range 2.4 · 22 dmg / 0.7s · 2 upgrades

First-party documentation. Ends most arguments. Tier 3: Primary record: each check forks to a second claim.

Reputable Analysis

80 ink · range 2.2 · 14 dmg / 0.95s · splash 0.9 · 2 upgrades

Established outlets. Hits everything adjacent to the story. Tier 3: Editorial standards: the blast also slows survivors.

Community Context

35 ink · range 1.8 · 6 dmg / 0.38s · 2 upgrades

Fast, noisy, occasionally right. Tier 3: Thread consensus: bolts pierce one extra claim.

Link-Rot Scanner

50 ink · range 2 · slows to 45% for 1.2s · 2 upgrades

Doesn't kill anything. Makes everything checkable. Tier 3: Archive snapshot: every sweep fires twice.

Human Review Gate

120 ink · range 1.5 · 60 dmg / 1.1s · 2 upgrades

Slow, expensive, correct. Tier 3: Standards desk: every kill refunds a little ink.

Every tower takes 2 cost-escalating upgrades, bought between waves — the third tier unlocks a special (forking checks, piercing bolts, a double sweep, ink on kill). Selling refunds 60% of everything you sank into it.

The wire

Hallucinated claim

30 hp · 1.45 tiles/s · 8 ink bounty

Confidently asserted, cited nowhere. Dies to almost anything.

Stale source

85 hp · 0.75 tiles/s · 12 ink bounty

True in 2024. Heavy, slow, and overdue for a recheck.

Off-pack citation

55 hp · 1.1 tiles/s · 14 ink bounty

Cites a URL that is not in the pack. Only Official Sources and the Human Review Gate can kill it; scanners can still slow it.

Armored citation

70 hp · 0.85 tiles/s · 18 ink bounty · 70% armor vs. non-primary

Dressed up in footnotes and a DOI. Community, analysis, and the scanner barely scratch it — only Official Sources and the Human Review Gate cut it at full strength.

Broken link

45 hp · 1 tiles/s · 10 ink bounty

A 404 wearing a citation. Splits into two fragments when it dies.

Duplicate source

26 hp · 1.2 tiles/s · 6 ink bounty

The same source counted twice. Always travels in pairs.

Viral claim

60 hp · 0.7 tiles/s · 16 ink bounty · accelerates +0.42/s

Starts slow, then the engagement kicks in. The longer it runs, the faster it goes. Kill it early.

Astroturf campaign

240 hp · 0.78 tiles/s · 38 ink bounty

A coordinated mid-wave push. Tough, but no boss — it bursts into a knot of duplicates when it falls.

Hype headline

480 hp · 0.5 tiles/s · 60 ink bounty

The big one. Heals itself on engagement and costs five credibility if it ships.

Link fragment

12 hp · 1.6 tiles/s · 3 ink bounty

What is left of a broken link. Small, fast, still wrong.

The interventions

Editor's Hold

22s cooldown · 2.6s freeze

Freeze every claim on the wire for a beat. The desk keeps checking; nothing advances.

Retraction

34s cooldown · 200 armor-piercing damage

Run a correction down one lane: heavy armor-piercing damage to everything on that row.

Two operator-grade moves on a cooldown: Q freezes the whole wire for a beat (the desk keeps checking), E arms a retraction you fire down a single lane. Clearing a wave with zero leaks builds a combo multiplier — up to 3× ink — so the cleanest desk also gets the richest.

More games on the desk in the games lobby. Wave data comes straight from the Glass Newsroom log — quiet week, quiet wire. That’s the point.