still, your response to them could've been a bit more . . . polite
So let me get this straight, I work hard on a game, tuning the mechanics, trying to make it fun to play, ironing out bugs, etc. etc., and release it for free. Someone comes along and says something that amounts to "I hate the gameplay of your game, could you do some work taking out the gameplay since I don't like it?". And my response to this, instead of "You should play a different game if you don't like the gameplay" is what? Just fulfill the request of the person that hates the game? Apologize for using gameplay they don't like? Hell imagine if someone did this for the fetish side instead of the gameplay "I hate fat fetish stuff can you add a skinny mode?". It's incredibly rude! It's entitled and shows a lack of respect for the time and care I put into the game! When people say stuff like that I don't have to be polite to them, and it's really weird that you feel like you should be policing my tone on a year old comment. Especially when you're calling bullshit like that valid criticism and acting like a tourist mode is some no-effort thing that should be in the game even though I don't want it in there.
Sorry to add to what seems to be a touchy subject, but I had this page marked for alerts and thought the game was getting updated, reading through this though, I feel like adding my grain of salt.
This to say, I fail to even see what a tourist mode would entail, so would it be possible for you to elaborate on what you would actually expect from a game mode such as this? The least someone could do after saying something of that nature is provide an idea for an alternative gameplay or something of substance rather than just saying 'I hate it', I personally find it very far from 'valid criticism' as you say because of that, to me actual valid criticism would've been stating clearly which aspects of the tower defense are bothersome, and how you'd see them replaced, hypothetically.
Just what did you envision, walking around and collecting energy then incrementally progress through the skill tree?
Even that would take a significant amount of work for it to even be considered a proper difficulty, since half the skilltree (and most of the buildings and upgrades even) would be rendered useless without the things related to tower defense, which I would imagine would have to be addressed as well if made so, or else other random criticism would start to emerge from that speculative tourism mode, things such as 'Why isn't that fulfilling a purpose?/ why do I need to upgrade that to progress?' or even worse 'wow tourist mode is too short' since you'd be effectively cutting off most of the time investment as well.
By that point, you might as well ask for the dev to make it into a gallery mode that plays the animations and sounds, since it'd be so disjointed from the whole gameplay loop seeing as the weight stages act as both a pacing element and some sort of level design puzzle for the player to sink their time into, removing the urgency of defending the base removes most of what makes it into a game.
That's why I can understand someone telling somebody else this game isn't for them if clearly it isn't a genre they enjoy playing to begin with, it's like saying you don't like the aiming part of a shooter, and the tower defense aspect of this game amounts to about 50% of the overall gameplay, so why bother? Just look up a gallery for the game, or play something else if it's not your thing, that's simply the logical solution here, it wasn't a 'no u' from the dev as you seem to perceive it.
All this to say, this was indeed formulated as useless feedback, it also sounded as said in a passive-aggressive tone to boot, so it doesn't quite surprise me it gets answered in kind.
I understand that throwing the whole argument on the floor like this might seem harsh, but I can only feel sympathy for the dev going through the effort of making an entire game just for people telling them they don't like it, it's plainly insulting, if you don't like something in its majors aspects, you don't just go into comment sections to tell people 'wow this isn't for me, I'd rather play something else', that's just rude in the same manner as going to a sushi restaurant only to tell the chef you don't like fish, no matter how you spin it that's not a normal behavior.