So Very Wrong About Games

Walker introduces a new feature, the LIGHTNING ROUND. Destinies are determined and legends are forged in the lightning round, or at least they could be if it were not merely the pretext for his trolling. Someone should translate "I'm not saying, I'm just saying" into Latin so he can make it his family credo. AYURIS: The Voyages of Marco Polo 2m00s (Simone Luciani & Daniele Tascini, Hans im Gluck,...

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We puzzle over the practices and intentions of game designers this week as though we were archaeologists trying to divine the practices of ashen Pompeiians. Why did these authors insert this mechanism into their artifact? Was it a mating ritual? Was it an obeisance to some vengeful, long-dead god? Was it to shoehorn in player interaction? Or was it to placate a Kickstarter audience? Oh, sorry, tha...

You can replace the Mark and Walker voices with lovingly-rendered miniatures with the SVWAG Host Minis add-on, which you can have for $35, but only if you pay for it before you know what they look like and before you know the content of the episode. You can also buy the SVWAG playmat, metal coins, realistic resources, microphone first-player marker, and custom insert. This is a free podcast that c...

Fatherhood is the overall theme of this week's episode. Imagine Harry Chapin's Cat's in the Cradle, except with the father played by Vladimir the Great and the son by Svyatopolk the Accursed. "When you coming home, dad?" asks the Accursed, to which the reply is "I don't know when. But we'll get together then, son." And then, the son allegedly murders several of his siblings in a vicious power stru...

SHUX has passed, but the memories have not. Your hosts give a final rundown of some of the goings-on during the august October event. Mark asserts that no one is less competitive than he, no one by a long shot, he is much less competitive than you and if you disagree he will fight you. Unless you are a child or infirm, in which case he will still fight you out of a grudging sense of duty and respe...

"You two are idiots."-QuinnsWe are live (on tape)! With special guest Quintin Smith aka Quinns from Shut Up & Sit Down. Also featuring guest appearances from French Canadian snack cakes, passive aggression, wonderful prizes (none for you, sorry, all gone), and the man who saved your life, Vasili Arkhipov! Also some feedback and noise from the megagame next door. Oh, well. Games Played Last Week: -...

The saturation point is the point at which you can no longer dissolve a deck of cards into a bottle of water. I am told that in summer, it feels hotter than it is really is because of all the board game particles diffused throughout the air. It gets really hard to breathe sometimes--my cousin nearly choked on a cube, once. The dewpoint, I think, is the temperature at which a full copy of Catan wil...

The cube trundles onward, marching inexorably--if haltingly--towards its ultimate destination. It is told it must explore, and so explore it does. The other cube conquers, but that is not this cube's concern. They met once at a party. It seemed nice, but that was long ago, and the cube must explore, not mingle. Sometimes it does not explore; sometimes it scores for some quantity of non-explore thi...

Mark thinks it is colossally unfair that he gets so much flak for speaking French when mediocre game designers get to throw around a word like "tableau." Then again, Mark and Walker can't quite agree on what a tableau constitutes. Mark seems to define it the way that American judge famously defined pornography--he knows it when he sees it--whereas Walker is more conspiratorial about tableaus (Tabl...

Adorable little pudgy robots soar through a blazing pink sky, stubby arms outstretched as they speed towards their destination--a yellow planet in the distance. "GIVE ME YOAR COOOBS" bellow the aliens upon arrival. "POINTZ 4 COOOOBS." A robot obliges, and a sonorous "cha-ching" resounds through its programming. But the robot is now a drifting derelict, its home ship long gone. It is now doomed to...

We return to games of weeks past, for the most part, to see if our initial impressions persist. We were young and foolish in past weeks, of course, whereas now we are older and foolish. Whether our errors mature like fine wine or spoil to the vinegar of harsh insight is up to you. One thing is certain, though--our metaphors certainly aren't getting any sweeter. AYURIS: SEAL Team Flix 2m09s (Pete R...

The Card Crafting System returns once more, its heaps of mylar inserting into our gaming life. I would say it darkens our door, but the things are mostly transparent, so the idiom doesn't quite fit. One wonders whether and how one could sleeve a Card Crafting game, given that the games largely consist of sleeves already--but once one has witnessed the recursive horror that is sleeve sleeves, you c...

There are happy stories. Stories of social serendipity, where you like them and they like you, and all opinions are as one and there is harmony. Where no awkward conversations need be had and no unfortunate lines drawn. Where no one is annoyed, and no one is harassed, and no one must bury their preferences so as to placate another. These are not these stories. AYURIS: Food Chain Magnate 1m37s (Jer...

So. Many. Games. Even after careful curation and surgical editing, Mark and Walker talk about thirteen different games they played last week, not even counting the feature game. It was truly a good week. New games! Old games! Co-ops, minis, dexterity, wargames! Come join us at the cornucopia of amusement that is this week's SVWAG.Games Played Last Week: -Beasts of Balance 1m29s (George Buckenham &...

What is gaming other than an outlet for vicarious experiences and thrills? To enjoy the simulacrum of killing, adventure, high finance, and impressing feudal lords? We can thus assert with great sincerity that ours shall be the very best GenCon coverage, in that we didn't go. Why trust the easily-misled first hand accounts? We know from both philosophy and science that sense data deceives. You can...

Failure can be a fortuitous thing, which is very good for Mark, as he is well accustomed to failure. While this week's review of Pax Renaissance is certainly not on the scale of, say, penicillin, it did give him the opportunity to play one of his top 20 games more. As to whether Walker profited or suffered from this development is a deep and abiding mystery solvable only by listening to this week'...

We can pretend that our adult pastimes are more sophisticated and evolved from the trivialities of mere children, but really, let's admit it--it's all the same. We can't claim any degree of superiority when compared to the antics of ankle-biters. Let's be mature about it and lean into the juvenalia, shall we? My doll is better than your doll. My doll has the Plasmanator Meltotron. You can't hit my...

"May you get everything you want" is nothing short of a curse, I think, and so this week we curse you with your own desires. You wanted us to play Middara, so we did. You wanted more information about Sol: Last Days of a Star, so we oblige. As you weep, surrounded by the wreckage wrought by your own wishes, don't come to us for solace, for we are but the accomplices of your own self-destruction. A...

Since tableau-building today is very much what auctions were twenty years ago, we take a look at both in this week's episode. The Pax games continue ever onward, even as most of our favourite auction game were published 10+ years ago. Mark resists the urge to go off on a tangent about the Trolley Problem, which allows Walker to resist the urge to send Mark's teeth off on a tangent from his mouth....

I swear, one dude gets his arm cut off in a cantina and we're still harping on about it forty years later. Have a sense of proportion! I got beat up in high school twenty years ago, but you don't hear me whining. That dude should have done what I did--rounded up a posse and threatened retaliation if any assault persisted. He could have rallied those pushed around by laser sword-wielding hermits an...

Knowing when to give up is a valuable skill. As children we are told to stick with painful and unpleasant things, and while that is often wise, sometimes it just results in more pain. Discerning the difference between choking down one's vegetables--good!--and pursuing a hobby merely for the sake of it--bad!--is a tricky bit of prudence that many adults can't quite seem to get. The notion of an "ac...

This is not, strictly speaking, the first foray into gaming that Hellboy has done--not even the first in the miniatures genre. There were some Hellboy Heroclix, but let us speak as adults--that's not really saying much. Everyone has been in Heroclix now. 43% of the human population has been represented as a Heroclix figure at some point. Walker has, like, four different versions (albeit two of tho...

Heroscape! This show has spent far, far too long talking about things that are not Heroscape. Today we attempt to remedy that deficiency by talking about Heroscape, which is a game--nay, an experience--nay, a lifestyle!--worth discussing. It was a wonderful retail oddity, an overproduced and affordable big box beauty. It is why basements were invented. It isn't the greatest game, but it is definit...

Do you sometimes feel like having your blind brother hurl spears at you as a party trick? Do you feel the urge to put your hand in a giant wolf's mouth to make your friends feel bad? Do you wish you could ride a chariot pulled by cats for no discernible reason? Do you long to carry on rambling conversations with a severed head? Do you want days of the week to be named after you? Well, this is your...