So Very Wrong About Games

This guy just won't leave... Mark and I in our last, last episode together for a bit. Not to worry I will be rambling ever forward. In this shorter episode we talk about just the games we played last week, some news and scene. 01.29 -AYURIS: Slay the Spire: The Board Game (Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, and Casey Yano, Contention Games, 2024) Games Played Last Week: 05:05 -Tidal Blades 2: Ri...

In some ways, the origin story of the podcast can be traced back to Sentinels of the Multiverse. Upon arriving in Kingston, Mark was at a games event at someone's home, and he saw that someone had brought a then-complete set (this was a few expansions ago) of Sentinels. He knew that this person, namely Walker, was a person worth knowing. It therefore seemed fitting that on one of Mark's last days...

"One day I was sitting in a gazebo, and there was a plaque on the gazebo and it said, 'This gazebo was built by the town in 1863.' That is in the middle of the Civil War. And the whole town built a gazebo. What was that town meeting like? 'All right, everyone, first order of business, we have all the telegrams from Gettysburg with the war dead. Let’s see here. Okay, everyone’s husband and brother...

"I thought the Rococo was the name of the ship in Aliens." "No, that's Sulaco. Rococo is the statute targeting organized crime." "No, that's RICO. Rococo is the hot beverage made with chocolate." "No, that's cocoa. Rococo is what you put on walls to give them texture." "No, that's stucco. Rococo is a kind of shortened note in music." "No, that's staccato..." 1:10 AYURIS: Fateforge: Chronicles of K...

You gotta read the fine print, always. Anyone dealing with a supernatural entity--whether a djinn or deity, gremlin or god--has to be conscious of the exceptions. It's simple enough--if the wizard handing you a fantastical creature tells you not to feed it, you just don't feed it. Similarly, if someone promises not to kill you *in a certain way*, MacBeth can tell you that's more of a threat than a...

Yes, it’s Tapple! The toy sensation that’s sweeping the nation! Only $14.95 at participating stores! Get one today! Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Tapple. Caution: Tapple may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds. Tapple contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at. If Tapple...

Before Dr. Reiner Knizia invented areas, everyone and everything was simultaneously co-located and yet distant all at the same time. It was primordial chaos. Movement was effectively impossible, as Xeno demonstrated; then Knizia did don his Bow-Tie of Delineation of Time and Space and constrained and liberated us all at once with his invention of areas. Games Played Last Week: 00:53 -Dungeons & Dr...

While Mark is perhaps disappointed at the typical tragic dearth of questions related to Macross and Terry Bogard, and Walker secretly yearns to be granted naming rights to a listener's offspring (protip: don't let him), SVWAG answers all* of your questions! *by which we mean some. 01:21 AYURIS: Cascadero (Reiner Knizia, Bitewing Games, 2024) Games Played Last Week: 03:09 -Cerebria: The Inside Worl...

In our effort to answer all of your Omnibus Questions, sadly we cannot enlist the assistance of notable Canadian Keanu Reeves. In an interview with Stephen Colbert--as a joke after Keanu said something profound--he was asked, "What do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?" After a pause, and the audience's laughter, Keanu said, "I know that that the ones who love us will miss us." I SAY DAY...

We deliver this episode despite the officially mandated period of public mourning due to Toronto's setbacks in basesball. In Canada, public mourning is characterized by donning black jean jackets and swapping our Tragically Hip for the more down-tempo Blue Rodeo, to say nothing of abstaining from boardgaming. Please don't turn us in for violating federal law. We might get banned from Tim Horton's....

"'Frederick Chopin was a Polish composer in the Romantic style who wrote primarily for the piano.' I guess this is sort of interesting, as most facts are. But history has shown us that *facts are not what most humans believe.* They are not that which motivates most men and women to love to or to crime. Now COMPARE this statement: 'Frederick Chopin was a Polish composer in the Romantic style who wa...

As ever, we do not acknowledge one of the most pernicious false dichotomies in the rulebook space; whether rules should be strictly permissive (you can only do what the rules say you can) or strictly restrictive (you can do anything unless the rules say otherwise). I have never seen a rulebook forbid me from choking an opponent, nor have I see a rulebook give me permission to breathe. I will thus...

"Wiarton Willie is the name given to a Canadian groundhog who lives in the community of Wiarton in Bruce County, Ontario. Every February 2, on Groundhog Day, Willie takes part in the local Wiarton Willie Festival. His role is to predict whether there will be an early spring. Although the original Wiarton Willie died in 1999, the Wiarton Groundhog Day celebrations continue each year with a successo...

Rest assured that every topic we address here at SVWAG will be utterly comprehensive and final, unless and until we decide to address it again. Thus, when we discuss tile-laying games, we perforce will cover all of them, each and and every one, and failure to specifically mention any title means it does not exist and must be scrubbed from all records as a revisionist lie. 01:41 AYURIS: Kutná Hora:...

"A quipu usually consists of cotton or camelid fiber cords, and contains categorized information based on dimensions like color, order and number. The Inca, in particular, used knots tied in a decimal positional system to store numbers and other values in quipu cords. Depending on its use and the amount of information it stored, a given quipu may have anywhere from a few to several thousand cords....

We are staunchly body positive here at SVWAG, but we do prefer our bears fat. "Let me have about me bears that are fat," said Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, or he would have, had he known about the glory that is Fat Bear Week. I guess Caesar wouldn't have been totally down with the democratic aspect of the whole voting thing, but whatever! Exercise your franchise and vote for the moist chonkers bear...

We tempt fate and refer to a number of third rails in the hobby community. For one, we acknowledge a loss in Regicide Legacy, which reliably summons the chattering mobs. Further, we mention both Star Trek and Star Wars, so undoubtedly we get a detail "wrong" that will "justify" a detailed response. Look, we're experts here. We completed the Kobayashi Maru in under 12 parsecs. We're regular callers...

"Well, that was your mother And that was your father Before you was born dude When life was great You are the burden of my generation I sure do love you But let’s get that straight" -Paul Simon, "That Was Your Mother" 01:34 AYURIS: Nucleum (Simone Luciani & Dávid Turczi, Board&Dice, 2023) Games Played Last Week: 04:04 -SILOS (Reiner Knizia, Bitewing Games, 2025) 09:34 -Ayar: Children of the Sun (M...

On this day of Labour, we offer our solidarity to you. We also offer our labour, because we don't take many days off. No union for us in the opinion mines! I'd complain to my manager, but since that's me, I guess I'd be inclined to ignore it. Classic conflict on interest. The gibbons only complicate the org chart in unhelpful ways. Games Played Last Week: 01:01 -Hot Streak (Jon Perry, CMYK, 2025)...

I've always chafed at the conventional wisdom that young goats are good at trick-taking games. Or, at least, ones where you are not incentivized to go null. Do they hold their cards in their cloven hooves? Do their dead eyes come to life when contemplating the vagaries of trump suits? It must be true, though, because I have it on good authority from a cartoon rabbit that tricks are for kids. 01:23...

Losing a component is rough. Knowing that one of your games is incomplete is like having a permanent absence in your soul. It's one thing to eschew that one added expansion--that's a triumph of restraint. But that missing block in Viking See-Saw will taunt you forever, a blight on your consciousness that can never be healed. Maybe I'm exaggerating. Games Played Last Week: 00:52 -Uprising: Curse of...

Inigo: I am waiting for you, Vizzini. You told me to go back to the beginning. So I have. This is where I am, and this is where I’ll stay. I will not be moved. Brute: But the Prince gave orders — Inigo: — So did Vizzini — when a job went wrong, you went back to the beginning. And this is where we got the job. So it’s the beginning, and I’m staying till Vizzini comes. -The Princess Bride (who knew...

"We don’t ask that you stop loving your fantasy world. We ask you stop paying money for the privilege to dream of it. If you want to read the [Harry Potter] books or watch the movies, consider buying second-hand or renting them from a library. Small changes can make sure you never put your hard-earned money into JKR’s hands." -Blacklist CGE zine Games Played Last Week: 01:01 -Through the Desert (R...

A chief misgiving Mark has about the con is that he is a terrible playtester. He was able to play two unpublished games, and while the designers were gracious he is seldom able to offer anything of much substance. "This game," he might say, "has cards. And other things." Past that, for some reason, when confronted with a prototype his faculties often fail him. 01:48 AYURIS: Arborea (Dani Garcia, A...

The purest juxtaposition that reveals the absurdity of "take that" effects can be found in many of your heavier games and some consims with cards. You gather the resources, marshal your forces, laboriously haul those troops hither and yon, and then sometimes have to manage some activation tokens or whatnot to finally get it on. And then your opponent plays the "nuh uh" card. Fun! 01:19 AYURIS: Day...