We offer to you a sampler, a little smorgasbord, a variety platter of content from our Patreon. We hope this will placate you in light of our absence last week. If you'd like more, you can of course support us on Patreon. Only if you want to, though. We'll still be wrong either way.
03:46 Pledge of Indifference 2023-07-06 Audio (we also publish a video version)
03:56 Shipwrights of the North Sea
07:17 Tanares Adventures Ultimate Edition
11:41 Cyclades Legendary Edition
18:14 Buttons & Bugs
20:23 Other pledges: Planet Unknown Supermoon, Stroganov expansion
(Note: Mark did not end up backing Projekt Riese, but Walker did back Cyclades Legendary Edition)
21:23 BLOAT #18
21:44 World Beyond SVWAG--Returnal's storytelling, emergent vs. narrative storytelling, have difficulty with emergent storytelling in video games, but prefer it in board games, Nikki Valens
34:45 Meta Media--ethical standards of US Supreme Court, Thurgood and Cecilia Marshall, "dicta," rules textualism, For Sale, Tower of Babel: Reiner Knizia vs. Hans im Glück
While we pride ourselves on editorial standards here at SVWAG, we have no shame when it comes to pandering. We thus present to you the episode of SVWAG with the most cat discussion yet. The good news is that Chandler (aka Chan-Chan aka Potato aka SVWAG Cat) is doing extremely well. Could a co-host stint be far behind? Perhaps a guest appearance by Bruno (aka SVWAG Dog)? Whatever we think the market wants.
Games Played Last Week:
02:20 -The Siege of Runedar (Reiner Knizia, Ludonova, 2021)
Two crowdfunding campaigns stand before you. One only tells lies, the other only tells the truth. Both claim to be innovative and to be able to deliver on time. How do you decide which one to back? Or wait, a crowdfunding campaign launches but during the funding period every individual component is replaced by a new one; is it the same campaign? Or wait, there are five crowdfunding campaigns on one side of a track and one campaign on the other, and this trolley...
02:25 AYURIS: Imperium: The Contention (Gary Dworetsky, Contention Games, 2021)
Games Played Last Week:
03:56 -Tapple (Uncredited, The Op Games, 2021)
06:43 -Undaunted: Battle of Britain (Trevor Benjamin and David Thompson, Osprey Games, 2023)
08:14 -Oh No, Volcano! (Phil Walker-Harding, Buffalo Games, 2023)
10:58 -The Siege of Runedar (Reiner Knizia, Ludonova, 2021)
It is a well-known fact, observed by Infinity: the Game, Across the Spider-Verse, and Undaunted: Battle of Britain, that a Sikh man in uniform is always a good look. So here's to pilot Singh in his Hurricane! Not to mention Sergeant Singh in his power armour, and Captain Singh in his Spider-Man movie (in my heart, it is his film).
Games Played Last Week:
01:01 -The Defence of Procyon III (Dávid Turczi, PSC Games, 2021)
11:02 -That's Not a Hat (Kasper Lapp, Ravensburger, 2023)
14:49 -Beyond the Sun: Leaders of a New Dawn (Dennis K. Chan and Joseph Summa, Rio Grande Games, 2023)
19:50 -Thunder Road: Vendetta (Dave Chalkers, Brett Myers, Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Justin D. Jacobson, Jim Keifer, and Brian Neff, Restoration Games, 2023)
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is running a Kickstarter. It is trivially easy to string together quotations going back to the dawn of human civilization lamenting how the youth are ruining everything, how the good old days were so great, and wishing we could go back to the golden age. See, I blame it on the baby boomers aging and succumbing more and more to nostalgia. See, in the good old days, before the boomers, we had things in perspective.
01:51 AYURIS: Anno 1800 (Martin Wallace, KOSMOS, 2020)
Mark's enthusiasm for Dungeon Scrawlers is telling. Whereas most children enjoy mazes, drawing, or even colouring, Mark instead as a child enjoyed the programmatic, deterministic mundanity of connect-the-dots. Straight(ish) lines and ascending natural numbers only, please. No doubt at a similar age Walker was already pursuing his jock/theatre kid synthesis, doing a number from Gilbert & Sullivan as his endzone dance after scoring a touchdown.
01:13 AYURIS: Soldiers in Postmen's Uniforms (David Thompson, Dan Verssen Games, 2021)
1:03:20 -Thunder Road: Vendetta (Dave Chalkers, Brett Myers, Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Justin D. Jacobson, Jim Keifer, and Brian Neff, Restoration Games, 2023)
1:07:25 -Splendor Duel (Marc André and Bruno Cathala, Space Cowboys, 2022)
We are very proud of our strict editorial standards here at SVWAG. Among them is our firm stance on Monty Python references, which are very firmly circumscribed. Philosophers are mentioned all the time, but never the song; and similarly we discuss Mozart here (in two different media!) without any kind of passing gesture to his decomposition. People have tried to smuggle in other references to the show, but those responsible have been sacked.
Games Played Last Week:
01:34 -Dice Hospital: ER--Emergency Roll (Matthew Dunstan and Brett J. Gilbert, Alley Cat Games, 2022)
02:35 -Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write (Ryan Hendrickson and Reiner Stockhausen, dlp Games, 2022)
The episode notes will be released in installments. The base pledge, "Generic Non-Sequiturs," will give you the first two sentences and the last sentence. But don't miss out on the "Forced Macross Reference" add-on pack, which gives you sentence five; or the "Austen Allusion" pack featuring sentence four. The ultra-limited "Stupid Kant Wordplay" pack will never be reprinted (until, let's face it, next week's episode notes, when you'll be subjected to some more regardless). Pledge now!
It is a truth universally acknowledged in eurogames that every famous historical man (it's almost always a man, of course) had a retinue of about 2-5 hangers-on whose sole job was to impress him. They did this mostly by doing stuff he did; maybe after he did them, maybe running states he conquered, maybe even by doing the stuff he was credited with. Their names are lost to antiquity. All we know is that they liked solid colours, and that the famous dude was most impressed with one of them.
Games Played Last Week:
00:54 -Lacrimosa (Gerard Ascendi and Ferran Renalias, Devir, 2022)
06:30 -Tapple (Uncredited, The Op Games, 2021)
07:48 -Forests of Pangaia (Thomas Franken, Pangaia Games, 2022)
09:48 -Wizards of the Grimoire (Cole Banning and Joe Banning, Grimoire Games, 2022)
12:46 -Sentinels of the Multiverse (Christopher Badell, Paul Bender, & Adam Rebottaro, Greater Than Games, 2011)
"L'enfer, c'est les autres," wrote Sartre, which translates into "why don't nobody wanna play with me?" You see, Sartre only liked his consims and other historical wargames, but people didn't want to join him--possibly on account of there having been less history back in his old-timey days. His angst over unplayed games was the key inspiration of his existentialist philosophy. Camus tried to show him that the answer is to play with randos with his work "The Stranger."
In the show Ted Lasso (possibly the subject of a future Masterpiece Theatre?), French-Canadian goaltender Zoreaux asks to be called Van Damme. This is partly because people kept mispronouncing his name as "Zorro," and also because he admired the Muscles from Brussels. The point is that even people who thought it was stupid respected his wishes and called him what he wanted to be called, because that's what not being a jerk is. Similarly, ain't nothing necessarily wrong with being called Sally, but if you consistently call someone Sally when they don't want to be called that, you're being a toxic jerk.
It doesn't have to be a big deal, and we're not the ones making it a big deal. Call people what they want to be called. It costs you nothing and decency is always a good look.
Games Played Last Week:
00:49 -Hot Lead (Reiner Knizia, Bitewing Games, 2022)
02:49 -Masters of the Universe: Fields of Eternia The Board Game (Dave Ketch and Jakub S. Olekszyk, Archon Studio, 2022)
09:48 -Beyond the Sun: Leaders of a New Dawn (Dennis K. Chan and Joseph Summa, Rio Grande Games, 2023)
14:06 -Keep the Heroes Out (Luís Brüeh, Brueh Games, 2022)
18:33 -Theurgy (Charlotte Dowling and Oliver Josiah, The Ministry of Meeples, 2022)
We get introspective this week, or at least as much as the editorial gibbons allow. If we get too deep they get nervous, and as every podcaster will tell you, nervous gibbons are bad for the show. Walker, Mark alleges, is a masochist who sacrifices himself on the altar of speed, which may or may not mean game flow; Walker counters that Mark abuses the takesies-backsies.
Is there a difference between a fruit salad and a fruit cup? I mean, the first question is whether a fruit cup contains a fruit salad, or if the contents are some other substance; then one can query whether the cup and its contents are a gestalt whole. Let us not forget the prospect of a fruit cup of Theseus, whereby each fruit piece is removed and replaced with an equivalent fruit (I would ask what an equivalent fruit is, but that's getting sidetracked)--is it the same fruit cup? Heraclitus would say you can't take a bite of the same fruit salad twice. There's the somewhat absurd possibility of a fruit cup of Damocles--presumably the fruits therein would have been prepared by Procrustes.
What I'm getting at is melon is gross.
Games Played Last Week:
00:53 -Just One (Ludovic Roudy & Bruno Sautter, Repos Production, 2018)
"Boglins were a series of toy puppets distributed by Mattel. They were created by Tim Clarke, Maureen Trotto, and Larry Mass, and licensed by Seven Towns. The original run of Boglins was released in 1987, coinciding with a "creatures" craze that included Ghoulies, Critters, and Gremlins. Boglins were goblin-themed hand puppets made of flexible rubber and could be manipulated to represent speech and facial expressions."
Games Played Last Week:
01:26 -The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine (Thomas Sing, KOSMOS, 2019)
03:38 -Cartographers: A Roll Player Game (Jordy Adan, Thunderworks Games, 2019)
And I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Huey that if Walker moves my games one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Dewey too, because Walker's moved my games four times already this year, and they used to be over by the window, and they could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, Walker switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if Walker takes my stapler then I'll set the studio on fire...
28:25 -A.E.G.I.S.: Combining Robot Strategy Game (Cassandra Clark, Sarah Como, Breeze Grigas, Zach Kettell, Ryan "The Boulder" Richford, and Tom Wozencraft, Zephyr Workshop, 2018)
33:18 -51st State: Master Set--No Man's Land (Joanna Kijanka and Ignacy Trzewiczek, Portal Games, 2023)
38:22 -Aristeia! (Alberto Abal, Jesús Fuster, and David Rosillo, Corvus Belli, 2017) 2020
42:48 -SCOUT (Kei Kajino, Oink Games, 2019)
45:30 -Summoner Wars (Second Edition): Starter Set (Colby Dauch, Plaid Hat Games, 2021)
The mighty weremoose is a solitary creature, peaceable until roused to anger. Its only known predator is the American military deciding to once again invade Canada for reasons. When threatened, the weremoose rises to its full bipedal height of 6 meters, whereupon its sheer Chad-esque magnificence causes other creatures of the forest to quail and flee. Soldiers in the presence of this manifestation of the weremoose have been known to spontaneously reconsider their enlistment and retire on the spot.
Games Played Last Week:
01:45 -Cysmic (Jason Blake, Star Reach Games, 2023)
Everything's gotta be a competition. "I've seen better walls," scoffs the ingrate. "I've had darker ages," insists the depressive. "Well, I'm a Time Duke," growls the superstar Duke (esq., O.B.E.). It's all right, people. We can accept the superlatives without making it a contest.
Games Played Last Week:
00:58 -Dark Ages: Heritage of Charlemagne (Adam Kwapiński & Andrei Novac, Board&Dice, 2021)
08:04 -Horizons of Spirit Island (Eric R. Reuss, Greater Than Games, 2022)
09:10 -Keyflower (Sebastian Bleasdale & Richard Breese, R&D Games, 2012)
13:02 -Spots (Alex Hague, Jon Perry, and Justin Vickers, CMYK, 2022)
14:07 -Gatefall: Lost in the North Woods (Jack Dire, Jack Dire Studios, 2022)
17:52 -Time Barons (Jon Perry and Derek Yu, WizKids, 2014)
19:44 -Light Speed (James Ernest and Tom Jolly, Cheapass Games, 2003)
23:37 -Tiletum (Simone Luciani and Daniele Tascini, Board&Dice, 2022)
This episode, as all episodes, is brought to you by our crack editorial team of semi-trained gibbons. Always go with gibbons. Cheaper than interns! More personable than rhesus! Less violent than capuchins! Better hygiene than Mark!
Games Played Last Week:
01:05 -Votes for Women (Tory Brown, Fort Circle Games, 2022)
05:19 -Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write (Ryan Hendrickson and Reiner Stockhausen, dlp Games, 2022)
09:54 -Quantum (Eric Zimmerman, Funforge, 2013)
11:54 -Gang of Dice (Reiner Knizia, Mandoo Games, 2022)
14:25 -Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest (Paolo Mori, Stonemaier Games, 2022)
16:49 -Hamlet: The Village Building Game (David Chircop, Mighty Boards, 2022)
"And Blass is reeling from Yves Saint-Laurent's inverted atomic drop! But wait, who's that running towards the ring? IT'S THE BIG O! Oscar de la Renta is coming to the assistance of his tag-team partner! We thought Pierre Cardin had locked him backstage in his dressing room but no, here he is, steel chair in hand! And he levels YSL with one perfect shot to the head!!! Can you believe it? This the kind of action you can only see on pay-per-view in Versailles!"
01:24 AYURIS: Trickerion: Legends of Illusion (Richard Amann & Viktor Peter, Mindclash Games, 2015)
Games Played Last Week:
04:06 -Deities (Gary Kim, Mandoo Games, 2022)
08:24 -Manhattan (Andreas Seyfarth, Hans im Glück, 1994)
10:48 -Votes for Women (Tory Brown, Fort Circle Games, 2022)
As employers, we gamers are a strange lot. We are expected to feed our workers, house them, give them their raw materials; we tell them where to go, when to work,a nd for how long; we subject them to fires, predation, starvation... and on top of all this, in some games we appear to confiscate all their wages! At least in Food Chain Magnate we occasionally allow them to go to the beach. Under strict supervision. Until we permit them the sweet release of death. I mean, until they "retire." Yeah, that sounds better.
Anmelden
