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PODCAST

So Very Wrong About Games

A podcast about all manner of hobby games by Mike Walker and Mark Bigney. Bad games don"t go easy on you, so we don"t go easy on them. Thorough analysis via reviews, news, and discussion of topics in gaming. We take context seriously, we value your time, and we"re not into hype. Just because games are fun doesn"t mean we can"t take them seriously, and just because we take them seriously doesn"t mean we can"t have fun.

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All Episodes

71:49

#147: Beyond the Sun

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/12/08

Mark has occasion to quote three different movies in this episode, and miraculously none of them are Pulp Fiction, The Lion in Winter, or even Aliens--despite the latter being related to a game discussed! Perhaps his echolalia is abating, or perhaps merely evolving. One should, after all, take every advantage to quote the well-spoken Ayatollah of Rock-and-Rolla.Games Played Last Week:01:19 -Pax Renaissance (Phil Eklund & Matt Eklund, Sierra Madre Games, 2016)04:14 -Praga Caput Regni (Vladimír

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65:37

#146: Dungeon Crawlers

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/12/01

One is reminded of those memes that plot definitions on two axes, asking to what degree the reader is a purist or a rebel--the setting purist and the mechanical purist would say "Descent is a dungeon crawler." Perhaps the setting purist and mechanical rebel would say "Dungeon Lords is a dungeon crawler." Invariably these memes revel in the reductio ad absurdum, so I have to imagine the setting rebel and the mechanical rebel would say "Hopscotch is a dungeon crawler."01:43

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66:32

#145: Tidal Blades

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/11/24

It is the nature of the Walker who cries wolf that if he repeats the claim often and consistently enough, it might come true eventually. Despite the unrelenting constancy of Chinese New Year, some games do actually get produced--just only after they have emerged from their purgatorial delay in the never-ending holiday. So it is with Tidal Blades; after claims of "any day now" for years, it finally arrived, like some unwieldy piece of oversized deluxe... well... is it flotsam or jetsam? We

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74:25

#144: Boxes

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/11/17

Clearly the hosts secretly wanted to have a movie podcast, or perhaps just a podcast devoted to the movie Aliens. To their credit, they at least did not devolve into merely parroting quotes from the film, which is a behaviour as obnoxious and it is difficult to avoid. Rest assured they offered their poor paraphrases and hackneyed delivery while actually playing the Aliens game. It was a bad call, listener, it was...Crap. 02:37 AYURIS: Catacombs 3rd ed. (Ryan Amos, Marc Kelsey, & Aron West, Elzra

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58:57

#143: The Castles of Tuscany

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/11/10

We have an unwritten constitution here at SVWAG, which we know causes some people from jurisdictions with written constitutions to get a little mystified and/or twitchy. Trust us, it works! We get to claim a rich constitutional history all the way back to 1215 and the Magna Carta, or at least we will, once we figure out what King John had to do with podcasting. It's the kind of arrangement that works until you have a constitutional crisis, which we have about as often as those places with

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61:05

#142: Lifetime Games

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/11/03

It's the daylight savings, it's got to be. You give us an extra hour in the week--through the magic of time travel--and we'll take it to play eleventy new games. The geniuses (Canadians, for what it's worth) who invented standard time probably didn't take into account the havoc it might wreak on our podcasting. So many new games! Not enough time for the topic! We will endure.01:08 AYURIS: Calimala (Fabio Lopiano, ADC Blackfire Entertainment GmbH, 2017)Games Played Last Week:

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62:57

#141: Lost Ruins of Arnak

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/10/27

The unofficial motto of SVWAG has always been, "stop trying to make fetch happen." Similarly, you can't just make up words out of thin air--it's not like they're holidays or anything that can be conjured ex nihilo (Happy Arkhipov Day!). What's an Arnak, anyway? Can you lose ruins of something that never existed? I suppose a fantasy is a good pretext to give us an arm's length distance from generations of pith-decked looters and graverobbers. Relatedly, Walker desperately

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65:43

#140: Reckoning with War

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/10/20

In honour of Arkhipov Day (October 27th--he saved your life or that of your forebears, he deserves a day), we turn to reflections of how games model war. Even themeless euros often include war as a convenient backdrop for the processing of cubes, so it is hardly restricted to one genre of gaming or another. That said, gaming is not unique--pretty much any medium can boast of a plethora of war narratives. 01:17 AYURIS: HATE (Raphaël Guiton, Jean-Baptiste Lullien, Alexandru Olteanu, & Nicolas

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64:54

#139: Fort

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/10/13

I never knew a kid who had any kind of fort. In grade school I heard of a kid who could form Voltron, but that may have been an extravagant lie. My mom's friend's kids had a Sega Genesis, and that was pretty rad. I keep acquiring more games in the vain hope that it will make me popular, but it hasn't worked yet. Maybe one or two more Street Masters expansions will do the trick. I am told to be popular you have to wash your hair at least once every two weeks.Games Played Last Week:02:21

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63:39

#138: Subliminal Brainwash

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/10/06

The mere framing of a question can subtly or overtly determine the answer. There's an old joke about a monk who asks his superior, "Can I smoke while I meditate?" He is told no, as that would be sullying an act that is meant to be free from worldly concerns. The clever monk decides instead to ask another superior, "While I smoke, can I meditate?" So it is with boardgames! Framing can have tremendous consequences.01:55 AYURIS: XenoShyft: Onslaught (Keren Philosophales &

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63:44

#137: Flotilla

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/09/29

Social standards of behaviour are often subtle and variable, but we can all agree that children are often blind to their subtle nuances. Like, don't be a massive jerk--that's one of those tricky nuances that often escape the notice of your average child, what with many of them being borderline sociopaths kept in check only by their relative powerlessness and incompetence. Then again, perhaps Mark is the sociopath for not being able to tolerate the annoyances of child behaviour. Then again,

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62:02

#136: Games Based on IPs

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/09/22

Hwaet! The second installment of our much-ignored segment, SVWAG Poetry Corner, takes a turn for the epic. First we did haiku, and now we discuss Old English epic poetry. Sure the noble limerick can't be far behind? We also discuss the most excellent lifestyle habits of our new idol, Kane Tanaka, who seems to be living her best life on her own terms. You go, Kane Tanaka! Rip off some monster's arm or something.01:07 AYRUIS: Concordia (Mac Gerdts, PD-Verlag, 2013) and Concordia Venus (2018)

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54:25

#135: Babylonia

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/09/15

Our cup runneth over, if the cup in question is being filled by tiles laid there by Reiner Knizia. Three Knizia tile-laying games were sampled by SVWAG, which of course made it a good week. One feels that if someone proposed a topic of "Reiner Knizia tile-laying games", the appropriate editorial response would be "narrow the scope, please." Games Played Last Week:01:12 -Spirit Island: Jagged Earth (R. Eric Reuss, Greater Than Games, 2020)02:27 -Mariposas (Elizabeth Hargrave, AEG,

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70:23

#134: Games for 6+ Players

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/09/08

In remembrance of things past, we bite hard into the madeleine that is large player count gaming. The recollection of not being sequestered into small basements, where... actually, scratch that, we were often in basements in the Before Times. At least I think so. Time is now an illusion.01:57 AYURIS: A Feast for Odin: The Norwegians (Gernot Köpke & Uwe Rosenberg, Feuerland Spiele, 2018)Games Played Last Week:03:44 -Time of Legends: Joan of Arc (Pascal Bernard, Mythic Games, 2019)11:32 -Spirit

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58:20

#133: Cosmic Frog

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/09/01

"Cosmic Frog: World Eaters from Dimension Zero--A Game of Strategic Gluttony." I mean, what could I or anyone else possibly say that could add to that? Games Played Last Week:01:46 -Spirit Island: Jagged Earth (R. Eric Reuss, Greater Than Games, 2020)03:34 -Shards of Infinity: Shadow of Salvation (Justin Gary & Ryan Sutherland, Stone Blade Entertainment, 2019)07:19 -Castle Itter (David Thompson, DVG, 2019)12:44 -Kingdom Builder (Donald X. Vaccarino, Queen Games, 2011)14:24 -Las Vegas

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64:04

#132: Why Is That Still on My Shelf?

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/08/25

I mean, maybe, possibly, hopefully, with luck, theoretically, given the right group, hypothetically, in time, conceivably, eventually, if I push hard enough, imaginably, as a favour, I could imagine, someday, perchance, play this again. Weather permitting.01:36 AYURIS: Cerebria: The Inside World (Richard Amann, Viktor Peter, István Pócsi, Frigyes Schőberl, Nick Shaw, & Dávid Turczi, Mindclash Games, 2018)Games Played Last Week:04:34 -Istanbul (Rudiger Dorn, Pegasus Spiele, 2014)06:06 -Blue Moon

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65:50

#131: Eclipse 2nd Edition

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/08/18

Old conflicts are put to bed, taxonomies are shelved, and instead we take refuge in sweeping declarations. Walker focuses on the ad hominem, trying to dissuade people from game design because they are insufficiently hardcore; Mark focuses on games, declaring that you can't base games on random spat out tiles. Nuance is for the weak, and qualifications are for those lacking character. Mostly.Games Played Last Week:02:04 -Too Many Bones: Dart (Adam Carlson & Josh J. Carlson, Chip Theory Games,

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58:22

#130: Restrictive Player Counts

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/08/11

We take a break from heady issues this week; so we instead touch on what constitutes a trick, what friends are good for, and colonialism. You know, light discussion. 02:35 AYURIS: Core Worlds (Andrew Parks, Stronghold, 2011)Games Played Last Week:04:09 -Fort (Grant Rodiek, Leder Games, 2020)09:15 -Ascension Tactics: Miniatures Deckbuilding Game (Justin Gary & Ryan Sutherland, Stone Blade Entertainment, 2021)12:09 -The Voyages of Marco Polo (Simone Luciani & Daniele Tascini, Hans im Gluck,

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66:56

#129: Cthulhu: Death May Die

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/08/04

"Put down your chainsaw and listen to meIt's time for us to join in the fightIt's time to let your babies grow up to be cowboysIt's time to let the bedbugs bite...Talk with your mouth fullBite the hand that feeds youBite on more than you chewWhat can you doDare to be stupid"-"Weird Al" Yankovic, noted Lovecraft scholar, "Dare to Be Stupid"Games Played Last Week:01:07 -Project: ELITE (Konstantinos Kokkinis, Marco Portugal, & Sotirios Tsantilas, CMON, 2020)03:57

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54:45

#128: Communication Restrictions

So Very Wrong About Games ·

2020/07/28

Walker is a force of nature, a pent-up human-shaped mass of pure rage. The only outlet that can sate his furious destructive impulses is the ecstasy of the uninhibited flick--the catharsis of venting all of his power on a disc and then watching it careen around the board (then off the table, off someone's skull, off the floor, under the bookshelf, and then embedded in the drywall). He ten thunders with laughter, even as Huey informs him he missed his target and Dewey calls an ambulance. Is it a

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