From Wikipedia: "Mark Sinclair (born July 18, 1967), known professionally as Vin Diesel, is an American actor and filmmaker. One of the world's highest-grossing actors, he is best known for playing Dominic Toretto in the Fast & Furious franchise. Diesel began his career in 1990 but struggled to gain roles until he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the short film Multi-Facial (1995). This attracted the attention of Steven Spielberg, who was developing Saving Private Ryan (1998...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Fun fact: The Red Cathedral isn't really a cathedral at all, it's a sobor, which isn't really the same thing. Also fun fact: Unsurprisingly, Mark is wrong to say that Fenrir will swallow the moon at the end of the world, as that is patently absurd. Fenrir swallows the sun, which makes perfect sense. Except, of course, for renditions where Fenrir's children Skoll and Hati swallow the moon and sun respectively. I guess we'll have to wait and see who got it right. We value edito...
May 04, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Knizia reference, check; Kant reference, check; Shakespeare reference, check (albeit subtle); Scott Pilgrim reference, check (albeit a gimme); Macross reference, check; Letterkenny reference... wait, this must be a mistake. Where's the Letterkenny reference? This is no way to try to win a Golden Geek. 01:58 AYURIS: Edge of Darkness (John D. Clair, AEG, 2019) Games Played Last Week: 03:38 -Scott Pilgrim Miniatures the World (Erica Bouyouris, Renegade Game Studios, 2021) 07:53 -Red Rising (Ale...
Apr 27, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast The trajectory of spin-offs seems indelibly tied to aquatic environments, so perhaps we ought to accept the inevitable and begin planning for "SVWAG of the Depths" wherein our hosts play games and then talk about them while entirely submerged. Imagine what effect it will have on most dexterity games! Only Chip Theory Games' offerings will emerge unaltered. Sound quality will perforce suffer, as no doubt will the hosts' lungs, but no one said art was going to be easy. Games Played...
Apr 20, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Important Macross news! Mark will ruthlessly exploit any and all chances to mention Macross, and so he shoehorns in a quote from a Macross property so he can talk about Macross. He can then mention his mention of Macross in the episode description, in a move called Meta-cross. There's some stuff about board games too, I guess. 01:51 AYURIS: Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Warcry (Uncredited, Games Workshop, 2019) Games Played Last Week: 04:22 -After the Empire (Evan Halbert & Ryan Mauk, Grey Fo...
Apr 13, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast A great man once said that he thought bullets should cost five thousand dollars. As we are not currently playing a game of SHASN, we here at SVWAG will demur on weighing in on hot-button political issues at this time. Suffice to say that while there is another raging controversy about whether one should address cost in the context of board games criticism, Bullet♥︎ does not cost five thousand dollars. Games Played Last Week: 02:05 -Nidavellir: Thingvellir (Serge Laget, GRRRE Games, 2020) 04:48 -...
Apr 06, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast No, not winning, that is emphatically not on the docket today. Today we inveigh against whining, which is a form of meta-whining; what the Brits call "recursive whinging" or the French language names "le grand boo-hoo." Given that the hosts engage in this degenerate, despicable behaviour, this is very much an issue of do as we say, not as we say when whining. Perhaps this is more complicated than I first suspected. 01:16 AYURIS: Sol: Last Days of a Star (Ryan Spangler & Sean ...
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Don't you know who I am Remember my name Faiyum I'm gonna live for ever I'm gonna learn how to fly -clearly some song about ancient Pharaohs Games Played Last Week: 00:51 -Aquatica (Ivan Tuzovsky, Cosmodrome Games, 2019) 05:06 -Dungeon Petz (Vlaada Chvátil, CGE, 2011) 07:46 -Concordia Solitaria (Mac Gerdts, PD-Verlag, 2021) 11:25 -CuBirds (Stefan Alexander, Catch Up Games, 2018) 12:01 -Dragonwood (Darren Kisgen, AURUM, Inc., 2015) 13:17 -Abyss (Bruno Cathala & Charles CHvallier, ...
Mar 23, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast CASSIUS: Did SVWAG say any thing? CASCA: Ay, they spoke Geek. CASSIUS: To what effect? CASCA: Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: but those that understood them smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Geek to me. 01:54 AYURIS: Star Wars: Outer Rim (Corey Konieczka with Tony Fanchi, FFG, 2019) Games Played Last Week: 03:30 -Paleo (Peter Rustemeyer, Hans im Glück, 2020) 08:56 -MicroMacro: Crime City (Johannes Sich, Pegasus...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Round structure of Anachrony: I. Jump to the left phase. II. Step to the right phase. III. Bring your knees in tight phase. IV. Pelvic thrust phase. V. Drives you insane phase. Let's play Anachrony again! It's just... Games Played Last Week: 01:25 -Barrage (Tommaso Battista & Simone Luciani, Cranio Creations, 2019) 07:49 -Argent: Summer Break (Trey Chambers, Level 99 Games, 2014) 11:19 -Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm (David Sanders, Games Workshop, 2020) 16:48 -Rum & Bones: Sec...
Mar 09, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast The kids these days, what with their pokemons and their video games. The bleeping and the blooping. Personally I think civilization's gone downhill since Pong. It's all the colours! Pong had one too many colours if you ask me. What with the violence in the games and in the rock music and the hip hop... Hell in a handbasket. Coming soon to PS5: "Hell in a Handbasket" by EA. 01:50 AYURIS: Hellboy: The Board Game (James M. Hewitt & Sophie Williams, Mantic Games, 2019) Games Play...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Wheel, snipe, celly boys. Crushin' sandos. Superstar power poses? Pfft. I could run a clinic on this, boys. The flow, and the snow. That's it, tarps off boys! You looking for a tilly, buddy? It's time for a donnybrook! Ferda. Games Played Last Week: 01:17 -Crystal Palace (Carsten Lauber, Feuerland Spiele, 2019) 08:21 -Schotten Totten 2 (Reiner Knizia, IELLO, 2020) 11:04 -Blackout: Hong Kong (Alexander Pfister, eggertspiele, 2018) 15:20 -Cthulhu: Death May Die (Eric M. Lang & Rob ...
Feb 23, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast So. Many. Games. Could two humans play so many games in a mere week? Well, certainly no humans that aren't preternaturally devoted to their dear listeners. But we are devoted, and your mere idlest of wishes is our most sacrosanct of commands; and so, brutal though taskmasters that you are, you bid us play so. Many. Games. 01:19 AYURIS: Asgard's Chosen (Morgan Dontanville, Mayfair Games, 2013) Games Played Last Week: 03:43 -Sumatra (Reiner Knizia, Ludonova, 2020) 07:34 -Tajuto (Reiner Kni...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast One portentious day, Uwe Rosenberg will design a worker-placement game where polyomino sheep breed by being sown into fields that are also special power cards, and the Great Cycle will be complete. No one knows what happens then, and quite frankly we are too afraid to ask. Games Played Last Week: 01:33 -Anachrony: Fractures of Time (Richard Amann, Viktor Peter, Dávid Turczi, & Mindclash Games, 2020) 08:15 -Honey Buzz (Paul Salomon, Elf Creek Games, 2020) 14:56 -The Crew: The Quest for Planet...
Feb 09, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast "My defense, Your Honour, was that I was specifically mandated by the rulebook issued by M. Xavier Georges and Quined Games to violate the lockdown restrictions issued by the Province of Ontario. I would put to you that it is unjust for the government to force me to choose between public heath measures backed by civil sanction on the one hand, and being a dirty dirty cheater on the other. Why are you all looking at me like that?" 01:37 AYURIS: Gentes: Deluxified (Stefan Risthaus, Tasty M...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Board Game Arena gets more and more of our gaming time, what with its snappy interface and minimal system requirements. The sound effects, though, are controversial. The community seems divided on whether the whooshes are pleasing or distracting, and whether the knock-knock-knock sound is charming or nerve-wracking. We have heard the noise accused of being evocative of imminent swatting, which seems excessive but potentially horrifying. Games Played Last Week: 01:07 -The Crew: The Quest for Plan...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you've been following board games social media recently, you might have noticed that it's been a rough couple of weeks. Incidents like these, albeit difficult, allow us a chance to define our community and underscore our values. Silence can imply consent. We can either choose to silently defend powerful figures use their influence to harm vulnerable people without consequence, or we can choose to try and speak up to become a more welcoming and inclusive community. So Very Wrong About ...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Too much news! So much news, in fact, that we had to cut some news. Some news, though news-y, will keep until next week. The key is to wrap the roots of the news in damp paper towel, put the news in a plastic bag, and put the bag in the fridge. The news will keep up to a couple weeks that way, whereas it would have become limp news on the counter in as little as a day. Games Played Last Week: 01:11 -By Stealth and Sea (Nicola Saggini & David Thompson, DVG Games, 2020) 06:02 -Dinosaur Tea Par...
Jan 12, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast In honour of our big, blowout, end-of-year extravaganza spectacular, no expense was spared. Mark put on pants. Walker wore his t-shirt with the fewest holes. The sheep freshly sheared. The palanquin carriers were freshly oiled. Come, thrill to the summary of what was actually a very good year in terms of boardgame releases. Games Played Last Week: 02:16 -Guardians (Callin Flores, Plaid Hat Games, 2018) 03:46 -Super Fantasy Brawl (Jochen Eisenhuth, Mythic Games, 2020) 06:07 -MegaCity: Oceania (Jo...
Jan 05, 2021•2 hr 34 min•Transcript available on Metacast All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious episode of SVWAG! A day with So Very Wrong About Games is like a day on the farm. Every word's a banquet! Every sentence a fortune! Every review a soliloquy! I love SVWAG! Games Played Last Week: 01:40 -Aristeia!: Prime Time (Alberto Abal, Jesús Fuster, & David Rosillo, Corvus Belli, 2020) 05:05 -Vengeance: Director’s Cut Expansion (Gordon Calleja, Mighty Boards, 2020) 11:03 -For What Remains: Out of the...
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast "I hit you!" "Nuh-uh, you missed!" "I totally hit you!" "I dodged it!" "I have special homing missiles you can't dodge!" "I have a shield that redirects all your shots back to you!" "I have an invincibility field!" "I can shoot through invincibility!" At this point, Games Workshop would have us roll off, with the person rolling higher getting the title of Most Obnoxious Person. 01:49 AYURIS: Cthulhu Wars (Sandy Peterson & Li...
Dec 15, 2020•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 (Vlad...
Dec 08, 2020•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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." 01:4...
Dec 01, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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? W...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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, ...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 wr...
Nov 10, 2020•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 03, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 desperat...
Oct 27, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Oct 20, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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: 0...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
