I met a gamer from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of plastic Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Cool Mini or Not, Kickstarter of Kickstarters. Look on my pledges ye...
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Smart Car was truly out-of-the-box thinking. "Why do passenger cars all have to be the way they are?" asked some clever group of designers, and designed the minimalistic teensy Smart Car. Of course, the challenges posed by manufacturing the little thing, or driving the little thing on a highway, or walking away from a crash in the little thing, proved to be compelling arguments in favour of more traditional passenger car manufacture. What I'm saying is that sometimes the box exis...
Aug 16, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast There was a time you could just stroll in a big box store in the United States and just buy a miniatures skirmish game that was actually pretty good. Sure, it didn't have analog movement or anything, but it used true line of sight and had amazing plastic terrain. So much plastic. Like, a whole lot. One the one hand, Hasbro says they're bringing HeroScape back, but on the other, ain't no way it's coming back the same as it was. They're going to bleed us dry for those little pr...
Aug 09, 2022•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Times are bad. Children no longer listen to their elders and everyone is running a Kickstarter. When I started this hobby I had no idea I would get a crash course in international shipping and logistics. Back in the day you might have had a friend in Germany send you the hot new thing, now you're tracking to see when the container ship with your stuff gets to leave port in China. 01:24 AYURIS: Beyond the Sun (Dennis K. Chan, Rio Grande Games, 2020) Games Played Last Week: 03:42 -Legacy of Dr...
Aug 02, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Much talk of animals this week, what with wombats and mass animal harvesting in Stroganov. Mark's experience was that despite covering many hot-button issues in his medical ethics classes, the one that invariably produced the most voluble emotional responses was that of medical testing on animals. Pit Bull owners, in particular; despite there being no medical testing of the type discussed on Pit Bulls. Go figure. Games Played Last Week: 01:03 -San Francisco (Reiner Knizia, Rebel Studio, 2022...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast We celebrate the release of a palindrome episode with the glorious news of the return of SHUX, the Shut Up & Sit Down Expo. Perhaps more relevantly, SVWAG are invited guests! Both Mark and Walker will be in Vancouver from September 30th to October 2nd. Now that you know where they will be, you can more efficiently avoid them. Or you could go play a game with them, whatevs. 02:54 AYURIS: Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef (Tim Eisner & Ben Eisner, Druid City Games, 2020) Games Played Last W...
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's a weird little thematic disconnect when you're not sure who or what your avatar in-game is. Perhaps we have swallowed corporate personhood so fully that we can easily accept playing as a corporation but balk a little at an amorphous group of power brokers--or a faceless protagonist channeling tree spirits. Games Played Last Week: 01:51 -The Great Wall (Kamil 'Sanex' Cieśla, Robert Plesowicz, & Łukasz Włodarczyk, Awaken Realms, 2021) 08:19 -Stars of Akarios (Brendan McCas...
Jul 12, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Enjoy the works of Thomas Lehmann while you can! Despite the lack of player interaction of Dice Realms, Mr. Lehmann has violated local, provincial, and federal law by not supplying a solo mode. International treaty has also been flouted by the absence of a campaign. I fear he may be put in boardgame jail as a consequence. Can he build a tableau convincing enough as his defence? His attorney, Dr. Gonzo, does not inspire much confidence. Games Played Last Week: 01:01 -Titan (Matthieu Podevin, Holy...
Jul 05, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark had to reign himself in considerably this week, what with the song temptations of the Talking Heads followed by his favourite torch song teased by Welcome to the Moon. He also tried to workshop a Gourds of Atlantis joke, but responses were--to put it mildly--not encouraging. It wasn't a total loss, as he managed to sneak in some Norse mythology in Telestrations. So that's... something. Games Played Last Week: 01:11 -XenoShyft: Onslaught (Keren Philosophales & Michael Shinall, CM...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast The dam has burst, and the flow of large player-count games rushes without signs of abating. We are willing to be sufficiently foolhardy to gather in larger groups, so the demand for 6+ player games has skyrocketed; and with it, the chance to return to old favourites. Dare we call it... a party? Games Played Last Week: 02:22 -Guards of Atlantis II (Artyom Nichipurov, Wolff Designa, 2022) 07:46 -Thor (Reiner Knizia, Heidelberger Spieleverlag, 2002) 10:37 -Reichbusters: Project Vril (Jake Thornton...
Jun 21, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Walker yearns for a universal grammar, a sort of iconograhic Esperanto. That is a bridge too far for Mark, but they nonetheless find common ground on certain time terms and certain graphical conventions. They may be alone, of course, but they would rather that everyone deferred to their intuitions. 01:17 AYURIS: The Castles of Tuscany (Stefan Feld, alea, 2020) Games Played Last Week: 03:17 -Unsettled (Marc Neidlinger & Tom Mattson, Orange Nebula, 2021) 08:45 -Sniper Elite: The Board Game (Ro...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast After a purgatorial thirteen months, Mark will be released from his Cain-like wanderings and allowed to repatriate to Kingston where he will get to be home. He figures that if Immanuel Kant got to be world famous before the age of global communications without leaving a 50 kilometer radius of his hometown, he has more than paid his dues. If anyone wants him to attend a function in the future, they had best plan on getting married and/or dying in close proximity to Mark's home. 01:43 AYURIS: ...
Jun 07, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Multi-Deck System Games! Canadian content! Kevin Bacon! So many digressions in an episode packed with so much culture it couldn't even fit in one of Vin Diesel's muscle shirts. We do, however, focus on games long enough to rhetorically ask--with several stress patterns--of David Thompson: who is this guy? As a note, during the time of the taping of this episode, David Thompson released five more excellent board games. Oh, sorry, I type slowly, make that six. 01:23 AYURIS: Fort (Grant Rod...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 26 min•Transcript available on Metacast On Mark's drive across Canada (the first time), he stopped in Drumheller, Alberta for some dinosaur tourism. It has a truly impressive nodosaur specimen. The nodosaur is a close relative of the ankylosaur, a key difference being the former's lack of a thagomizer, the club-like appendage at the end of an ankylosaur's tail. Mark bought a plastic ankylosaur as a souvenir. Its name is Angie. Perseverance doesn't have any ankylosaurs or nodosaurs. A shame. Games Played Last Week: 00:5...
May 24, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast We received a number of questions of a more personal nature which we have decided not to address. This is only partially out of a sense of privacy. Rather, we are firmly of the editorial position that the show is best when we focus on games, rather than the personal details of the hosts. We pride ourselves in only wasting a certain amount of your valuable time, and were we to indulge in more personal digressions that could easily balloon the show well beyond the limits of absurdity. 01:08 AYURIS...
May 17, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Inquiring minds demand to know, and we, your humble servants, must perforce answer. Mark resists the urge to elaborate on Kant and Macross! Walker resists the siren call of nineties hip hop! Such feats of iron will are the least of what our curious and/or trolling listeners deserve. (It's the curious trolls that always get you in the end) 01:21 AYURIS: Babylonia (Reiner Knizia, Ludonova, 2019) Games Played Last Week: 03:05 -Switch & Signal (David Thompson, KOSMOS, 2020) 05:30 -Cryptid: U...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast I wanna be where the patients are I wanna see, wanna see 'em coughin' Buildin' your wings, you don't get too far Clients are required for billing, charging Up where they sneeze, up where they shudder Up where they stay all day just to suffer Treatin' for a fee, wish I could be Part of that world 01:37 AYURIS: Cosmic Frog (Jim Felli, Devious Weasel Games, 2020) Games Played Last Week: 04:10 -Wonderland's War (Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner, & Ian Moss, Druid City Games, 2022) ...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Preparation is important. We very carefully do our advance research here at SVWAG, but occasionally mild errors do creep in. For this week, Mark studiously crafted notes and observations on such issues as four octave vocal ranges, Nickelodeon celebrity culture, and whether boredom of a third party constitutes necessary or sufficient conditions for breaking up with one's girlfriend. Sadly for Mark, Ariana was not the Grande under discussion this week, so he was forced to begin anew. Games Pla...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast A tragedy of consuming media or goods is that sometimes, regardless of how diligent you are, you cannot keep up with new releases. The creators you love might keep putting out new products, and even a casual enthusiast of a given medium might be disappointed to learn that they missed out on an offering. What I'm trying to get at is that HOW DARE they make a new Macross tabletop game and NOT TELL MARK. 01:15 AYURIS: Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy (Touko Tahkokallio, Lautapelit.fl, 2020) ...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Yes, we are but slaves to the new releases, which is why we are reviewing a fifteen-year-old game. "But that's impossible!" you reply, "No one was alive back then!" Records are scant, but there is a rich oral tradition that people have been playing games at least since the release of Nirvana's Nevermind. Archeologists are still trying to carbon-date that period exactly, though. Games Played Last Week: 01:39 -Dead Reckoning (John D. Clair, Alderac Entertainment Group, 2022...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kids in the Hall reviewing Great Western Trail: "What's the point of what we do?" "Sorry, I don't follow you." "Well, I mean, we travel 250,000 light years across the universe, abduct cows, probe them, and release them." "Yeah, and?" "Well, doesn't it seem kind of pointless?" "I don't think I should question the leadership of our Great Leader." "Oh, come on. We've been coming here for fifty years and performing cow probes, a...
Apr 05, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Let us not, as the saying goes, hold the perfect in opposition to the good. We here at SVWAG always encourage the lowering of standards, which the hosts tend to do by their very presences--dragging down the average of any group of which they are a part. We offer but a portion of an episode, but let us be optimists and observe that that allows us to be less wrong. 01:34 AYURIS: Versailles 1919 (Geoff Engelstein & Mark Herman, GMT Games, 2020) Games Played Last Week: 05:42 -Creature Comforts (...
Mar 29, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast The range of new features our merch line has opened up is endless. Who wore it better?, SVWAG Hypebeast, Project Runway SVWAG, Making the Cut SVWAG, the possibilities abound! Get me Tim Gunn on the line, I'm sure he's heard of us. I'm sure we'll see His Grace, Professor Doktor Doktor Vincent, Duke of Diesel, esq. O.B.E. in a t-shirt two sizes too small before long. 01:07 AYURIS: Imperial Struggle (Ananda Gupta & Jason Matthews, GMT Games, 2020) Games Played Last Week: 03:26 -...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Much art is discussed this week, from French Romantics, to pirate stuff, to conspiracist vision boards, to whatever Walker is doing when he uses clothespins on felt. Mark wonders whether he can justify leaving in dead air and calling it "bold use of negative space," but the deeper worry is that too many people would prefer the silence. Games Played Last Week: 01:14 -Ark Nova (Mathias Wigge, Feuerland Spiele, 2021) 05:46 -Agricola (Revised Edition) (Uwe Rosenberg, Lookout Games, 2016) 10:...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're always on the lookout for new potential taglines here at SVWAG, as our earlier efforts "that one where the guy talks to that dude" and "we shout into a can so you don't have to" have been deemed insufficient. "We like it hard" was put forth by Walker, but the editorial staff are afraid it is apt to be misconstrued. "We weaponize children" was rejected for the opposite reason, namely that it might be correctly interpreted. Specificity tends to get us ...
Mar 01, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We are Canadian, and thus must perforce apologize for those we may have slandered, misquoted, or used their name in vain: Warmboy, Alan Turing, Dewey, Peggy Lee, Dick Pound, Bruno Faidutti, and His Grace, Professor Doktor Doktor Vincent, Duke of Diesel, esq. O.B.E. We are honoured to have inadvertently tarnished the reputations of such grandees. Games Played Last Week: 00:52 -The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples (Reiner Knizia, Ravensburger, 2019) 03:59 -Copenhagen (Asger Harding Granerud...
Feb 22, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast It is a strange thing for one's hobby to be utterly infused with a nominally competitive structure. I would venture to say that knitters, for instance, devote precious little thought as to whether they can knit more or less well than their fellow crafters. Perhaps it is different for scrapbookers, I don't know, they seem like a ruthless lot. 01:16 AYURIS: Aristeia! (Alberto Abal, Jesús Fuster, & David Rosillo, Corvus Belli, 2017) Games Played Last Week: 04:20 -Città-Stato (Simone Cer...
Feb 15, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast The So Very Wrong About Games line of Action Princess Dolls (TM) are coming to a store near you! Thrill to all your favourite characters, like Huey, Dewey, and Louis, each with weird monochromatic accessories and some spring-loaded gimmick that'll bruise some kid in Oregon and thus be regulated into weaksauce! Plus, get the Kingston Action Playset. Your parents put it together, batteries not included. Games Played Last Week: 01:57 -Puzzle Strike 2 (David Sirlin, Sirlin Games, 2022) 08:49 -Th...
Feb 08, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast No, dear listener, we haven't played that one regional trick-taking game popular in the Adirondacks where the only red card is the 9 of diamonds and you play counter-clockwise and the bid is called in pig latin and you have to wear your socks on your hands. I'm sure it's a blast. We are but tourists in the wide world of taking tricks, and to some extent it can be a hobby unto itself. Contract Bridge alone! But we share our thoughts all the same. 01:49 AYURIS: Clans of Caledonia (Juma...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's a star-studded eleganza extravaganza, featuring your two least-favourite SVWAG hosts giving you an incomplete capsule summary of a terrible year of great games. Of course, they neglected to play That One Game, of course, which means that all their observations are utterly useless, but how does that differentiate this episode from any other? This offering is more classy, however, as in a concession to the glitz and glamour of end-of-year shows, both hosts begrudgingly and uncharacteristi...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
