So Very Wrong About Games
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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 a...
Episodi recenti
382 episodi
Samurai
"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 Groundh...
Tile-Laying Games
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,...
Ayar: Children of the Sun
"A quipu usually consists of cotton or camelid fiber cords, and contains categorized information based on dimensions like color, order and number. The...
Why Is This Game So Long?
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 Cae...
Star Wars: Battle of Hoth
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 t...
Nostalgia
"Well, that was your mother
And that was your father
Before you was born dude
When life was great
...
Light Speed: Arena
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 m...
Trick-Taking Games Redux
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...
The Lord of the Rings: The Fate of the Fellowship
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 th...
Starting Over Your Collection
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...
Vantage
"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...
SVWAG Con Report
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 He was able to play two unpublished games, and while the designers were...
#369: Take That
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...
#368: Shackleton Base
"Dear friend, if you wanna feel better
Don't let the devil make you toss this letter
If you've been crossed up by hoodoo voodoo
A wi...
#367: Set Up and Tear Down
It is remarkable to reflect on how much hobbies can demand of us, and certainly board gaming is no different. Setting aside the administrative, econom...
#366: 7 Empires
Apparently the American custom of the "push present" can trace its roots to the Anglo-Indian tradition of the "baby bauble", although in the latter ca...
#365: Small Box, Big Game
Walker's approach to parenting eschews what he sees as the coddling endemic in other families. He believes in competition above all else, where newbs...
#364: Pulling Levers
"Because of the long-standing mutual enmity between Meany and Brown, Meany was named among the suspects in The Case Of Encyclopedia Brown’s Mangled Co...
#363: The Social Contract
We generally frown on ad hominem here at SVWAG, ensconced as we are in our glass houses. In the case of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (known affectionately as...
#362: Rumble Nation
I've read several different accounts of the battle of Sekigahara, and I swear there's no mention of Kevin Bacon or anyone bleaching their hair. How am...
#361: What Makes Longer Games Worth It
Walker and Mark almost come to blows over Flip 7 this week. Their disagreements over the merits of the product (Game? Experience? Way of Life? Sub "Ro...
#360: Hot Streak
"Observers brought attention to [Gritty's] appearance, which could be construed as frightening, while The Guardian described him as an "acid trip of a...
#359: Gibberers
"gibber--intransitive verb
:to speak rapidly, inarticulately, and often foolishly"
-Merriam-Webster
"gibberer--noun
:th...
#358: Tricky Edge Cases
Chaka Khan, let me rock you
Let me rock you, Chaka Khan
Let me rock you, that's all I wanna do
Chaka Khan, let me rock you
Let...
#357: Post-Easter Update
While we pride ourselves in playing more games in a week than many play in a month, when we take a week away from the SVWAG studio we often face a tru...
#356: Endgame Scoring
Tiebreakers are arguably a kind of endgame scoring. I respect the fact that they are invariably necessary (I mean, if for no other reason than if they...
#355: Rise & Fall
When is a thing like another thing? Is Albedo like Core Worlds? Is Cat Blues like Rummy? Is Through the Desert like Go? Is a nudge as good as a wink t...
#354: 20th Century Games
People have favourably described our physical appearances as "borderline tolerable" and "just short of hideous", and that was just our mothers. In lig...
#353: Rebirth
In logic, conditionals are always true if the antecedent is false. You can't falsify the conditional if the conditions aren't met. For example, if Mar...
#352: Ascending Empires: Zenith Edition
I was donating blood while wearing my Transformers Converse shoes, and two different phlebotomists commented positively about them. "We have won the c...
#351: Flexing New Muscles
As is readily apparent from the show's subject matter and our general presentation, we here at SVWAG are stone-cold jocks who excel at the sports and...
#350: Beyond the Horizon
Despite the welcome relative absence of anthropomorphic animals this week--aside from some sundry ducks in Lorcana--we see a lot of animals and variou...
#349: A Plowful of Games
While we hate to confirm your most reductive of preconceived notions, snow removal in Canadian cities is no joke. The fleet of vehicles required to al...
#348: SETI
Colour nouns are essentially arbitrary; how one decides to chop up the visible spectrum of light is a matter of contingent taxonomy. Some languages ha...
#347: How Expansions Can Fail
Our upcoming convention, July 25th-27th 2025, is in its planning stages! We have a venue but nothing much else yet. Not even a name! Suggestions welco...
#346: 2024 Year in Review
If you can choose to be the regular version or the spicy version, you obviously choose the spicy version. I mean, sure, the capsaicin may sting, but o...
#345: Thunder Road: Vendetta
"Robert! This here is velvet--not velveteen. A gentleman must learn the difference."
-Gilbert Fontaine de la Tour D'Haute Rive
Game...
#344: Only at Certain Player Counts
The editorial department of So Very Wrong About Games has several sub-divisions, and admittedly the orgchart gets a bit baroque at this point. The rul...
#343: Fromage
It has come to our attention that there has been a great deficiency in SVWAG through the years, namely our shameful neglect of the French language. Th...
#342: Sheep in Wolves' Clothing
Trust the launcher.
01:28 AYURIS: Darwin’s Journey (Simone Luciani and Nestore Mangone, ThunderGryph Games, 2023)
Games Play...