GAMES AND SCRAPES!: SU&SD Newsletter #72

Tom: Goodness me, April was a real busy month behind the scenes! We’ve got two absolutely huge video reviews on their way in the next two weeks, as well as what can only be described as a ‘Cool Secret Plan’ in the works - expect the May or June newsletter to be a big bumper installment with loads of juicy info on that front. For now, though, we're going to keep things simple. In this newsletter, I'm going to give some impressions on a whole bunch of games we've played recently, and Matt is going to give some impressions on a whole bunch of scraping tools he's been scraping with recently. The thing that powers SU&SD is our diverse set of skills. LET'S GAMES!

Tom: Findorff was played pretty much immediately upon receiving it because I was so drawn in by the back of the box. Designers, publishers, all; if your game is going to be about something that’s boring as sin, make it this kind of boring as sin! I cackled while reading this blurb.

Findorff, in play, reminds me of the ‘Build Your Own Nonsense’ of Faiyum - a game I feel SU&SD probably should have done a video review on, given how bizarre and wonky and delightful that game was on so many levels. Findorff is less of that, but still satisfying and strange in its own way. A big variable-cost peat market, a strange selection of routes to victory, historic buildings that are cheaper if you build them the exact year they were really built in. It’s hard to describe Findorff because so much of it fits under the umbrella of ‘BIG DRY EUROGAME’ but it’s got that fizz and pop round the edges that Friese’s designs often do, for better and for worse.

Tom: Solar Sphere was kind of the opposite side of the spectrum to Findorff - a very straight-laced and by-the-numbers eurogame that was pleasant. Players in Solar Sphere are sort-of-collaborating on building a dyson sphere - with whichever player that sort-of-collaborates the hardest taking the win - but really the theme here could be literally anything. You have to strategically use a collection of drones (workers) to get space rocks of various kinds that'll let you recruit helpers, fight off rebels, and eventually plop little structures right onto the sun - all tied together with a nice little dice-driven action system.

Mechanically, it’s a very nippy game in such an unbelievably slim package that practically explodes onto the table. I was really impressed with this trick in Dranda’s other game, Solar Storm, but maybe I was more impressed there because I liked that game a touch more than this one. Solar Sphere is good, it’s solid, it’s fine - but it’s in a market that’s positively stuffed to the gills with games you’d seek out before it.

Tom: A game that I’m about 70% convinced that I’m done with is Deep Rock Galactic: The Board Game. It’s sat on my shelf for ages after a first play that left me incredibly cold, and I’m fairly certain that it’s not worth going back… unless?

For readers who don’t know - Deep Rock Galactic is a fantastic co-operative video game where you and three more friends play ‘Risk-Agnostic’ dwarves plundering a planet that’s jam-packed with a billion hostile BUGS. It’s great. One of the most fun co-operative videogames I’ve ever played. Me and some friends took to trying to do every (randomly generated!) level on the hardest difficulty as fast as possible and keep a spreadsheet of our times. “Six Eggs in 6:59” is our best time, for those who care.

But the board game felt kind of like most every massive-miniature-dungeon-crawler Kickstarter! You move, you shoot, you try not to die, you occasionally do something for your pal who has gotten stuck in a corner. It felt so by-the-numbers and lacking in bite and zhush that it had me thinking this was a box of miniatures with a game bolted on. But the thought that’s kept me curious is that, well, the videogame really only sings when you start playing it on those higher difficulties - high stakes forcing you to really co-operate, optimise, and gear up for the occasion. Perhaps, then, the board game will sing if I absolutely crank it up? Make those simple decisions real nasty? If anyone has played it lots I’d be dying to know your thoughts - even if only to save me the trouble of setting up this beast again.

Tom: I feel like we need to play these again. Bazaar and Samarkand are Sid Sackson games from the 60s and 80s (!) respectively, and have been re-printed by Eagle Gryphon games in a frankly gorgeous little box.

I’m going to explain how Bazaar works in like, two sentences.

Players can roll a dice to get a cube of a random colour, or can carry out one of several ‘trades’ listed in the middle of the table; a green for a green, or two reds for a blue and a yellow. ‘Contracts’ - certain combinations of colours - can be cashed in for points, but you get points based on how many cubes are left over once you’re done cashing in.

That’s the whole game! THAT’S THE WHOLE GAME! It’s so strange to play something this simple after having gorged myself on all the complexities of modern eurogames - and I don’t entirely know if I like it. It’s a little… sterile? Clinical? I can see that it’s far more clever and interactive than it seems, but my appreciation for the game is maybe best described using the same metaphor I inelegantly deployed on a recent podcast. Bazaar is a big marble head. I can see its clever, intricate, and beautiful… but it doesn't make me feel so much!

Samarkand is similar, but funnier. Players are rolling-and-moving around a board to trade, buy, and sell collections of goods depending on the space they land on. The horrible trick that Samarkand revolves around, though, is that you must do the action of the space you land on - and if you cannot, for whatever reason, the penalties are ruthless. This led to a hilarious cascading series of errors from my housemate Luke, who ran out of seemingly every currency pretty much instantly after some bad gambles and mean competitors. Oh, also, it's a race? The game slams shut after someone makes “500 Money” - which I think gives this a weird, frantic, gamblers edge I’d be keen to revisit.

I think I like Samarkand more - it’s certainly dumber - and honestly popping open the box to remind myself of the rules has convinced me to pod about it. Expect that sometime soon!

That's games, folks! Now it's time for the much-touted second part of this here newsletter. Take it away, Matt!

Matt: Hot damn hot japes what a hot-hot SCRAPE! When I’m not enjoying board games or making board game content, there’s nothing I love more than renovating a house so that I might someday have a place that I can live in. But it isn’t all fun and games!! My patent-pending ‘Chaos Plumbing’ techniques - for example - can frequently prove stressful for those close to me/people in the vicinity unfond of seemingly-infinite bursts of black water.

But some aspects of this endless self-inflicted curse are PURE TREAT: and me? I love me a scrapin’ with a hot lil scraper! In this month’s newsletter I’d like to take the time to celebrate my very favouritest scraper tools, and why I truly love them. Turn the jukebox on: LET’S SCRAPE!

#6 - IT'S JUST A PIECE OF METAL

Whoa jimminy! This scraper isn’t messing around!!! No handle or evident instructions with this bad boy, it’s literally just “a piece of metal” that you use to scrape whatever your human heart desires! It pulls varnish off smooth wood surfaces with the gentle glee that your mother in-law opens a Christmas present; safe in the assurance that it’s definitely going to be that art book they asked for, and with the calm & confident knowledge that there’s no point in rushing it: there won’t be many more presents after this!! Wowee!!!

#5 - MR. SHARP AND SLIDE-Y

It’s a razor blade! Who knew?? This tiny flat gentleman is designed for getting paint off of tiles and windows - but is that the end of its scraping capabilities? Who knows! Only you can define the limits of this dangerously sharp and slimline beauty. Please do not buy these tools if you are a child, thank you.

#4 - SCRAPEZILLA

This tool isn’t designed for scraping things! Have I scraped things with it, extensively? YES! Does it scrape things very effectively! Also YES. Please don’t tell my wife!!

#3 -  LITERALLY ANY FLATHEAD SCREWDRIVER

Oh damn, you’ll do a passable job of removing a thing from another thing? And you’re currently nearby/in my pocket? Kid - you’ve GAT DA JAAAAB.

#2 -  PAPIER-SLICE 5000

SZCHOOM: that’s the only word I can use to describe the sensation of successfully sliding this devious little trinket underneath a wide sheet of stubborn wallpaper. And I’m pretty sure that’s not even a legitimate word! That should hopefully illustrate the reality-altering level of power I feel when using this tool to shear chunks of unwanted 1970’s wallpaper: I’m like a bad-jedi chopping up aliens into bits. And who could wish for anything more?

#1 - THE CARDBIDE BASTARD

This thing shouldn’t exist! It’s the most powerful device in the world! It doesn’t make sense!

I’ve yet to discover anything that this hand-tool can’t easily demolish: it just scrapes things away with a severity and force that never ceases to amaze. A deeply concerning tool that might well be one of my top 3 favourite objects in the world - whenever I see one mentioned in the world, I will immediately and audibly murmur: “oh hell yeah”. If you already own one, you probably just did that TOO. This isn’t even a scraping tool! It’s a memetic cursed artifact of unknowable force! If that sounds ridiculous, you clearly just don’t own one. But you will soon!! That’s how curses work! Congratulations!

What are we video games!  🎮

Tom: Really digging the Resident Evil 4 Remake! That’s all I have to say about it, to be quite honest. Never got that far with the original, but I can see why people loved (love!) it, and the remake is just the right level of shiny for my magpie-like brain to stick with it. Big fan.

I’ve also been playing Remnant: From The Ashes in co-op with my flatmates - a really strange game that’s decidedly ‘Not Great’ but still has a lot of charm for a quick 3 player adventure? It’s “DARK SOULS WITH GUNS” but it’s also procedurally generated, with iffy worldbuilding and some questionable design choices. I want to see how the sequel ends up scoring, because the original is a 7/10 that’s so close to being a real 7/10. You know what I mean.

Matt: Oh damn, that game is AMAZINGLY 7/10 in some areas - I co-op’d it with my brother last year and we had so much more fun than either of us expected. Top-tier “I’d recommend but also, obviously, I wouldn’t.

Personally, I’ve just been playing Hades - to the extent that it doesn’t make sense to keep playing it. I only jump in for maybe half and hour a day, but I’m now way past the credits and the post-credits story and the game has clearly run out of things for me to do. Why am I still playing it? I don’t know! It’s good!

Tom: What a month for new games, though! A new Arkane game next week*, alongside new mysteries in The Case Of The Golden Idol, before Tears of the Kingdom drops and I will become an ‘actual goblin’. Can’t wait.

*This was written pre-Redfall review scores. Yowch.

­What are we music!  🎵

Matt: I’ve been having a lovely time dipping back into the albums of Poni Hoax - they’ve only got a few and nothing super recent, but there’s an energy to their works that’s unique and infectious, even as it leaps around between being gentle and sharp, brash and aggressive, and then smooth and dreamy? Images of Sigrid is the album I fell in love with first, but it was the beach melancholy of Tropical Suite that pulled me back for more, over a decade later.

Tom: Obsessively listening to the new(ish) Squid single ‘Swing (In A Dream)’. Something about the way that kick drum just gets a little more distorted and ‘forward’ in the mix during the chorus is really hypnotising. Great band that’s just getting better. I’ve also been loving Gilla Band after seeing their KEXP Set. I love how uneasy those blasts of noise in ‘Backwash’ make you feel - jabbing in at random points at frighteningly loud volumes. The whole record is anxious, cramped, sweaty, violent - and has bumped them straight to the top of my “Must See Live” list.

Oh! And I somewhat came out of a months-long winter depression to the tune of Robbie Basho’s ‘Eagle Sails The Blue Diamond Waters’. I walked out of my flat, on an early spring morning, and was bathed in that sonorous, reverberant, yearning voice that rends the opening seconds of the piece apart like a god-ray parts clouds. I looked at the sea, at ease.

Ava: I have mostly been creating Spotify playlists of obscene motivational music. I can’t tell you about most of it, as this is a family show, but somehow, it sprang out of someone sending me Yard Act’s '100% Endurance', which is the sort of song I don’t like, turned into something I adore by having lyrics that make me want to love the universe more, and that are clear enough that my audio sensory processing issues can actually hear. What a joy.

What are we watching? 📺

Matt: Having somehow never heard of it before, I’m now marginally obsessed with Search Party - a show about a handful of New York scenesters getting wrapped up in the mystery of a missing girl they half-remember from college. Honestly though, that description doesn’t do it justice: short episodes with interesting pacing and perfectly observed comedy bring the characters to life: archetypes that could easily come across as flat and unlikeable have a surprising depth and charm - I was thrilled to see after watching one episode that there are FIVE SEASONS, all up on BBC iPlayer for UK free-watchin’. It’s a hard recommend from me, give it a go.

Ava:  Welcome to Ava’s unlikely trawl through movies about D&D. We didn’t go see the new one because it was Good Friday, and we realised it was be busy, and I was hoping to hang out with some of my most social anxious friends, instead we played ‘Good Film, Bad Friday’ and watched the previous D&D film with Jeremy Irons and Thora Birch in it. It is not highly thought of, and I’m going to make a bold pitch for it being surprisingly good? In a way? The film exists in this weird space where they had a lot of budget and spent it entirely randomly. Apparently Marlon Wayans was not actually in the same room as any of the other characters, which makes sense as he appears to making an incursion from a movie with a very different tone. There’s scenes in the Sedlec Ossuary (memorialised in a lovely little Button Shy Wallet game, actually), and some very bad CGI that is occasionally being used in very clever ways that do not save the thing in anyway at all. The prop work is….appalling. But also Thora Birch plays the Princess from every eighties kids film (despite this film being made in response to Lord of the Rings in 2000 or so) wears the best disco crop top armour combo I’ve ever seen and I want to own it. Finally, one man chews the scenery harder than Jeremy Irons and lifts the film up into a bizarre, weirdly sexual horror with a few too many tentacles, and so many bad angles. I loved it. Bear in mind that I adore the old Bob Hoskins Super Mario Movie. I just think that films should make CHOICES and STICK WITH THEM sometimes.

The sequel was properly dire though. Just…painful.

But then, I found a quieter time to cinema and went to see the new one. And….

It’s actually genuinely quite good? As in, not so bad it’s good, but actually a bit good. It’s very much in the Marvel froth vein, but it’s quite nice to see one of those in the fantasy genre that is also entirely self contained, and makes some surprisingly sharp choices? Any film gets me hard if it is fundamentally built on ‘Chosen families are good and real’ and ‘Everyone’s a bit traumatised so look after each other even when you’re messing up please’ and there’s some genuinely quite clever action scenes. Predictable? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. And Chris Pine has got old enough that I can bear him now. Which is nice.

Also the Tetris movie is better than you might think….

What are we reading? 📚

Ava: … although actually I already knew most of the story from the Box Brown graphic novel, which I think felt less contrived? I don’t know.

Otherwise my reading has somehow shifted to being all in aid from a secret side project about financial systems as magical systems, so I’m trying to dive into weird radical takes on the finance system. Do I have any recommends yet? Not really. But I’m glad to be finally diving into Brett Scott’s ‘The Heretics guide to Global Finance’. This probably isn’t going to appeal to everyone. But I love finding weird angles on the huge systems that define our lives, and I think some of this stuff is good for thinking about when looking at the assumptions of boardgame representations of economics? It’s kind of weird there’s a big magical game that decides how much bread costs, and most people don’t know many of the rules? Sad.