Today, we're talking Sparked by the Resistance games with game designer Scampir!
But first, we chat about the strange things RadioTVsolutions have been up to (something about Half Life with self-aware AI?), the weirdness of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, ethical quandries in Cult of the Lamb, and thick thick fantasy book, The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon.
Marley also revisits Jennifer Park's Discandying Cleopatra: Preserving Cleopatra's Infinite Variety in Shakespeare's "Anthony and Cleopatra", a fascinating essay he read in university which uses the metaphor of food preservation to examine Cleopatra's position in that play.
Scampir talks about Brock McCord's Record of Twilight War, an industrial fantasy mech TTRPG that is also a musou game??
Then, we check out two games by the prolific Briar Sovereign: Armor Astir: Advent & the Red West playtest.
Scampir talks about their love of Armor Astir and spends some time discussing the unofficial playbook he wrote for the game, The Baccentian Guide, a shield maiden with a colossal mech that is half-temple, half-Godzilla, enslaved into becoming a machine of war. It's also kind of about living around a literal embodiment of climate change.
Cole on the other hand, enthuses about Red West, a hack of Grant Howitt and Christopher Taylor's Heart: The City Beneath, featuring cowboys and portals to Hell on Mars. Imagine Doom mixed with Westworld and you're most of the way there. It's a wild, outlandish game, which is also so funny it's almost a shitpost.
Marley talks about Brokenby Ben Wallis, a biographical game about doomed romance which encourages you to break ten random objects as you play, and Cole wonders if this game could be theraputic for people processing past relationships.
Then, we do another deep dive into the Sparked by the Resistance system. Scampir talks through their experience playing a 14-session campaign of Spire: The City Must Fall (which he wrote about on Cohost), Cole read through Ascendancy, and Marley compares it to the game's "sequel", Heart: The City Beneath. They talk about what they enjoy about the system and where they felt friction with some of the mechanics the system has.
They also answer the big question: "What are your favourite Resistance playbooks?" And listener, their answers may surprise you.
Featuring Cole (@IceColeBrew), Marley (@Mynar_Lenahan), and special guest Scampir (@Scampir).
Produced by Marley, as well.
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