Blog Archives
Space-Cast! #28. Land and Conversation
The politics of the Spanish Civil War are complicated — which only makes it all the more impressive that Alex Knight’s Land and Freedom distills them so elegantly into a three-player scrum for control of the Second Republic. Today, Alex joins us to discuss the genesis of his game, including how he solved the semi-cooperative problem with a silk bag, evolving the card-driven formula so popular in wargames, and the factional politics behind the gameplay.
Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.
Non Plus Ultra
As fascist forces encircled Madrid in 1936, Dolores Ibárruri delivered a string of speeches meant to rally those loyal to the Second Republic to its defense. Nicknamed la Pasionaria, the “passion flower,” Ibárruri had only been elected earlier that year as a deputy in the Cortes Generales for the Popular Front, a coalition of leftists, communists, socialists, anarchists, and regional nationalists. Her first act had been to empty the local prison of its political detainees, throwing open the cells with her own hands before the Cortes could waffle over drafting the order. Now, with a military coup threatening to seize the country by force, one of her broadcasts inflamed the city’s defenders. “¡No pasarán!” she declared. The fascists shall not pass.
But they did pass. After a siege of two and a half years, General Francisco Franco entered Madrid. “Hemos pasado,” he is reported to have said. We have passed.
SPACE-BIFF! 