SU&SD - Shut Up & Sit Down

Impressions: Fury of Dracula 3rd Ed.

Paul : I’m a doctor. I’m not the Doctor, but I have dogs and garlic and a knife and a gun, along with train tickets that take me all over Europe. That’s better than anything Colin Baker ran around with. The dogs are particularly useful because they saved me from an ambush. This was just one of all sorts of unpleasant surprises that Dracula had left in his wake, like horrid slime behind a slug, as he slipped his way across Europe. In this case, he’d left a nasty surprise in Edinburgh, one of my very favourite cities. Damn you, Dracula, for ruining such a fine town.

Quinns: Paul, are you excited about the new edition of Fury of Dracula? Fantasy Flight’s gothic hidden movement game, originally from Games Workshop back in the distant past, has been out of print for so long now that it’s almost passed into legend. Now and then, copies surface online with ridiculous three-figure price tags, but they’re as rare as hen’s teeth.

Paul: As rare as vampire fangs! Except those fangs aren’t rare any more. Dracula’s back! He’s back in style, too, with a glossier cape, a smoother style and even an improved map of Europe. I’m glad to see Dracula back because the boy done good.

Quinns: Paul, do you remember our Runebound review?

Paul: No? Who are you? Get out of my house.

Quinns: That’s because it doesn’t exist! I played the 2nd edition of fantasy quest game Runebound back in 2011 and didn’t think it was vitally important to tell our readers about it.

Paul: That’s probably because it wasn’t vitally important. It wasn’t the most compelling fantasy quest game I’ve ever played, either. It was a bit stodgy, a bit brown, a bit turgid, a bit-

Quinns: BUT PAUL! Fantasy Flight are about to release a new, beautiful, 3rd edition of Runebound and we PLAYED IT HERE AT THEIR WORLDS EVENT!

Paul: YES I KNOW THIS WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME here we are all asweat with excitement right now, reporting LIVE FROM THE SCENE and completely surrounded by X-wings and Netrunner decks and people live-streaming who have been repeatedly told DON’T SWEAR ON THE STREAMS.

Paul: QUINNS IT’S AWFUL.

Quinns: paul wha-

Paul: QUINNS IT’S AWFUL. HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS. IT’S AWFUL.

Quinns: paul of course i have not heard the news nor any other news this is games news this is where i hear the news pau-

Paul: QUINNS THE BUNNIES ARE GETTING DIVORCED.

Paul: Quinns hello Quinns good morning Quinns have you seen? There’s a few interesting things that came in the Games News Sack this morning.

Quinns: That’s not the “Games News Sack”, Paul, that’s the postman’s bag.

Paul: Well he won’t be needing it any more. The important thing is that we’ve got the Games News today. As well as everyone else’s mail. And a few spare, loose limbs.

Quinns: Okay then. I guess now is as good a time as any to start telling people about Tail Feathers! A new skirmish game from Plaid Hat arriving in just a few months that combines Mice & Mystics with the X-Wing Miniatures game.

Matt: I’m a robust bird looking to nest who is terrified of fat carnivores, looking to meet someone with a GSOH and wait this isn’t OK Cupid

Quinns: No, you silly goose! It’s a review of Evolution, the new game from North Star Games that is about evolution.

Evolution starts with 2-6 players being given control of their very own bouncing baby bit of cardboard, tracking the only two features a parent should care about: POPULATION and BODY SIZE. Each turn players receive cards depicting new evolutionary traits, you all play one to contribute to the food on the Watering Hole, and you play the rest onto your species, either as the traits they depict or to increase that species’ population or size, or you can burn cards to create whole new species.

And that’s the entire game! With these wonderfully simple rules, you’re off to the races. Although at these races we’ll simultaneously be betting on horses and praying our favourite horse doesn’t get eaten by another horse.

Leigh & Quinns collaborated on Life Hacks last year, a very personal article about learning to play Netrunner. They return for this article about the 2015 UK Netrunner Nationals.

Quinns: I am slumped on the floor of the Birmingham Hilton. My head almost between my knees, I break into an orange by pressing my fingers into it until the skin splits. I begin eating. The flesh is both dry and watery in my mouth.

“I don’t know if I’ll make it,” I tell Leigh. Then a pause, weighing my next words with the pulp in my mouth. “And I don’t know if I want to play.”

Paul: Good morning, Quinns!

Quinns: Good morning, Paul!

Paul: You know what, I think it’s going to be an exciting Games News this week! Let’s get right into the Games News Forecast, beginning with a look at the satellite picture that shows a heavy cloud of zombies coming in from the north.

Quinns: That sounds like one of the all-time bad weeks.

Paul: Don’t worry! It’s just the forthcoming single-player campaign for Zombie 15’. If our review of that one slipped you by, you should know that we recorded it in a single 15 minute take.

Quinns: We’ve got a very special Games News for you today. Paul is quite literally in the Yukon, but coming to us live from a satellite phone!

Can you hear us, Paul?

Paul: Quinns? This isn’t a great time. I’m up a tree at 63.9946° N, 135.4902° W. There’s a bear after me, or I THINK it’s a bear–

Quinns: Paul, the first images have come through for Pandemic Legacy!

Paul: Seriously?

Quinns: Yes! There’s a whole video trailer.

Quinns: Morning, Paul! You ready for some Games News?

Paul: …

Quinns: See that image up top? It’s the first photo we have of The Prodigals Club (previously The Castaways Club), Czech Games’ pseudo-sequel to the wonderful Last Will. We now know that The Prodigals Club will once again see players racing to lose their vast Victorian fortunes, but this time simply because they think that poor people have more fun. Presumably they saw Titanic (the film) but are living in the decade before Titanic (the accident).

But here’s the really cool bit- The Prodigals Club will ship with three modules, which are “trying to lose an election”, “trying to get rid of all your possessions”, and “trying to offend the most influential people in high society”. You can play with any two modules or even all three, but the game will also allow you to bolt your copy of Last Will onto Prodigals Club to replace any one of the three modules. Isn’t that crazy?!

Paul: …

Quinns: I KNOW!

Quinns: Have you finished putting on your make up? The Games News is about to start!

Paul: No! You used up all the rouge, you rogue, I don’t know my lines and this leotard doesn’t fit me at all.

Quinns: That’s a bandanna. Listen, you’re gonna do great! You know the words to the first musical number, right? The one about the newly announced M.U.L.E. board game?

“There’s a game / There’s a new game / It’s about a roooobot donkey”

Impressions: Fury of Dracula 3rd Ed.

Impressions: Runebound 3rd Ed.

Games News! 26/10/15

Games News! 05/10/15

Review: Evolution & the Flight Expansion

On Playmats: A Netrunner Story

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