News 34 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Games News! 23/03/15

Quinns: Good morning, kiddos! Please form an orderly queue and allow me to vaccinate you against the most deadly disease of all: Ignorance.

No, wait, sorry. I had the wrong tab open. It’s ebola. Pandemic: Legacy will be arriving late this year, turning the fantastic game of disease-battling (see our review here) into a single, apocalyptic, simulated year at the Centre for Disease Control. Excited? You’re not the only one. Z-Man has already received a preposterous 50,000 pre-orders.

This week, Shut Up & Sit Down was invited to play a finished prototype of the game. An event we were wholly unable to make because Brendan got his arm stuck behind a radiator again. Instead, we left that job to the data hounds of Board Game Geek news, who’ve posted a blog on the inner-workings of this box, though you’ll find a summary below.

Quinns: HELLO everybody! I’m back from running the board game lounge of San Francisco’s Game Developer’s Conference and am now 90% tacos and 10% flu germs. I think my skeleton was confiscated by customs on the way home.

We’ll get to the news in a second, I just have to tell you what we’ve got coming in the next two weeks, because I couldn’t be more excited.

Just to start, we’re playing the biggest UK Megagame EVER this weekend, controlling Japan in a game with no less than 47 game masters. We’ll be bringing that to you guys as a two-part documentary. Paul’s back in the UK this weekend to play it so we’ll be recording two (TWO) podcasts. Then we’ve got reviews of Mysterium, Star Wars: Armada, Imperial Assault and Alchemists all lined up.

My goodness. But let’s start, as always, with the humble Games News.

Paul: Games news, is it? You’d better step this way.

I hope you have a strong stomach.

I’m sorry that you have to see this. There’s no way to make this easy. We’re still trying to piece together what happened. Maybe you can help?

Paul: You want to know how Games News is made.

You’re barely out the taxi door when the car speeds away into the moist and misty night. No other driver would take you to this part of town, not that you even know what this part of town is. The distant splash of water tells you its the docks… somewhere? Yet there’s no water in sight, just bending, sagging buildings that leer down at you and the sickly light of one myopic street lamp.

Almost pushing through the freezing fog, you find the address you were given. A tailor, apparently. “Alterations, modifications, anything sewn rearranged.” It hits you. “Sewn,” rearranged is “News.”

Mad Bella opens the door of the low, frumpy building. Don’t look her in the eye. Hunched, she beckons, with a gurgle.

This is Games News.

Games News! 23/02/15

Quinns: Ships! Like streets that float.

In a curious reminder of our hobby’s boxy lil’ nature, 29 United States west coast ports were shut down this week, delaying countless board game shipments. Spare a thought for the many games were stranded at sea this weekend, as well as containers of less important stuff like shoes and food.

Rumours that SU&SD’s newly-formed American division were behind the delay have been grossly exaggerated. It’s all down to a dispute between shipping companies and dockworkers.

Gizmodo has the details here. But if you were wondering why the new 6th Wave of X-Wing miniatures is taking longer than anticipated, this is why.

Quinns: Ah, you’re here! Take a seat behind the screen while I wash my hands. Injection of table gaming news direct to the brain, was it?

Not a problem. Relax and close your eyes just as I… insert the needle down your ear canal… Done! Wasn’t that easy. Now, the news will begin in just a moment.

…What’s that? You can only see Kickstarters?

Oh no. This might have been the wrong syringe. Nurse! NURSE?! Look, just stay calm. Everything’s probably going to be ok.

Quinns: Very rarely do we flaunt our being English on this site, so I think we’ve earned the following:

THUNDERBIIIIIIRDS BOARD GAME BOX ART REVEALED! And it’s got Thunderbird 2 dropping a little Thunderbird 4! F*** yes!

Back off, America! This box is ours. Oh, I vooow to theeee, my coountry, that I will buuuy this booox…

If you don’t know what Thunderbirds is (or if you know it by its name in the Czech Republic, “International Phallus Patrol”), I explained it in detail here, when this board game was first announced. And let’s be clear, this isn’t some cheap tie-in for the 50th Anniversary of Thunderbirds. It’s being designed by Matt Leacock, designer of amazing co-op games like Pandemic, Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert. It might not be shit!

Quinns: Board games go in and out of print all the time. It’s like a party where sexy new friends arrive in a steady stream, only for each one to fall through a network of trapdoors.

But to quote patron saint of board game reviewers Tom Vasel, if a game is really good, it’ll always get another print run. The theme of this week’s games news is, apparently, an awful lot of sexy people arriving back at the party, dusting themselves off and grabbing another fistful of canapes.

Let’s start with the forthcoming 20th anniversary edition of El Grande! Or as we call it in my house, 50 Shades of Beige.

Quinns: We open this week with Six Games to Introduce Your Kid to Roleplaying, an article published over the weekend by Shut Up & Sit Down’s own Matt Thrower. Some would say teaching your child that they’re an imaginary druid called Elwad constitutes child cruelty. Not this site, though.

I’m mentioning this first because I found the above image via Google image search and needed it on our front page. It’s perfect. The glazed expression of the father. The frozen terror on the boy’s face. “The dice will tell us whether you live or die, son. Don’t cry, now. Would Elwad cry? Of course not.”

Quinns: Good morning table gamers! It is the 19th of January in the year 2015. Whatever crazy stuff is happening in your life, you are reading the Games News. After that, there will be lovely comments. Rely on these simple things. It’s all going to be OK.

Once again our cover story goes to the prettiest game, this time forthcoming Susumu Kawasaki release Traders of Osaka. Due out in 2015, this is actually a reimplementation of Susumu’s 2006 game Traders of Carthage, and it’s unclear whether anything’s changed about the game itself.

Fine by me! I’d buy a re-implementation of whooping cough if it was this sexy. God, I’m such a fop.

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