News 40 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Games News! 06/01/14

Quinns: *yaaawn*

Oh, good morning! What are you doing in my house? This is weird. It’d be rude to bother the police this early, though. Why don’t you just tuck up in bed next to me and we’ll look at the games news together?

So far, the best news of 2014 is that this talk by Rob Daviau, designer of Risk Legacy (and the upcoming SeaFall: A Legacy Game), is now online. Delivered at New York University’s Practice game design conference last year, it’s a fascinating, unexpectedly hilarious hour of insight, and doubles as a preview of SeaFall.

I’ve embedded it beneath the jump, too. Do make time for it! You’ll be glad you did.

Quinns: Welcome to a Very Special edition of the Games News, in which Quinns finds out that Ryuutama exists.

The Kickstarter for an English release just ended, and it sounds like the roleplaying game I was born to play. Players journey across a fantasy land in a party, but you’re not adventurers. You’re merchants, healers, bakers, or other tradesfolk, travelling because you’re struck by an incredible wanderlust. It’s a game of wonder, relationships, and seeing what lies over the next hill in a very real sense. I cannot think of a game I’d rather have on my table.

Quinns: Hello! Is it time for Games News? I feel so jetlagged that this is quite likely to be a terrible dream. Any second I’ll wake up still on the plane, one of my eyes gummed shut, the overweight man on my right having spilled an entire vodka miniature in my crotch.

Best to just enjoy this reality while it lasts, with its crunchy toast, hot coffee and board game news.

First up is the mighty Eurogamer, which has published a couple of articles about Chess 2 and Pandante, games that attempt to “fix” chess and poker, respectively.

Paul: December arrives, and with it comes a large, old man dressed in red, banging on my door after midnight with one leather-gloved fist while another tightly clutches a ragged cloth sack that smells of old skin. The crazy hours I keep means I can’t begin to claim was anywhere near asleep, but as I hold open the door to let in the moonlight, the winter air and the sight of his craggy, crumpled face, I sourly ask him what he wants and what’s in the bag.

He strikes me across the bridge of the nose with the butt of a concealed weapon. “GAMES NEWS,” he bellows, his voice heavy with rum. I wake up tied to a chair in my living room. The man rants as he paces back and forth, my head throbbing in time with every syllable.

Paul: Hacking my way through the games news jungle this month, I’ve parted the thick, oily leaves to reveal great swathes of forgotten expansions, many of them lost beneath the undergrowth. As birds of paradise call out, as creatures of the wild scream to one another from the treetops, I see that the sun is setting. Come, time is short. We’ll have to make camp here.

Paul: Hello and welcome again to another pumping, vibrant edition of Shut Up & Sit Down’s Games News. As the introductory sting fades away, let me swivel my chair to face camera two and sternly address you all with our lead story. Please duck to make way for the swooshing infographic, which gives thanks to both Meople’s Magazine and BoardGameGeek’s News Blog who, along with many publisher announcements, help to keep us informed.

Quinns: How is everybody? Are we all well? I’m at least partially recovered from a weekend spent doing laughably badly at Cutthroat Caverns. I’ve yet to live through a game. It’s almost as if everyone knows I’m a walking bag of lies with a will to win. Astounding game, though- expect plenty of coverage in the future.

The news this week that sent air whistling through the teeth of seasoned board gamers the world over was the announcement of Dead of Winter, the debut title in a new series of games from Plaid Hat entitled “Crossroads”.

You’ve got two reasons to be excited about this one, so take your pick: Either you can get all giddy because Crossroads games will all be meta-cooperative experiences with players operating in a fragile alliance, or because Plaid Hat have been going from strength to strength recently, and this is an idea they have enough confidence in to create an entire series.

The Shut Up & Sit Down Supercomputer: I have spent the week exhaustively probing and sampling the corpses of Quinns and Paul, and have arrived at a conclusion: They are still dead. Therefore I shall continue to transmit the “Games News” as if they were not. I recommend that you all perform the human act of “denial”, as it sounds quite soothing.

Paul: Good morning everybaby!

Quinns: Paul, I cannot believe this. You will remember that two months ago I performed such that the people should buy real-time game Escape: The Curse of the Temple.

Paul: I remember it well, it made me birth eight giggles from my larynx.

Quinns: What a friend. But this week Queen Games has announced Escape from Zombie City. A tremendously similar game of rolling dice and escaping zombies, this time taking 15 minutes instead of 10. Just after I told everyone to buy the first Escape!

Paul: That is the limit!

Quinns: Stow your bum! This story gets even crazier.

The Shut Up & Sit Down Supercomputer: Greetings, organic viewing entities. According to my calculations, your level of pleasure will see measurable increase if I transmit to you “Games News” written in the style of the late Quintin Smith and Paul Dean. Data analysis suggests their loss was a sad one. Projections suggest that, in time, they could be adequately replaced if we manufacture enough babies.

Babies.

In the meantime I shall accurately simulate their behaviours using precisely calculated projections.

Paul: First on our babies news: Recently reviewed magical board game Seasons has a baby coming, in the form of the expansion Path of Destiny.

Paul: Ah yes, the games news chair. Easier to slip into than I first thought and… still warm? OH HELLO, I didn’t see you all there. Come in. Have some linguini.

Things are a little bit quieter on the games news front this week, no doubt because the industry as a whole is taking a deep breath and preparing to exhale all its most exciting announcements at Spiel 2013, that grandest of board gaming fairs, only four days hence. Still, I’ve spent my day grabbing every publisher in turn and shaking them until something exciting fell out. Here’s what I picked up off the floor. A respectful nod must also be given to both the exhaustive BGG News blog and also the fine Meople’s Magazine, both of whom we’ve turned to for help with our news.

So, let’s start with a very nice story indeed.

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