Review: Eldritch Horror

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Review: Eldritch Horror

It is written, and so it came to pass. The house of Fantasy Flight hath released Eldritch Horror, a sequel to their venerable “gaime” Arkham Horror, and we have… opened the box.

And guess what! It’s pretty good! Anyone expecting us to give this a bad review might be pleasantly surprised.

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Quinns’ Top 3 Games of 2013

such puff and bluff, YOU'RE BURNING MY PINEAPPLES, laugh or breathe?
Quinns' Top 3 Games of 2013

Quinns: At the end of last year Kotaku asked me for my top table games of the year, and I pulled this article from my bottom with the grace of a magician plucking a dove from his jacket. It starts like this…

As I’ve talked about before, board games aren’t simply enjoying a resurgence right now. They’re in a glittering golden age with fabulous releases every single week, the entire hobby evolving and adapting with Borg-like ease. There’s no easier way to prove it than with my favourite releases from 2013.

Included on this list are a real-time Star Trek simulator, a uniquely dark game of managing a sunny colony, and a card game… with just 15 cards. But each one of these is a classic.

And proceeds to list my three favourite releases from 2013, plus one runner up. Does that sound like something that might interest you guys? If so, please, go read!

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Gold Club bags are now shipping!

joy, it's over, papercuts, tears, we did it, creme eggs
Gold Club bags are now shipping!

After slipping more than 20,000 things into 2,500 envelopes, our first donation season’s Gold Club bags are assembled, and will be shipped to you guys this very week. Hooray!

Since none of us died in the process, we’ve just opened donations for the 2nd season’s Gold Club, which will be shipped on April 15th. We’ll do a proper video preview of the new season in a bit, but for now, we just want to give last season’s donors a huge, huge thanks for keeping Shut Up & Sit Down on its feet, to the tune of a preposterous $83,073. This is going to be our best year ever, and we’re so glad we can keep growing and improving together with the table gaming hobby.

Thank you. We love you. And if you want to want to get in on this hot Gold Club action, you’ll find everything you need on our donations page.

— Team SU&SD

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Games News! 20/01/14

limes, coconuts, Grenzstreitigkeiten, breathing machines, unenviable insomnia
Breathing Machine

Quinns: I’ll just pre-empt this one before you all start shouting. Wretchedly-named German publisher ABACUSSPIELE has announced Limes! And it’s limes, but not as we know it.

A limes is actually the singular form of the Latin “limites”- a line deliniating the boundary of the Roman empire. The actual game of Limes will be a reimplementation of Cities, and that’s probably all you need to know about a game that looks monumentally mediocre!

Look at me, coaxed into an oxymoron not six hours into the week. Awful!

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The Shouting Game Special

Panic on Dice Duel, Space Cadets: Wall Street, moneying, panicking, bunking
The Shouting Game Special

SHOUTING! It’s one of the best things in life. Imagine! you, some friends, a few drinks and SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER FOR HOURS.

iF YOU’RE LIKE– oops, excuse me. If you’re like Paul and didn’t get your fix of shouting from Escape The Curse of the Temple, we’ve got you covered! This mini-special reviews not only the mighty, shouty Space Cadets: Dice Duel, but the still-shoutier Panic on Wall Street!.

What are your favourite shouty games, viewers?

Failing that, what are your favourite shouts?

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Podcast #13: The Tale of Elfblow Whistleknife

change your mind, kidnap the merchant, kill the tanner, blacken the flange

It’s the very first ever podcast of 2014, and we’re celebrating with never before seen audio quality! Not that you can see sound. Unless you’re a bat! Do any bats listen to the podcast? We just don’t know. If they WERE listening, they’d hear Paul and Quinns are talking about new year’s resolutions, and all … Read more

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Games News! 13/01/14

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Talisman Island

Quinns: Small announcement, everybody. Last week, a Mr. Keith Block saw fit to make fun of me in the comments of Games News, pointing out that some of the stories I was running were from 2013.

Now, I love jokes. I can take a joke. But Keith, I’d like to suggest you be a bit more like Ben Rubenstein, who in the same comments thread pointed me toward some news and didn’t feel the need to be a disrespectful twerp who also smells.

One such story was the Kickstarter for Fief, which looks absolutely fantastic. Most Kickstarters set off my internal effluvium klaxon, but this? This is a classic French board game, being updated and translated by the enormously talented Academy Games, who made 1812 and Freedom.

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Review: New Amsterdam

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Review: New Amsterdam

Paul’s gotten into hides over the Holiday break, Quinns has a flowchart he wants to show you and Reference Pear’s relatives have gone missing. Anyone expecting anything new from SU&SD in 2014 will be disappointed.

Oh, wait! We also reviewed New Amsterdam, a highly-respected game of trading furs and takin’ names, and we have another instalment of Quinns’ supremely valuable Netrunner Tips. Perhaps we have some worth after all!

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Quinns is on the Terminal7 podcast!

the warrior nutrunner, quinns proving his incompetence in front of professionals
Quinns is on the Terminal7 podcast!

Quinns: NETRUNNER! Either you’re like me and adore Fantasy Flight’s impeccable cyberpunk card game, or you’re like my colleagues here at SU&SD and wish I’d shut up about it.

So it should please everybody to know I’ve taken my breathless fanboyism elsewhere, in an hour-long guest appearance on episode five of the excellent Terminal7 Netrunner podcast, chatting about shapers, bioroids, hellions, and all kinds of other things that literally might make sense to you!

In all seriousness, if you’re still on the fence about Netrunner after my review, listening to Terminal7 might just push you over the edge. Hosts Nels Anderson and Jesse Turner craft the exact cocktail of humour, frustration, style and spirit that Netrunner deserves, and I’m always impatient for the next episode. It was a real treat to be involved.

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Games News! 06/01/14

cones of dunshire, math of thrones, mspaint, werewolf suburbia
Game of Thrones: Intrigue

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.

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