Shut Up & Sit Down

SU&SD Play… Space Cadets

where's my space bladder, space fangs, let's kick some space booties, Captain Shania

Once again, purely for your amusement, we suffer yet more pain and indignity in deep space. This time, Pip, Matt, Brendan, Quinns and Paul are all playing Space Cadets, a co-operative game of spaceship piloting where everything can and will go wrong. Repeatedly. Forever. It’s okay! Quinns has played it before and knows what he’s doing, though he’s not actually in charge.

Brendan may have too, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. Set engines to gingerly.

You’ve called for more Let’s Plays, so this is an HOUR LONG video and we very much hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it. We want to give special thanks to Ben Prunty for kindly giving us permission to use some of his music for this video. You might also have heard his work in the famous video game FTL.

Space Cadets is one big game made up of many, many minigames, which means that, if it goes to hell, it’s one big disaster made up of many smaller ones. But that’s not going to happen, is it?

Is it?

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Podcast #11: All Your Broken Monsters

pugs, orc job centres, c***s from space, fun squared, swords

That’s right, babies! You asked for more regular podcasts on your subscriber questionnaires, and we’re doing exactly that. The system works! Ignore that clattering and keening coming from our servers. Right now, in this moment, the system works. Packed into podcast #11 are discussions of Freedom: The Underground Railroad, Keyflower, Space Cadets , Rattus and … Read more

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Games News! 11/11/13

inky cul-de-sacs, angle dogs, tragedy looper, Ensign Warr

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.

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The Dexterity Games Special

praying, flicking, bawbags, aspiring woodmen, timescotch, hopscotch

When you think SU&SD, we know you think “co-ordinated,” “graceful,” probably even “lithe.” So this was a long time coming- a video featuring three of our favourite dexterity games on the market today. The noble Oss, the exotic Toc Toc Woodman and the farcical Cube Quest, all showcased lovingly by us in time for Christmas!

One more word, from Brendan: “I’ve put an end to all this sodding continuity, too.” What on earth is he talking about?

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Review: Relic Runners

dig deep, snatch plastic, make sandwiches, plot, rinse, repeat

[We’ve found another article Quinns never published! Honestly, that boy was so disorganised. This death thing is a much better arrangement.]

Quinns: Relic Runners knocks one thing absolutely out of the park. It feels like a board game.

The box shows characters falling over themselves in giddy adventure. Open said box and you’ll find it loaded with gorgeous components, from a three-dimensional board to dozens of shiny plastic relics. The game itself lasts an entirely reasonable 60 minutes, and fits as snugly around 2 players as it does 5. It’s all just quietly joyous.

It’s also not surprising. When I profiled Days of Wonder a few months back, I found a company proud of their policy of only releasing between zero and one new game each year. In other words, investing all of their energy in trying to create a second Ticket to Ride, or failing that, a second Small World. They want another game straightforward, accessible and cheerful enough to break into bookshops all over the world. Or maybe not even a game- a brand, something that’ll sell for years.

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Games News! 04/11/13

15 year olds, stow your bum, Russian railyways, restart.quinns

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.

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The Unaired SU&SD Pilot

q-pop, cold salad, cool beans, absolutely good, full-on rad

Look what we found! The unaired SU&SD pilot from 1974! And reviewing such contemporary board games! Crazy.

Watch as the boys take their first halting steps through the gorgeous Legends of Andor, and stick it to the man with a look at two titles from Victory Point Games’ catalogue: Darkest Night and Moonbase Alpha. You might remember VPG as the small publisher Quinns talked about earlier in the year, whose games come with a complimentary napkin.

Keep on rocking, guys.

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Review: Betrayer’s Banquet

Agricola champions, Greenpeace activists, chocolatey Fagins

[Good news, everyone! We were clearing out Quinns’ stuff and we found something he was apparently too scared to publish. By way of showing respect, we’ve published it here in full.]

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really want to write about this event. In the words of one of the people I ate with, I come out looking like a “c*nt.”

Last month SU&SD was invited to the Betrayers’ Banquet, another London-based installation, perhaps a little sexier than Pip’s recent adventures of being locked in a room for an hour. It is, essentially, Satan’s dinner party. At one end of the table you’re served course after course of wonderful food. Down at the bottom, you get inedible slop. But you can improve (or potentially ruin) your position by engaging in the prisoner’s dilemma with the diner sat opposite you.

As a pro boardgamer, surely this would go well for me. Surely.

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Podcast #10: Pirates & Politics

straightforward men, black spots, space ship gear sticks, unconventional wizardry

What’s this? A scant three weeks since the last SU&SD podcast, a new one has slipped into the world like a newborn babe: Dirty, noisy, desperate for attention and a little bit intimidating. We’ve got so, so much chatter in this one. We’ve got new releases like Dread Curse, Cube Quest and Legends of Andor. … Read more

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Autumn Pledge Season Stretch Goals!

canals, blu-rays, exoticism, 45 minutes, that's almost an hour

HELLO everybody! Some news: We’ve just released the stretch goals for our Autumn pledge season.

Let’s quickly go over what this means for the site. Thanks to your incredible generosity, SU&SD won’t just continue. It’ll grow. We’re now able to pay our freelancers a reasonable wage, upgrade our camera, microphones and lights, put out more content, and upgrade the features of the site itself. Your forum? It’s coming, as well as so, so much more.

In other words, we have the money we need. Stretch goals, then, are us getting extravagant. A lot of you want a return to SU&SD’s old, action-packed, 45 minute, music-filled episodes. This is your chance to fund them, as well us let us make your own Gold Club bags a little heavier.

One last thing- an awful lot of you have done the noble thing and subscribed to SU&SD, meaning we have some pledge money that’ll be coming in, that’s not yet in the donations total. So, we may have broken one of these stretch goals already. Maybe. Just saying.

Thanks again, everybody. We love you so much. Thanks to you, 2014’s going to be even better.

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