Shut Up & Sit Down

Pip Escapes A Room

traps, adrenaline, suspicion, death, toilets

[Is everyone aware of the swelling “escape the room” genre of videogames? When we heard about a London-based installation offering the opportunity to escape a real-life room, we were intrigued. So much so we activated Pip, freshly-internet famous from our Let’s Plays of The Resistance, Memoir ’44 and Twilight Imperium, to go and see if it was any good.]

“What if someone needed the toilet?”

My friend Simon has been on the receiving end of a “what I would have done differently” monologue for the last few minutes and has decided to leap in with a question. The monologue revolves around HintHunt — a real-life room escape game in the vein of Crimson Room.

Except is it a room escape game, Simon? IS IT A ROOM ESCAPE GAME?

HintHunt gives you exactly one hour to get out of the locked room in which you find yourself. The solution can only be found by discovering clues scattered hither and yon and using them to solve a chain of puzzles. You could also just break the door down and leave but they ask you not to do that before you start. There is backstory for the scenario but it’s just there to offer an excuse for you clambering around a room shouting words and numbers at each other and glaring suspiciously at all surfaces within reach.

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Podcast #9: Reigning Supreme

the twist of the knife, the tap of the axe, the nibble of the ferret

The NINTH EVER Shut Up & Sit Down podcast has arrived like a beautiful steam train! It’s impressive, quite long and harnesses only rudimentary technology. Several days after recording it, we’ve arbitrarily decided that this one has the theme of reigning! We’ve got detailed impressions of new, absurdly tricky card game Reignaissance Man, we discuss … Read more

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Games News! 07/10/13

mice, Batman: South Seas, horrible owls, sausage rolls, mystics, business models

Quinns: Happy Monday, everybody! How was your weekend? Team SU&SD spent ours road-testing Ultimate Werewolf, and after six hours of heavy drinking and heavier lynching, I’m proud to say all our friendships survived intact. A minor miracle, really. Expect a video of our exploits this Friday.

Lots of news this week, so let’s get cracking! And let’s kick off with the Kickstarter for Marrying Mr. Darcy: A Pride & Prejudice Card Game. Which is… well, it’s a Pride & Prejudice card game.

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Review: Trains

normal trains, male trains, beautiful trains, ovulating, roadhouse, ur

It’s come to this. After a phenomenally successful first year, in which the British press described us as “the sound of the summer” and “London’s two most eligible bachelors”, team SU&SD are now cold, alone, and reviewing a board game about trains. It’s called Trains. This is us at our lowest, surely.

On frosty Autumn nights like these, we’re glad for the company of the SU&SD supercomputer. She’s our one true friend. …Right?

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Review: Twilight Struggle

humourless burgs, warheads, war heads, The Spirit of Communism, PartyMember9231

[Last month saw an argument between Quinns and Matt Thrower, our resident wargamer, over Here I Stand, a game of reformation-era revolution. It might be the nerdiest thing we’ve ever published. This month, we present the debate’s thrilling conclusion! All images in this article are courtesy of BoardGameGeek.]

Quinns: Matt, slow down! I’d never have guessed that a militaristic, paranoid, survivalist maniac would have a house riddled with secret passageways!

Thrower: Don’t forget the booby traps. Have you been treading where I tread?

Quinns: What?

Thrower: Ah, here we are! The heart of my house.

Quinns: It looks like a panic room. Except with a map of the world and… a big, red button?

Thrower: Naturally! It’s a room dedicated to my favourite game. Doesn’t every gamer have one? In my case, the game is Twilight Struggle, a card-driven recreation of the cold war and nuclear Armageddon. And, much as I hate to stand with the mainstream, it’s not just me that feels that way. It’s currently the number one ranked game on the global graveyard of game statistics, BoardGameGeek.

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Games News! 30/09/13

Quinns: Forget the new game announcements from famous designers! Let’s start with the big news, which is, of course, GAME BOARD.

The last-ever episode of excellent UK sitcom The IT Crowd aired on Friday, and you can watch it online right here. It was a brilliant double-length special, but much more importantly, it featured a scene making fun of online board game review shows.

It’s the best thing we’ve seen all month, and not just because we’ve heard from the writer himself that he likes Shut Up & Sit Down, and is explicitly not making fun of us. Which is at once a relief and kind of a shame?

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Review: Mage Wars

flying leeches, flaming unicorns, terror ferrets, beast masting, staff meetings

Mage Wars, the entirely straight-faced “Customisable Game of Dueling Mages”, was one of the most exciting releases of last year. We were never going to be finished with it following our quick impressions article. Quinns has done the right thing and published a full, red-blooded review over on Eurogamer, and it goes like this:

“Make no mistake. This isn’t just a great card game. It’s one of the best two-player games I’ve ever played. It’s at once a puzzle strong enough to leave you thinking about it when you go to sleep, and also profoundly human. Mage Wars gets the most out of the human opponent, because of its emphasis on surprise, countering and predicting.”

It also features a very good joke about a staff meeting. Go read! WIZARD! Ahem.

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Review: Winter Tales

limes, carpet corner, pinocchio's magic ring, happy endings

We love stories here at SU&SD, and if there’s one thing we like better than telling stories to our parents or the police, it’s storytelling games! Enter Winter Tales, stage right. A game where players control familiar fairytale characters viewed through a dark, oil-streaked lens.

In this video we also find the time for a quick peek at gaming institution Once Upon a Time, which just recently received a gorgeous 3rd edition!

Which will win? The classic, or the newcomer? Or NEITHER? Or both! Such terrible tension! We’d click play and find out as soon as possible, if we were you.

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Lord Smingleigh On… House Rules, Pt. 2

QUINNS YOU SCOUNDREL, The French Unmentionable, Earl Grey's litterbox, the fez

[Did you all catch Lord Smingleigh’s Introduction to House Rules last week? Naturally, an exploration on making games simpler should be followed with notes on making them trickier…]

No time for a long introduction! Grab your hat, coat, and thrashing-stick and come with me. This time I maunder about some house rules the Gaming Chums use to ratchet up the tension and increase the complexity of games, and possibly to increase the conflict and turn the finest of friends turn into slavering killbeasts*.

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Games News! 23/09/13

tea-off, knucklebones, no roses, dice-building, mushroom-nibbling

Quinns: What a news segment we have for you this week! Disasters! Pillaging! A game made of bones! Another game made of SKULLS! It’s all a bit much. I’m going to start off with a nice cup of tea, and a nice game of tea.

Yunnan will be arriving later this year, and it’s a game of controlling a Chinese TEA DYNASTY. That distant, jangling noise you heard was the noise of our entire English readership simultaneously reaching for their wallets.

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