Lord Smingleigh On… House Rules, Pt. 1

PONY-MOUNTED WEAPONRY, BEATINGS WITH CLUEDO BOARDS, The cat's gambit
Lord Smingleigh On... House Rules, Pt. 1

[Following the tremendous success of Lord Smingleigh’s inaugral column on the nature of play, we invited gaming’s most storied gentleman to stick around! And then culled “The Ludological Investigation Society” as a title because it broke our headline box. Nobody tell him. I’m serious. He won’t shut up about it.]

It is a fact universally acknowledged that all board games are perfect. Who are we to stick our fallible thumbs in the board game pie? We have come for the experience the chef has planned through years of experience and talent, not the thrown-together improvisations of short-order cooks.

Except, no. This view is to disregard the most vital of components in board gaming: Humans. Sometimes it is necessary to change the game to suit the players. It is my honour to present to you an excerpt from an early draft of my life’s work and legacy: A Treatise on the Taxonomy of House Rules.

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Impressions: The BioShock Infinite Board Game

Into the integer nest, nauseous elevation, dropkick plans, anti-bilge
Impressions: The BioShock Infinite Board Game

Quinns: The board game of popular first personly shootems’ videogame BioShock Infinite arrives in stores this week. A lot of hype behind this one, since it’s from Plaid Hat Games, creators of such excellence as City of Remnants, Summoner Wars AND Mice & Mystics (which we still haven’t played).

I was able to give it a quick play earlier in the month, and today my impressions are up on Kotaku. IS IT GOOD? Click on through and find out!

“Is The Siege of Columbia another gritty, gory war game? Not in the slightest. In fact, I’d argue the board game’s biggest achievement is recognising and pursuing the rollercoaster tone of the video game. There’s some smart design to mull over, but it’s far outweighed by a schlocky desire to entertain.”

And if you’re hungry for more BioShock Infinite related writings, SU&SD’s own Leigh Alexander has written a definitive critique of the videogame right here.

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Kotaku Article: Days of Wonder Interview

French tortoises, hate in an elevator, bent swords, hot bells
Kotaku Article: Days of Wonder Interview

Quinns: Almost forgot about this! Board game publisher Days of Wonder last month declared that Ticket to Ride, their family train game, had overtaken Settlers of Catan in monthly sales. There’s a new biggest board game in town! I set up a phone interview to see what DoW do differently, then loaded it all into my monthly Kotaku column, slipping fact after fact into that hot gaming skillet.

“Part of our brand,” explains the sonorous French voice on the phone, “is coming from the fact we do very few things. Porsche is the most successful car company in the world from the business standpoint, but they do very few models… we take the same approach in the board game business.”

Founder Eric Hautemont also talked about vinyl records, the role of mobile devices in boardgaming and how his company works the exact opposite way from America’s other big publisher, Fantasy Flight. Really interesting stuff. Go read!

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Games News! 26/08/13

sellotape, Pantspantspants, Patchpaw, buffalo unmentionables, paul's treasure
Munchkin

Quinns: Oh gods. I may have had too much to drink last night. It’s cool, though. As long as I remain perfectly still I’m pretty sure I can make it through the news without one of my internal organs making a brave attempt to escape my body.

Details are beginning to emerge regarding Keyflower: The Farmers (pictured above), which we haven’t covered, but which is an expansion to Keyflower! Which we also haven’t covered.

It might be a long week.

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Review: Escape: The Curse of the Temple

darkest finchley, I don't mean to alarm you but, ripped waterwings, soul swaps
Review: Escape: The Curse of the Temple

Have you heard of Escape: The Curse of the Temple? Rumoured to be greatest family game of all time, they say it can be found in the Temple to the God of Luck, in the world’s most unfun jungle. Wait. No, hang on, that’s wrong. It’s in Quinns’ flat.

In this review, we answer the question of whether you should buy Escape, we take a look at the Illusions expansion, AND we compare the whole thing to Space Alert. Now, only one question remains: How did Quinns get so dirty?

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Review: Gen Con 2013

actual journalism, cell phone ninjas, 98% of a frown, the first exposure hall
Review: Gen Con 2013

Indianapolis is a city generally known for auto racing and being the birthplace of America’s first 20th-century outlaw. Every August, though, it hosts almost 50,000 people who care little for either of those things.

They come for the sweet aroma of freshly punched cardboard counters, for the textured heft of rank upon rank of miniature figures, for the piles of weird dice slimed with the cast-off condiments of terrible convention center food, and for the sight of dozens on dozens of costumed geeks, scantily clad and otherwise, who’ve traveled from all over the nation and beyond for an event that’s billed as “The Best Four Days in Gaming,” and which does in fact give tabletop gamers and steampunk airship captains alike a formidably long weekend on which to celebrate their passion and ours: tabletop games.

This is Gen Con. Its origins lost to the mists of time, the nearly half-century-old gaming party — for that’s what it is — is probably the largest annual gathering of tabletop gamers outside Germany’s Spiel. I arrived midday on Thursday, just as Day One was getting into full swing. The Indiana Convention Center is a massive place, and, as is the habit among Actual Journalists, I wandered into it unaided by map or signpost, following the flow of musky t-shirts into the first exhibit hall I could find. The simple elegance of what greeted me there felt both surprising and inevitable at once. Because what’s special about Gen Con is that it’s about the one thing most important to the cardboard arts: playing games.

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Games News! 19/08/13

holy ship, disqs, disks?, discs, brave sparrows, Haluk Sağlamtimur
Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

Quinns: It was GenCon this weekend! The most sleep-deprived four days in gaming. Here’s hoping somebody spotted Mike, our tech guru, because the last message I got from him said he was going to try and carry this stack of review copies back to his hotel, followed by radio silence.

So, yeah, he might be dead, but on the bright side gloss-house Fantasy Flight had a ton of stuff to announce, causing the biggest stir with BattleLore 2nd edition, seen above. If you’re a regular reader you’ll probably have seen us review or play Memoir ’44, a phenomenal, approachable World War 2 strategy game. BattleLore is based on the same systems, but takes place in a colourful fantasy world. So, less horrors of war, more bipedal horrors who want to eat your face.

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The Opener: Mascarade & Cheesy Twists

pamasan, sel capitan fancy bastard, beautiful bank thing, extravagance
The Opener: Mascarade & Cheesy Twists

Matt’s only gone and looked at a new way to open your game night! Isn’t he an great? Holding his ground on the very frontlines of play like a big ol’ play… man.

This month he’s encouraging us to don the masks of the fabulous Mascarade by Bruno Faidutti, one of our favourite designers. This game is pretty. It’s funny. It’s simple. Most of it even occurs underneath the table. But most excitingly of all, Matt’s baking again! Today is a good day.

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We’re at Gen Con 2013! …Kind of.

lovely men, lovely conventions, don't kidnap these guys, seriously we need them
We're at Gen Con 2013! ...Kind of.

The moon landing. Penicillin. The telephone. And now humanity can boast another grand achievement: With exactly no money, SU&SD has managed to get two of its roster to Indiana’s Gen Con gaming convention ’13. The dreamy Mike, who built the site you’re on right now and continues to upgrade it on a daily basis, and Mark Wallace, of our actual journalism and Borderlands review.

These are two lovely individuals. So lovely. If you’d like to meet exactly ⅓ of Team SU&SD, they’ll be around at 8pm on Friday in the Hyatt Regency’s bar/lounge area.

Also, if you’re an exhibitor and would like to demo your game to Mike so he can tell the UK team about it, drop an email to [email protected]. He says his best times are “Thursday after 3:00pm or Friday after 11:00am, booth numbers help.”

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RPG Review: The Quiet Year

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RPG Review: The Quiet Year

Leigh: Hi, Shut Up & Sit Down-ers (the Silenced & Seated?)! Thank you for having me back again as your ongoing indie RPG correspondent. Quinns, I think something might have gone off in your fridge, though. What is that?

Quinns: My flat has an Abundance of Rare Meats, but a Scarcity of Hygiene.

Leigh: A reference to the game mechanics, how clever!

So, The Quiet Year. I’m accustomed to roleplaying games that give me the chance to tell a story about a character, through interaction with other characters, but this game is different: Two to four players collaborate over a map to tell the story of a place, and the narrative that unspools itself is about the challenges a community faces following a long war, given one year to prepare for the advent of the mysterious Frost Shepherds.

What are the Frost Shepherds? Who knows! What is this place? Well, that’s what you play to discover. The designer, Avery Mcdaldno, calls it the world’s first cartography RPG.

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