Shut Up & Sit Down

Podcast #57: A Purple Boss, A Spicy Path

emergency holidays, invented furs, unicycle jousting

Quickly, man the battlements! The podcastle is under attack from deadly waves of silence. Secure the chat parapets, and brace the gates of opinion! In episode 57 of our award-winning podcast Quinns offers thoughts on I’m the Boss!, the first Sid Sackson game that this site has ever covered, while Paul takes a look at the new edition of Citadels, the first game to ever appear on SU&SD. Quinns has also played an advance copy of the much-hyped Century: Spice Road, while Paul rounds off this week’s Fresco review by talking about that game’s expansions. There’s combat juggling in the folk game section and the boys chat about why Virgin Queen was Quinns’ lowest point, but perhaps the biggest surprise comes during our mailbag segment. We’ve received a reader mail that’s made us question our entire attitude towards not just box inlays, but board games in general. Listen in horror as one listener’s expensive opinion spreads across the very fabric of SU&SD, like a spilled glass of wine.

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Review: Fresco

i got you yellow, she doesn't want yellow, THE BISHOP!

Paul: Here are two things that are absolutely and irrefutably true: 1) I love art. 2) I hate getting up early. Here are two more things that are painful in their truth: 1) Sometimes you have to get up early in the service of your art. 2) This feels awful.

Here are three other things that feel awful: 1) When the guy at the market has nothing to sell but combinations of the same sickly yellow paint (“I’ve got a bit of yellow, some yellow, or lots of yellow.”) 2) Mixing colours that you can’t then use because someone beat you to the cathedral again. 3) When the bishop buggers off. Honestly, what is the point of bishops?

Here’s something that’s great: Fresco.

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Games News! 24/04/2017

the sun went down like an easy mark staggering with two slugs in his back

Paul: I stumbled into the Games News office this morning (much as I do every morning) to find it abandoned, a thin and smoky haze twisting through sunlight sliced a dozen times by crooked venetians. As I tried to blink away the hatred for this unsociable hour of the day, I spotted a single, cryptic note scrawled on Quinns’ desk:

“PAUL we haven’t covered Bear Park yet. We should definitely cover Bear Park. It’s the perfect lead story for your solo news.”

So, he was gone. And he’d left me with the bears.

It was time for the day’s first drink.

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SU&SD Presents: A Feast of Friends!

your mum is a murderer, undermining a war, an expensive potato clock

The third talk from our V&A collection is a sneak preview of a new talk that Quinns is working on. OooOOOooh!

A Feast of Friends is Quintin’s overlong, years-late answer to the question everyone asked when he left the video games press for board games, which was “Isn’t that a step down?” No, no it isn’t. Board games are beautiful, important and have a glittering future, and this is why.

Enjoy, everybody!

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SU&SD Presents: British Board Games 1800-1920, by Holly Nielsen

Modesty, Decreptitude, Despair, Poverty, Also wargames are a thing

Continuing our collection of talks filmed during the V&A’s Board Game Study Day, here’s 15 minutes from journalist and historian Holly Nielsen on the hilarious, horrifying history of British board games.

Huge thanks to Holly for letting us host this talk. It’s just too much fun. Next time you buy a game that’s a little less than perfect, why pop this talk on? You’ll feel very lucky about the state of your board game collection, we guarantee.

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SU&SD Presents: Board Gaming’s Golden Age! (2017 update)

how's everybody doing, this is the wrong talk, how much time do i have?, a stony pro

Hi everybody! Remember Quinns’ old talk on the current “golden age of board games”? Here’s a new performance of it! It’s a lot like the old talk, but snappier, more informed and down from a whopping 45 minutes (you can still watch the original here) to just 15 minutes. Perfect for sharing with your friends or perennially-bemused relatives.

This talk was just one of several snappy and informative talks given during a contemporary board game study day at London’s prestigious Museum of Childhood, and it’s not the only one we filmed, either. This week we’ll be uploading three more, including a brand new talk from Quinns!

Stay tuned, everyone, and thanks to everyone who came down on the day.

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Games News! 17/04/2017

One does not simply walk into birmingham, a sleeping dean, a merry box

Quinns: I hope you all had a nice weekend, because it’s time to get to work. Chop chop! Into the mine with you! Shut Up & Sit Down might be done with classic board game Brass after filming our review, but apparently this game isn’t done with you lot: the unwashed, coin-clipping masses.

Roxley, a Canadian publisher of truly gorgeous-looking games, has posted some stunning teaser images of two games titled Brass: Lancashire (pictured above) and Brass: Birmingham (pictured below). Brass: Lancashire will be a new edition of the original game (which we reviewed) with a few tiny rules tweaks and a radical visual overhaul. Seriously, go and take a peek at the images in that link. It’s not so much “a new coat of paint” as it is “burning down the original building and buying a gothic mansion”. Heavens!

And as for Brass: Birmingham? Why, it’s a collaborative effort between original designer Martin Wallace and two new co-designers, and Roxley is calling it a sequel. A sequel to what many would call a masterpiece of game design. Hold onto your stovepipe hats!

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Podcast #56: Three Tough Guys and a Yamatai

walnut whips, buddy systems, cadfael, a folky tease

The stakes have never been higher! In this, the one and only 56th episode of the SU&SD podcast, renowned street warriors Matt, Paul and Quinns take a break from their usual areas of discussion (inner-city brawls, knife fights, how to stare down a local tough from sixty yards) to chat about board games, of all things! Quinns has played new Days of Wonder beautypiece Yamatai, the group chat some more about the excellent Flamme Rouge, and inspired by Paul’s Mythos Tales review there’s a discussion on the future of mystery-solving games. We also answer the question on everyone’s lips: Is Lego crap? Finally, we answer a reader mail about how to get the most out of a convention. Basically just make sure you have a friend to drag you out of the fight if you get knocked unconscious. In other words, we’re going mad. How many more episodes of this can we possibly do? The answer: AS MANY AS IT TAKES.

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RPG Review: The Firefly Role-Playing Game

Befuddled with love, a leaf on the wind, feminine wiles, stabbed!

Cynthia: The television show Firefly, one of Joss Whedon’s series, has wriggled deep into the shared geek consciousness since it aired in 2002-3. Phrases such as “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal”, “I can kill you with my brain”, and “Yessir Captain Tightpants” now serve as entry passwords into secret geek spaces, flashes of color that we use to recognize each other in the wild. As much spaghetti western as science fiction, full of Chinese swear words and sexually-charged tea ceremonies, Firefly had Buffy’s wit and black humor, Dollhouse’s dark maturity, and something else that characterised neither: freedom. Five stars’ worth of planets, moons, frontiers, and open skies.

In other words, if you haven’t yet watched Firefly, you need to get on it.

But enough of that! The real question here is whether the Firefly roleplaying game is any good.

Readers, friends: yes. Yes it is.

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Review: Mythos Tales

never work with animals or triangles, paul's precious intestines, an actual cameo

It looks like Watson & Holmes isn’t the only game that wants to offer something different from Consulting Detective!

Introducing Mythos Tales, a game of solving occult mysteries where if you’re not careful, you might become a victim yourself. Will Paul Dean crack the case of whether Mythos Tales is a worthy consumer product, or will this be his final review?

We wish him luck.

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