Paul: Quinns! The oven timer has gone off! What have you got in there, exactly? It looks like… bread.
Quinns: No, that’s not bread that’s rising. It’s THE EMPIRE.
Paul: Is it going to take long? I wanted to put a pizza in.
Podcast #58: A Field of Marbles
Here’s a question for you. What contains Fields of Arle, Spoils of War, Conflict of Heroes and Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs? That’s right! The answer is “A fistfight over an archaeological dig site in Northern Germany.” But another valid answer would be the 58th ever SU&SD podcast, wherein Paul and Quinns discuss all of these games. What’s more, Quinns reveals the results of his months-long experiment using the BG Stats app. After all of that excitement the boys relax by dipping into the mailbag for a question on why board games seem to be getting more expensive, and close the podcast by talking about the noble art of marble racing. Enjoy, everybody! (Thanks to BGG User Steph Hodge for this podcast’s header image!)
Read MoreReview- EXIT: The Game vs. Unlock!
Quinns: As “escape rooms” continue to spread across the world like an architectural venereal disease (but a nice one!), you may or may not know that there are now lots of escape room board games. Yes! You can have (almost) all the fun of escaping a real room, but at a tidy fraction of the price.
For the last few weeks I’ve been fretting and sweating against these games’ arbitrary countdowns, searching for the best simulation of being locked in a room. And do you know what? I had a consistently happy time of it.
But the time for happiness is over. Two series emerged as front-runners during my trials, and it’s only right that I pit them against one another in cardboard combat. From Germany, in the blue corner, we have the prestigious series of EXIT: The Game. And from France, in the red corner, we have the flashy contender known as Unlock!
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE PUZZLE!
Review: Great Western Trail
Hoo baby! The profoundly beefy 2016 game of Great Western Trail is finally back in stock the world over. We’ve had ample time to test its systems, prodding its many rules from every conceivable angle, and today want to tell you that it lives up to the hype.
And thank goodness for that! When was the last time your evenings contained a dose of cowboy magic? It was too long, wasn’t it?
Read MoreTickets Now On Sale for The First SU&SD Convention!
Quinns: This is one of those times where you wish our headlines didn’t already use capital letters, so we could SHOUT!
Our team has been working ludicrously hard for the last five months putting together the first ever SU&SD convention. It’ll be in Vancouver, Canada on October 6th, 7th and 8th of this year, and tickets, details and hotel rooms are available through THIS LINK.
You can expect a board game lending library, tons of tables to play games, no less than three Megagames(!), a full track of talks and loads of special guests including every single member of the SU&SD team. It’s going to be ludicrously good fun. Practical info can be found on the above SHUX ’17 page, but I’ll pop a small F.A.Q. after the cut.
Review: Burgle Bros.
Matt: Chucking Pandemic Legacy in the bin proved to be an uncomfortable day for my board game collection, causing a cardboard-flavoured existential wobble. As much as I love – had loved – Pandemic, experiencing the full-fat campaign spin-off had left me wondering if I’d ever bring myself to go back to the standard co-op game that had been such a household staple.
I’ve spent a while poking my nose around for a worthy replacement, and – for me – I think it might be Burgle Bros.
Dropping two to four players into a classic bank heist, Tim Fowers’ has squeezed an almost comical amount of theme and bits and ideas into a box that – being generous – might hold a small shoe. Our intrepid / idiotic thieves have failed to case the joint ahead of the job, so it’s up to you and your Colleagues-In-Crime to first find the safes, then crack them, grab the loot, and get out.
Games News! 01/05/2017
Paul: Here we are again, marshalling a whole host of new Games News arrivals! Please stand back as I wave the latest Games News to Gate F26, where it will disembark and make its way toward customs. Quintin, I believe you actually wanted to detain a particularly important story related to Fantasy Flight’s new Legend of the Five Rings card game, right?
Quinns: Ah, yes please, Paul. Please send it this way, where I will thoroughly inspect it, as well as the first of their preview articles…
Podcast #57: A Purple Boss, A Spicy Path
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.
Read MoreReview: Fresco
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.
Games News! 24/04/2017
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.