Paul: Hello and welcome to this week’s Games News!
Quinns: paul why are you welcoming me i am always here-
Paul: I was welcoming them! Our readers! Quick, let’s get going, I’m writing my parts of this in a café that’s playing weird dance music at 1pm. I don’t know why it wants to be a club, but also a place that serves French toast. Anyway MONSTERHEARTS 2.
Quinns: HERE COMES MONSTERHEARTS 2!
Let’s have awkward sex again, like we did last summer
Quinns: Paul, I did a crime.
Paul: Quinns, it’s okay. You can confess and be absolved. Our world is one that still has room for forgiveness. Come and tell-
Quinns: I might have accidentally fed my student a pint of poison.
Paul: Ah. It’s all right. You’re not the first person-
Quinns: Also I misled an adventurer and sold them a flask of soup instead of a healing potion, then I published an academic theory that I knew was a lie.
Paul: Right yes well. The thing is-
Quinns: But worst of all, I forgot how funny Czech Games’ board games can be.
Paul: Quinns, I am so excited to write this review that I have got cracker crumbs all over my keyboard. Let’s go.
Quinns: Ever since I first squeaked about Sushi Go in my 2015 Corner Awards (and dust off your tux, because I’ll be publishing the 2016 Corner Awards any week now) this little game has become loved by my friends. Throughout this year, at the end of a game night when everyone has the happy-sleepy feeling that comes from digesting a two drinks and a big game, and I can’t be bothered teaching Mundus Novus, Sushi Go makes a natural end point for the evening.
More specifically, it’s Sushi Go Party! that we play. This is the enlargened, deluxe-ified version of Sushi Go! that offers all sorts of new takeout boxes, rueful rolls and playful puddings for you to experiment with, as well adding a board and little soy sauce score-trackers. The original Sushi Go was a delicious-looking package, but Party is positively mouthwatering.
But here’s the thing. I’m not sure Sushi Go Party! is as good as other simple, small-box classics you might end a night with, games like Welcome to the Dungeon, Incan Gold or Parade. So why do I keep playing it… ?
It’s a frosty Wednesday, I have a hot cup of coffee and I’m feeling optimistic. Let’s go deep on this one.
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Paul: Quinns I am so sorry I have not been well recently please can you do most of the news please I have had some energy and did some shopping and even went out today to a Halloween gathering but my nose is some weird tap for strange goo that I can’t control and-
Quinns: Paul shh shh. It’s okay.
Happy Halloween y’all! To celebrate this most fiendish of holidays Paul’s brought a game back from the dead.
SU&SD first covered Werewolf with Matt’s candlelit review. Since then we’ve fallen in love with One Night Ultimate Werewolf and its standalone sequel, Daybreak.
Today Paul investigates the next game in this undying chain. One Night Ultimate Vampire significantly en-complicates the series we know and love. Can it possibly survive?
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Quinns: That’s right, after little more than five and a half years the SHUT UP SHOP is open for business!
Would you like a Reference Pear t-shirt? Do you want to nobly swagger about the house with our logo across your chest, or remind people of that time we inexplicably came to represent the nation of Japan? I hope you do because those are the only options right now.
That said, we’re hoping to expand our merch in the near future. We know you guys want SU&SD mugs, posters, buttons, road-legal vehicles and more, and we want them too!
In the meantime, thanks so much for your support, everybody. It’s thanks to you that we’re where we are today.
xox
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Pip: Okay, so you know how in comedies there’s that standard scene where someone walks past a storefront and out of shot, then walks backwards into shot, captivated by something in the window? That was pretty much exactly what happened in real life when I walked past the charity shop window display featuring Exploration.
Exploration is a board game with a box I prop up to display the cover, like it’s some kind of dramatic photo I want to casually lean on the mantlepiece. It’s not something I suggest playing when people come over but I just love seeing on my shelf. It brings me enjoyment through its art and aspirations rather than anything it achieves through play. It also shows this moment in board games from the past. There are so many of those moments – weird blips in terms of theme or odd shaped pieces or bizarre ideas that together make up the whole history of boardgames, with some becoming popular and others quietly retiring from print. I love catching sight of these moments. Exploration is this extinct thing. It’s a box that just demonstrates the moment someone went “what if we do dice rolling but ALSO somehow mountaineering AND diving AND there are ziggurats?”
Paul: All right, everyone, please stand back. Yes, there has been an explosion of games news, but we’re handling the cleanup and you don’t need to panic. Stay inside your homes, keep your windows closed and don’t eat anything off of the floor. As much as you can avoid eating things off the floor, anyway. We know what you’re like.
So! Talking of explosions, let’s begin with Armageddon!
Paul: Welcome! Welcome to a very particular corner of my home. While apartment life in Vancouver doesn’t afford me the sort of cavernous attic that we peeped into when Quinns talked about his game collection, I do have a very particular place where I keep mine, all safe and warm and pristine. Welcome to my Games Closet. Welcome to the home of my fun. Please, take my hand as I invite you into a midnight tour of a very snug, very intimate space in my life. Don’t worry! You’re quite safe. Now, walk this way with me. Walk this way. Just around here. Toward the light…
Like a domestic Sisyphus, Paul and Quinns continue on their quest to play all of the things! Quick, listen to this podcast before their boulder of relevancy rolls back down the side of Mount Internet. This month games discussed include Pax Pamir! Conan! Game of Thrones: Hand of the King! A Touch of Evil! And litttle Schotten Totten! Of course we’ve got our usual special features in the form of listener mail and the Folk Game of the Month, but there’s even more besides. Always keen to go the extra mile for the podcast, Quinns visited a real-life Crystal Maze and Paul had sex with a beast. What new game have you been enjoying recently? It doesn’t have to be a new release, just new to you. Let us know!
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