Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: Go Cuckoo

spherical babies, puckering cloaca, straining oviduct

Paul: I am glad that I will never lay an egg.

I will, thank the heavens, never have to strain to squeeze one along the length of my oviduct, before groaning as I expel it from my cloaca. I will never birth a child in a form in which they might accidentally roll away. Nature has determined that such things need not concern this human male.

I am, nevertheless, a nest-builder. This I cannot deny. I’ve just moved home and the process of unpacking, arranging furniture and buying a rug is, I reckon, basically identical to building a nest. I make a snug, safe space for myself, into which I can cram everyone and everything that I want to take care of. Then I sit atop it all, making sure nothing can escape.

This is why I’m so good at Go Cuckoo.

65 Comments

Announcing: The Shirt my Feelings contest winners!

I might secretly want to replace reference pear with reference bear

Paul: Phew, the votes are in! First of all, let me extend our enormous thanks to all of you for taking the time to fill out our polls and to vote for your favourite designs.

The three winners pulled away from the pack with a full quarter of the votes all to themselves, but with over 10,000 votes cast on Facebook, Twitter and Disqus, there was a lot of love for all the designs and it was a tight race. What’s more, the five that came in from fifth to eighth place had a difference of just forty votes between them. At times, it was a tight contest where every vote counted. Are you ready for the final result?

106 Comments

Games News! 15/08/16

space couches, dranking wine, delicious oranges, controlling a cave

Paul: You know what they call the city that never sleeps?

Quinns: New Yo-

Paul: That’s right! The city of Games News! Even while we and half of the rest of the industry were away at GenCon, the games news just came coming. It flowed like liquid, a wave rushing across the internet, a great deal of it gushing straight out of a valve left open by Fantasy Flight. The peak of that tsunami was surely Runewars, their tremendous miniatures game announcement.

And make no mistake, this is a big deal. Runewars (not to be confused with the board game of the same name) is Fantasy Flight striding boldly into the fantasy miniatures battleground, building on their experience with smaller scale games like X-Wing and Armada. There will be similar movement templates and command dials, but this time combined with the regiments and magic of, well, of Warhammer.

84 Comments

Review: Captain Sonar

satan really is very rude, million-dollar acetate, dolphins kissing

In honour of the Rio Olympics Games, Quinns has done a review about diving! Just like in the Olympic Games, Captain Sonar is a contest where two teams dive beneath the seas and try and destroy one another with high explosives, drawing one another’s movements on sheets of acetate.

If you regularly play games with a group of six-plus feisty men and women then you’ve got to watch this video. Captain Sonar isn’t just fun, it’s like nothing else you’ve ever played. And even if you can’t get those numbers together, Captain Sonar will do backflips to accommodate you. Literally.

Have a fantastic weekend, everybody.

Captain Sonar should be arriving in shops any day now. Pre-order at your local retailer to avoid disappointment!

Impressions: Seafall

i named my nation quinstantinople if anyone was wondering, #ancientworldjokes

[The following impressions are entirely spoiler-free.]

Leigh: Quinns? Why is the front door locked

Quinns: Leigh! So glad you could make it. I know being on Shut Up & Sit Down is a bit intimidating, but I’m sure you’ll do fine.

Leigh: Honey I have to be on the TV news in an hour-

Quinns: Not a problem! Just tell them you had to share your impressions on Seafall, the new Legacy game from Rob Daviau, designer of Risk Legacy and co-designer of Pandemic Legacy.

Besides, TV’s a dying medium! I bet they don’t have an email and a Facebook. Did I show you our email?

Leigh: QUINTIN

Quinns: I’ll unlock the front door in five minutes I promise

So, you and I and some friends of ours started our Seafall campaign last night, pushing it to the MAX with a full five players. By now most of the board gaming world knows a few things about Seafall – it’s Daviau’s first game that’s designed from the ground up for the box-opening, card-ripping Legacy format, it’s more complex than past Legacy titles and it looks insanely exciting. Boats! Intrigue! Exploring misty islands and sticking them on the map!

But by the end of our first evening we all agreed that a post on SU&SD explaining what Seafall isn’t would probably be very helpful.

98 Comments

Review: Dead Last

are you looking at me for luck punk, go ahead and make the days punk

Quinns: Phew! Paul and I are back from Gen Con and I’m $200 poorer after being charged by United Airlines for my overweight bag, stuffed as it was with board games and gifted bourbon. I know! Your heart bleeds, right?

Huge thanks to everyone who came to our extra-ridiculous live shows. They’ll be up on the site in the coming weeks. Huger thanks still to the rest of you for being patient during this site’s quiet time, and we’re going make it up to you with a whole series of dramatic reviews showcasing the best games we found at Gen Con, including Captain Sonar, Seafall and Inis, but we’re starting right this second with Smirk & Dagger’s Dead Last.

So Dead Last is basically Ca$h ‘n Guns meets Diplomacy, it’s the best new party game I’ve played all year and it’s the first game this site’s covered that will play completely differently depending on the size and shape of your table.

Do I have your interest? Come with me! I promise I won’t shoot you.

91 Comments

Podcast #45: A Nebulous Boneyard

bananas, square pigs, pigs, ekans, bones, even more square pigs

Oh god, it’s too much. Asmodee has announced a new edition of Citadels – the first game SU&SD ever reviewed – and Quinns has a hangover that’s lasted all day. Is our end near?! Not yet, it’s not. In this episode Quinns proves he’s young by playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game, Happy Pigs and Via Nebula, while Paul proves he’s not by playing Meuterer, Mission: Red Planet and the profoundly apt Great Dinosaur Rush. We receive correspondence from our Antarctic SU&SD fan, and end with an interview with a proper board game veteran: Dr. Reiner Knizia. Also there is this vine of a man eating a banana. Thanks to BGG user Hexanauta for our podcast image of Via Nebula!

Shirt My Feelings, PART TWO

thank you, Shirt gnomes, Pokémon, Emotional emoji

Paul: It’s with more than a little pride (and quite a lot of excitement!) that I announce the next phase of our t-shirt design competition!

Like the evolution of a fearsome and beautiful Pokémon, it’s transforming from its pitching stage into its selection stage. We’ve put together a curated list of our favourite popular designs (mixing older hits alongside some of the strongest last-minute entries) and now we’re asking our lovely fans to help us select which to produce.

I’d also like to thank everyone, really absolutely everyone, who submitted designs and contributed.

63 Comments

Games News, 01/08/16: The Asmodee Edition

conan what is best in life, to eat some companies, and see the rest driven before you

Quinns: OK. Wow. Who wants to play a game of real-life Monopoly! None of you? Well, you’re out of luck. Put on this top hat and climb into my weird, narrow car.

News emerged last week that Asmodee, the largest conglomerate of designer board games publishers in the world, was acquiring F2Z Entertainment, the second largest publisher. This will make them such a big company that their rivals will realistically be Hasbro and Mattel.

Does this sound like inside baseball? It’s not. You’re about to personally feel the impact on your wallet.

After this merger goes ahead, Asmodee will be in control of the following designer board game companies: Asmodee, Fantasy Flight, Days of Wonder, Z-Man Games, Plaid Hat, Catan Studio, Windrider Games, Space Cowboys, Pretzel Games and Filosofia Éditions. Asmodee and F2Z’s combined publishing rights for tons of other games (including those of Bombyx, Repos Productions, Matagot, Carcassonne and Spot It!) will also be brought together under one roof.

That’s some 75% of the companies SU&SD regularly deals with, the others being Stronghold Games, Portal Games, AEG, Iello and Czech Games Edition. But of course, Asmodee isn’t done acquiring board game publishers yet.

Until this week I’d have said that Asmodee’s corporate game of Hungry Hungry Hippos wasn’t detrimental to the hobby. With this latest merger, though, I think Asmodee are going to be a lot more comfortable dictating the price of designer board games, starting… oh god it’s already happening

142 Comments

Review: Ra

croc bait, tripping balls, thoth, seth, quins

July 29, 2016 Reviews Ra Dr. Reiner Knizia returns to SU&SD with a new edition of Ra, one of his most-loved designs ever. What will Quinns make of this 1999 classic in the blessed light of 2016? Why isn’t Paul at Quinns’ party? And what the shit is Quinns wearing? One thing’s for sure. Auction … Read more

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