Shut Up & Sit Down

Games News! 10/02/14

glossy droppings, vicious, the moon, ex-X-wings, The Village octopus

Quinns: A perk of this job is that I get to decide what qualifies as our top story each week. However, when you have an addiction as life-swallowing as mine, sometimes it isn’t really a choice.

This week Fantasy Flight announced it will be taking Android: Netrunner INTO SPACE, with a new “cycle” of card expansions known as the Lunar Cycle. Now, the moon is a pretty exciting place. This we can agree on. But what’s really exciting is that the Lunar Cycle’s express purpose to tip up the game’s gravity, to encourage new strategies, and produce cards that aren’t necessarily strong, but just weird.

When half the thrill of Netrunner is watching it evolve, and your friends inventing (and then slapping you with) freaky new decks, that’s the best news we could have possibly hoped for.

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Review: Caverna

explosions, cuddles, dwarves, goats, dogs, cows, babies, murder

The sequel to Agricola is here, and it’s the heaviest and most expensive game we’ve ever reviewed. A titan of the table.

There’s no question. Caverna: The Cave Farmers is the most fun you’re going to have managing animals, minerals and vegetables. But should you buy it? Paul and Quinns stand… divided.

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Hive Mind: How To Win At Hive Like a Master

the pemberton maneuvere, use of milk, untied abstracts, brendan

Paul: Hello. You may not think it to look at him but Brendan is a Hive Grandmaster of a hyper-unbeatable calibre. It’s the truth. To bring this insectoid chess-alike closer to everyone’s hearts and deeper into their viscous, nutrient-rich brains, Shut Up & Sit Down has asked Brendan to guide our readers through the more complex and obscure manipulations of this brain-breaking game.

Here then, is a set of problems for you to ponder. Can you discover the correct move(s)? Or maybe even better Brendan’s efforts? There is only one way to find out. Read on for the problems! (Note: If the only problem you see is a mess of abstract shapes untied to rules or regulations, please check out our review of Hive, which is a lovely game about creepy crawlies.)

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Games News! 03/02/14

hugeness, hot tubs, Ching Shih, number salad, druid parties

Quinns: Ooh, it’s nice to have dramatic news to lead off with. Fantasy Flight has done a grand reveal of the first “Huge Ship Expansion” for their excellent X-Wing Miniatures Game, the GR-75 Rebel transport. Just look at it! Imagine how many new players it’s going to bring to the game when they double-take at it in their local game shop.

We all knew that these huge ship packs would be an investment (the Rebel transport will cost $60), so it’s nice to see that they’ll be a mini-expansion in and of themselves, with new rules for damage, movement and energy, an x-tra X-wing, and a deluge of tokens and cards. And this is just the first of the two huge ships revealed at Gen Con last year, with the other being approx. 20% huger (and $90).

But wait, because I’ve got some expansion news that’s even more exciting!

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Review: Tash-Kalar

william shatner, the points protractor, the church of vlaada, unicorns

If you’re driving a car, pull over. If you’re holding a baby, please place it on the nearest flat surface. There’s a new game from our favourite designer, Vlaada Chvátil, and it’s time to put it to the test.

Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends looks nothing like anything Vlaada’s made before. No surprise there. But it also looks a bit rubbish. Will SU&SD have to liquidise the Church of Vlaada once and for all?

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SU&SD Play… L.H.S. Bikeshed

tactical panicking, space skype, the white one, not the white one, google maps

Last year we posted a video of us playing co-op board game Space Cadets, and it was an amazing disaster. But what happens when team SU&SD pretend to go into space… for real?

The L.H.S. Bikeshed is a roleplaying game, in a spaceship, in a caravan, built by a team of industrious men working out of the London Hackspace. Naturally, it was our duty to show these guys what their ship could do in the hands of a real crew.

As you might guess, the above video contains a lot of swearing, comprehensively beeped.

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Games News! 27/01/14

shame, ships, acrylics, jolly ranchers, Johnny Mnemonic, Volko Ruhnke

Quinns: Morning, everyone! Are you WELL? Is your soul a-thrum with jazz and song? If not, have another coffee, we’ll get you there.

Our news begins with a Washington Post article, “In the world of war games, Volko Ruhnke has become a hero”. Mr. Ruhnke is a national security analyst for the CIA, as well as the gunpowder mind behind GMT’s fascinating COIN series (COunter INsurgency). It’s great to see table gaming treated with such glimmering professionalism. It’s even greater to see the conversation around the hobby elevated. Then you’ve got lines like this:

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Review: Eldritch Horror

ghisguth, xoth, yaksh, cxaxukluth, hziulquoigmnzhah, tea

It is written, and so it came to pass. The house of Fantasy Flight hath released Eldritch Horror, a sequel to their venerable “gaime” Arkham Horror, and we have… opened the box.

And guess what! It’s pretty good! Anyone expecting us to give this a bad review might be pleasantly surprised.

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Quinns’ Top 3 Games of 2013

such puff and bluff, YOU'RE BURNING MY PINEAPPLES, laugh or breathe?

Quinns: At the end of last year Kotaku asked me for my top table games of the year, and I pulled this article from my bottom with the grace of a magician plucking a dove from his jacket. It starts like this…

As I’ve talked about before, board games aren’t simply enjoying a resurgence right now. They’re in a glittering golden age with fabulous releases every single week, the entire hobby evolving and adapting with Borg-like ease. There’s no easier way to prove it than with my favourite releases from 2013.

Included on this list are a real-time Star Trek simulator, a uniquely dark game of managing a sunny colony, and a card game… with just 15 cards. But each one of these is a classic.

And proceeds to list my three favourite releases from 2013, plus one runner up. Does that sound like something that might interest you guys? If so, please, go read!

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Gold Club bags are now shipping!

joy, it's over, papercuts, tears, we did it, creme eggs

After slipping more than 20,000 things into 2,500 envelopes, our first donation season’s Gold Club bags are assembled, and will be shipped to you guys this very week. Hooray!

Since none of us died in the process, we’ve just opened donations for the 2nd season’s Gold Club, which will be shipped on April 15th. We’ll do a proper video preview of the new season in a bit, but for now, we just want to give last season’s donors a huge, huge thanks for keeping Shut Up & Sit Down on its feet, to the tune of a preposterous $83,073. This is going to be our best year ever, and we’re so glad we can keep growing and improving together with the table gaming hobby.

Thank you. We love you. And if you want to want to get in on this hot Gold Club action, you’ll find everything you need on our donations page.

— Team SU&SD

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