Podcast #87: Cheese on the Clocktower

unless i'm drunk or poisoned, you're the baron and he's the washerwoman

Matt, Quinns, Paul and Pip gather beneath a stormy sky to discuss games of WIT and CHANCE. Dare you ENTER their CEREBRAL LABYRINTH? The challenges ahead include Shadows: Amsterdam, The Shipwreck Arcana, Cryptid (a bit), Kung Fu Zoo, Illusion, Wavelength (coming to Kickstarter soon), High Tea Assassin from The Edible Games Cookbook, and finally, their game of the show, Blood on the Clocktower. What awaits you at the centre of their fortress of the mind? That would be telling… but suffice to say, Matt is in possession of a package that he’s wanted to give away for quite some time. This podcast is also available as a video!

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Podcast #86: Doctor, My Dice Are Bleeding

fish suppers, a plastic oncologist, quintin throws shade at an ivory tower

You dice are bleeding, you say? Not to worry! It’s nothing a podcast won’t fix. Matt and Quinns kick this one off with a big, hairy discussion of Ultimate Werewolf Legacy, which segues into a discussion of legacy games in general. The expected “era of legacy games” is failing to materialise, and they offer some theories as to why. Next up they chat about the smooth operations of V-Commandos, which is about to be re-implemented as an official Assassin’s Creed board game. After that they discuss their time spent nursing cubes back to health in the disturbing (and entertaining!) facilities of Dice Hospital, which was a fun surprise for them both. Finally, they consider the carefully orchestrated fish feasts of Uwe Rosenberg’s Nusfjord. Oh, your dice are still bleeding? Oh dear. Well, try to not get it on the carpet. That’s our advice.

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Podcast #85: Do you have any Fascist Fish?

let's buy a forest, marduk's loyal goats, when a potato becomes a samurai

Come on up! Make yourself at home in our twiggy podcast nest, where Paul and Quinns are ready to regurgitate some warmed-up board game knowledge into your waiting beak. This episode features the quietly fabulous tile-laying of Gunkimono. There’s Taj Mahal, the fourth in a fantastic series of beautiful Reiner Knizia remakes. We’ve had a first play of Trade on the Tigris, a new negotiation game from the designer of Space Cadets. Quinns talks about how GKR: Heavy Hitters is almost his favourite game of all time, if it could just be combined somehow with Critical Mass (see podcast #84). Also, like the rest of the internet, we’ve begun playing Root and can’t seem to stop. Finally, the pair chat about a reader mail asking when, and where, we’d consider playing board games for money. Full podcast transcript available here.

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Podcast #84: The Post-Gen Con Blowout!

The Princess' Holiday in Hell, The joy of a felt-tip, A bad day for Mr. Mayor

Can you hear a distant rumble of people applauding, firing party poppers and doing synchronised donuts in their cars? Don’t panic! Nothing could be more natural when our post-Gen Con podcast rolls around. It’s possible that there’s never been such a diverse and exciting array of games tucked into a single SU&SD podcast. Today, Paul and Quinns exchange first impressions of Keyforge: Call of the Archons, Fantasy Flight’s new collaboration with Richard Garfield where every deck ever printed will be unique to you. Up next is Gen 7, the dramatic and curious sequel to Dead of Winter that takes place aboard a generation ship. Then there’s Nyctophobia, a game where all but one player is blindfolded and being hunted by a murderer. Critical Mass, which might be the best game of mecha-on-mecha violence ever made? Railroad Ink, which is the first roll-and-write game we’ve found that could steal the throne from Welcome To. And the pair close by talking about The Estates, which is both the meanest and most devious game of auctions that Quinns has ever experienced. Among those six games are no less than four contenders for the prestigious SU&SD Recommends badge. You heard it here first- the rest of 2018 is going to be absolutely fabulous. UPDATE: We now have a complete transcription of this podcast, courtesy of SU&SD fan InkyBloc!

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Podcast #83: The Villain’s Criminal Google

a greek salad and a can of coke, a bunny with a big hat, a booger set ablaze

Pop on your monocle and climb into your biggest chair, because this is a podcast where we are most definitely the bad guys. First off, Matt and Quinns discuss the be-hyped box of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game with the help of some royalty-free music. Next, the pair shatter a few dreams with their description of Disney’s Villainous board game. There’s then a quick discussion of Cryptozoic’s Wallet, in which a mob boss has the wallet of a… 9-year-old boy? Finally, the group plumb the depths of Google in a few rounds of Weird Things Humans Search For. Enjoy, everybody! And look forward to podcast #84, because it’s gonna be a stormer.

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Podcast #82: Welcome To My Viking Fungus

free butter, muddy dice, some frankensteins, what is egg rolls

Everybody, pick up your pencils! No, you’re not having another stress dream about being back at school. We’ve just finally found a roll-n-write game that we absolutely love. It’s called Welcome To, and podcast #82 starts with an explanation of what it is, and why you should get excited for the release date in September. And that’s just the beginning of this… peculiarly positive cast. Paul and Quinns soon move on to the happy kitchens of Wok Star (3rd edition), there’s talk of the fun they had in Fungi, and of the surprisingly strong Champions of Midgard. There’s also some disappointment about Village Attacks, but it wouldn’t be a SU&SD podcast without some vigorous complaining, would it? Finally, the pair end with a particularly sticky reader mail. Has their taste in games changed with time? And if so, how?

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Podcast #81: Our Irradiated Pastries

this belongs in a museum, this probably doesn't, sugar as a mechanic

Hot damn! We’ve got some smokin’ exclusives for you today. In this podcast we chat about our playtest of Reef, the next game in the series that brought us Azul. We gossip about Newspeak, a great-looking code-cracking game that will be arriving on Kickstarter imminently. We offer our thoughts on the fabulous labour of love Museum, which has yet to make its way to Kickstarter backers. Matt lays out his controversial verdict on Fantasy Flight’s Fallout board game! As temperatures continue to rise, the boys discuss their secret pastry playtest from Jenn Sandercock’s Edible Games Cookbook, and talk about what to do when busy board game conventions become too hot to handle. Finally, we approach a fiery finale where… oh dear. It seems the temperature of this podcast is reaching dangerous levels. Please, whatever you do, don’t click play! Podcast burns are NO JOKE

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Podcast #80: Until The Sheep Goes “Berp”

artichoke-gate, quintin's famous pet shop, super towel robots, paul's eyes

Oho, this episode of the award-winning Shut Up & Sit Down podcast has more scoops than sweet shop, and is just as sweet. We found out that learning geography CAN be fun in the tense game of Destination X. We learned that Lowlands is the best Uwe Rosenberg game since A Feast for Odin, and it isn’t even designed by Uwe Rosenberg. We learned that the amazing-looking Starship Samurai is, perhaps, not as good as we were hoping. And we learned that Quantified – an upcoming game you’ve definitely never heard of – is a thought-provoking co-op game about surveillance and big data. We also found out that the vikings that hang around outside the UK Games Expo are not to be trifled with, as Matt narrowly escapes being skewered by an actual spear. Finally, we implemented the OMEGA PROTOCOL: A quick-fire round of questions that were tweeted to us by the audience, right then and there. Huge thanks to everybody who came down and contributed to the veritable cyclone of questions that followed.

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Podcast #79: Law, Order and the Order of Logging

what can you do with wood, why paul left the band, what is embezzling

Excuse me, are you ready to report for jury duty? In this episode of our award-winning podcast, Matt, Quinns and Paul discuss the hellish lumber management of Lignum, the lumbering hell-management of Huns, they have a troubling conversation about Holding on: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr and have a good laugh about Band Manager: The Boardgame. After that? This show throws open the doors of the SU&SD law courts. Matt claims that Quinns threw away his copy of Pandemic Legacy Season 2, and is requesting that he pays £65 in damages. Quinns would prefer not to pay the fee and has invited a real-life lawyer, his friend Clark Burscough, onto the podcast. Will he be proven guilty, innocent, or somewhere in between? This podcast is also available as a video.

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Podcast #78: Paul’s Good Lamp Years

putting boys up chimneys, thinking about dogs, breaking poker

Rain falling on cracked windowpanes. Once-boisterous assembly rooms, now silent. Mr. Paul stalks the halls of his once-proud lamp factory, his mind a warren of regret. How did my business venture go so wrong? Excitingly, this week on the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast Paul and Quinns discuss their experience of running 19th century factories in the ENORMOUS game of Arkwright.  Also, there’s chat about why Quinns didn’t get along with the beautiful new edition of card game High Society, the pair once again discuss the superb NMBR 9, and Quinns talks about being a brave weather fairy in the game of Broom Service. Finally, the pair take their shoes off and paddle around the mailbag to answer not one, not two, but three little questions! Don’t come in, the water’s cold and full of jigsaw puzzles and binding agreements. New podcast feeds (if you’re missing episodes 71 onwards, try these): iTunes Google Play RSS for your favourite player

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