SU&SD Play… Two Rooms and a Boom

SU&SD Play... Two Rooms and a Boom

Oh no. Just as our Let’s Play of Resistance: Avalon forever branded Matt as a sneaky bastard, so this Let’s Play of Two Rooms and a Boom is going to designate Quinns as a ruthless brute. If we keep this up no member of SU&SD will be respectable.

If you’re not sure how to play Two Rooms and a Boom, definitely go check out the publisher’s fantastic, tiny teaching video right here. Or just jump straight in like some kind of mad video-ferret! It’s up to you.

Huge thanks to Two Rooms designer Alan Gerding for running this game for us, to Two Rooms designer Sean McCoy for helping to film, and to all you lovely SU&SD party attendees for playing!

Read More

Podcast #32: Gas, Quiche and King Eric Lang

My god! 32 podcasts in and we’re finally approaching “professional”.

Paul, Matt and Quinns discuss the bold new Game of Thrones card game and think back on classic lie-athon Battlestar Galactica, before clearing the floor for an interview with veteran designer Eric Lang (Quarriors, XCOM: The Board Game, Chaos in the Old World). We close with a quick trip to the SU&SD mailbag and an impromptu game show(!).

We’ve done it, ladies and gents. It’s all downhill from here.

Read More

Games News! 31/08/15

Indianapolis

Quinns: Morning, Paul! You ready for some Games News?

Paul: …

Quinns: See that image up top? It’s the first photo we have of The Prodigals Club (previously The Castaways Club), Czech Games’ pseudo-sequel to the wonderful Last Will. We now know that The Prodigals Club will once again see players racing to lose their vast Victorian fortunes, but this time simply because they think that poor people have more fun. Presumably they saw Titanic (the film) but are living in the decade before Titanic (the accident).

But here’s the really cool bit- The Prodigals Club will ship with three modules, which are “trying to lose an election”, “trying to get rid of all your possessions”, and “trying to offend the most influential people in high society”. You can play with any two modules or even all three, but the game will also allow you to bolt your copy of Last Will onto Prodigals Club to replace any one of the three modules. Isn’t that crazy?!

Paul: …

Quinns: I KNOW!

Read More

Review: Shogun

Review: Shogun

Following our review of the beautiful Samurai on Wednesday, Quinns is reviewing classic game Shogun! Which means it’s retroactively Japan week and you should all act accordingly.

It’s worth watching this review just for the fabulous [REDACTED]. How does it work? Where did it come from? We just don’t know! Ha! Please stop asking such silly questions.

Read More

Shogun

Shogun

Shogun is based on the Wallenstein (first edition) game system. The game is set in the Sengoku period (approx 1467-1573) which ends with the inception of the well-known Tokugawa Shogunate. Japan during the Sengoku or “Warring States” Period: each player assumes the role of a great Daimyo with all his troops. Each Daimyo has the … Read more

Read More

Samurai

Samurai

Samurai is a much-beloved tile-placement game for two to four players by renowned designer Reiner Knizia. You and your opponents assume the roles of ambitious daimyo, vying for dominance in feudal Japan.

Through the strategic placement of tiles, you establish your sway over lesser lords, the production of rice, and the region’s religious leaders. Sometimes, though, even these won’t be enough to establish your dominance, and to cement your position, you must send in your samurai!

Read More

Review: Samurai

Review: Samurai

Quinns: Look at it. Just look at it.

Fantasy Flight’s new edition of 1998 Reiner Knizia classic Samurai arrives in the next few months. Now, this site has traditionally poked fun at Knizia, which is to say we’re still waiting on the proof that he isn’t some kind of extra-terrestrial. The man has four hundred and fifty designs to his name, his obsession with simplicity means the less-good ones are breathtakingly dull, and then there’s this video he made for the 2015 Global Game Jam. We’ve discussed it at length, and we’re pretty sure that’s not a green screen and he really is transmitting from inside the game dimension.

But we still took home an advance copy of Samurai from Gen Con, and we did it for two reasons. One, it might be the prettiest board game I’ve ever seen. And two, a fan approached me at FFG’s booth when he saw me looking it.

“This is the good Knizia game,” he whispered conspiratorially.

He was not wrong.

Read More

Games News! 24/08/15

Rum & Bones

Quinns: Have you finished putting on your make up? The Games News is about to start!

Paul: No! You used up all the rouge, you rogue, I don’t know my lines and this leotard doesn’t fit me at all.

Quinns: That’s a bandanna. Listen, you’re gonna do great! You know the words to the first musical number, right? The one about the newly announced M.U.L.E. board game?

“There’s a game / There’s a new game / It’s about a roooobot donkey”

Read More

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Second Edition)

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (Second Edition)

In A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, the warring factions of Westeros await your command, inviting you to engage in a life-or-death struggle. In every game, you select devious plots and challenge your opponents on the field of battle, through back alley intrigue, and in the political arena. Whether you play a against a single opponent, in a game known as a joust, or engage in a battle of three or more players, called a melee, winning challenges against your opponents is the way to victory.

Your ultimate goal in A Game of Thrones: The Card Game is to gain influence over the greatest seat of power in Westeros: the Iron Throne! To achieve this goal, you must call upon iconic characters, such as Tywin Lannister, Robb Stark, Stannis Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen, Euron Crow’s Eye, The Red Viper, and dozens of others. You must maneuver the members of your House and your allies in a constant battle to gain power. The first player to claim fifteen power wins!

In the game, each player has two decks: a draw deck and a plot deck. Your draw deck contains the tactical elements of your struggle, including the characters, locations, attachments, and events that you call upon in your struggle to claim the Iron Throne. You can command characters from throughout A Song of Ice and Fire, and you can march forth from the icy walls of Winterfell or muster your armies around Casterly Rock. You may even equip your characters with storied weapons, such as the Valyrian steel blades Ice or Widow’s Wail. The draw deck holds these powerful characters, locations, attachments, and events. This deck is randomly shuffled and players draw their hands from this deck.

At the start of each round, each player simultaneously chooses and reveals one of the plot cards from their individual seven-card plot decks. Your plot for a round determines how much gold you can spend on cards, which player starts with initiative, and how powerful your challenges are. Your plot also bears a reserve value, which determines how many cards you can keep in your hand past the end of the round. Plots may also offer powerful effects that can trigger when the plots are revealed or persist to shape the entire game round. You may scorch the earth with a deadly wildfire assault, or call upon all players to support the faith of the Seven.

Read More

Impressions: A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (2nd Edition)

Impressions: A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (2nd Edition)

Quinns: In a couple of weeks the 2nd edition of Fantasy Flight’s Game of Thrones: The Card Game, with its direwolves, chunky coins and endless pictures of sultry nobles, will be released. A lot of people are very excited, and with good reason- the 1st edition amassed a cult following, and the 2nd edition looks incredibly sharp.

You won’t be getting our review just yet. As a Living Card Game, this box encourages players to collect monthly expansions and build their own decks, and we want to have conviction when we suggest you get involved (or not). But I can offer some early impressions and comparisons to the LCGs that this site has gone on the record as recommending, namely the bizarre Doomtown and the sublime Netrunner (on the subject, Paul will have a review of Plaid Hat’s new card game Ashes in the next few weeks).

So let’s begin. How do you win the Game of Thrones?

I’m thrilled to say that it’s by being an appropriately sneaky f***.

Read More