" " - Shut Up & Sit Down

Games News! 10/08/15

Paul: It’s Games News time! Welcome, everybody, welcome. Please, come into my Games News hovel, the tiny hut in which I construct all of our Games News by hand, painstakingly assembling each tiny cog, ratchet and spring, bent over my work from dawn to dusk.

Today’s Games News is a special, post GenCon Games News, with no loud noises or big names. Instead, we’ve worked hard to bring you a few what you might call artisanal news pieces. Some are funny, some are very serious, but they are all the choicest pieces of news. Nobody brings you better Games News than Shut Up & Sit Down.

Quinns: So let’s start with some candles.

(This video is also available as a podcast.)

Last year team SU&SD hustled 300 people into a dingy Gen Con annex to record a live podcast. It was incredible. So this year we did it again!

After a shaky start where Matt, Quinns and Pip realise their audience is only there to hear about their hotel, the board game chat begins in earnest. We discuss the croquet mallets of T.I.M.E. Stories, the wandering chicken nuggets of Evolution and waste disposal in The Bloody Inn. Then it’s time for QUESTION STACK ‘N FALL! Which is different from Question Jenga by about £8.

In Evolution, players adapt their species in a dynamic ecosystem where food is scarce and predators lurk. Traits like Hard Shell and Horns will protect your species from Carnivores, while a Long Neck will help them get food that others cannot reach. With over 4,000 ways to evolve your species, every game becomes a different adventure.

Evolution packs a surprising amount of variety for a game with simple rules. The variety comes from the synergies between the trait cards and from the different personalities at the table. Some players thrive on creating Carnivores to wreak havoc on their fellow players. Others prefer to stay protected and mind their own business. Evolution encourages both play styles by giving each of them multiple paths to victory. And it is the mix of play styles at the table that ultimately determines the eco-system in which the player are adapting. So gather your friends and see who can best adapt to the changing world around them.

Time Stories offers a unique blend of role-playing and boardgaming experience. It is a decksploring game, and each deck of 120+ cards is a new story to explore.

The players are agents in a futuristic TSA (Time Survey Agency) that detects time discrepancies and sends you on mission, usually to prevent temporal rifts. Each mission is different, being set in a different atmosphere and illustrated by a different artist, with each mission having a core mechanism that differs from the next.

You usually take possession of local hosts to navigate in a given environment, but who knows what you’ll have to do to succeed? Roam a med-fan city, looking for the dungeon where the Syaan king is hiding? Survive in the Antarctic while enormous creatures lurk beneath the surface of the ice? Solve a puzzle in an early 20th century asylum? That is all possible, and you might even have to jump from one host to another, or play against your fellow agents from time to time…

Time Stories is a decksploring game in which each deck makes anything possible!

(This podcast is also available as a video.) Last year team SU&SD hustled 300 people into a dingy Gen Con annex to record a live podcast. It was incredible. So this year we did it again! After a shaky start where Matt, Quinns and Pip realise their audience is only there to hear about their … Read more

In Codenames, two teams face a square grid of 25 word cards. Each team has a captain, and both captains can see (via a hidden picture) which cards belong to their team, which cards are neutral, and which single card is the “assassin”.

On a turn, the captain gives their teammates a clue such as “Car 4”. Those teammates then select cards (up to the number given) which they think the captain might have in mind for the clue (perhaps “Wheel”, “Electric”, “Vacation” and “Price”). Choosing a word not belonging to your team ends the turn, and choosing the “assassin” word makes you lose immediately. Assuming neither team falls to the assassin, the winner is the first team to uncover all of their own words.

Quinns: In an age where we can fit dice on rings and hold Battlestar Galactica LARPs in decommissioned warships, team SU&SD has learned that rules can only hold us back. The only rule we have left is that before we review a game, it has to be available for our readers to buy it.

Today, we’re breaking that rule!

Codenames was the smash hit of Gen Con this year. It’s still perched happily atop BoardGameGeek’s “Hotness” sidebar, it sold out despite having a terrible name and a terrible box, and it’s the game I heard most people gossiping about. Under such crushing hype, and knowing that articles will soon be flowing in, today we’re offering our review early.

Let’s start with two words: Vlaada Chvatil.

Then another five: He’s done it again.

Quinns: My god. It’s 7:00pm here in the UK, I left my soul somewhere in Detroit and my legs ache from dragging 25 review copies up the hill to my house. It must be the day after Gen Con!

The live podcast will be uploaded on Wednesday, and our Gen Con special episode will be edited and posted (with a bit of luck) on Friday. Today, let’s just see if I can manage the Games News. Where to start? Where to end?

While the rest of team SU&SD is away at GenCon, engaging in all sorts of cardboard debauchery, Paul takes the opportunity to sneakily make a video about an old classic and personal favourite, explaining why he thinks Carcassonne deserves the video treatment.

He also cooks himself.

We have nothing but apologies to offer for this video being a little late. That cooking (a pretty serious one), combined with some audio gremlins, was a bit of a setback. Don’t worry, Paul is now regularly lathering himself in various balms.

The world of Arctic Scavengers pits players against one another in an attempt to survive a post-apocalyptic ice age. As the competing tribes developed and grew, headquarters were established for each tribe (supported via the HQ expansion included with the Arctic Scavengers base game from Rio Grande Games).

As the tribes have evolved further and struggled for dominance, information has become the most valuable currency. In the new world mapped out in Arctic Scavengers: Recon, deception reigns, leading to a need for reconnaissance. This expansion adds new tribe leader roles, new mercenaries, new equipment, and new levels of player interaction (i.e., new ways to make your opponents feel pain).

Arctic Scavengers: Recon comes with a plastic insert to organize the cards (including those from the base game and HQ expansion) for ease in play set-up.

Games News! 10/08/15

The Second Live Podcast

Evolution

T.I.M.E Stories

Podcast #31: Return of the Gen-Cast

Codenames

Review: Codenames

Games News! 03/08/15

Review: Carcassonne

Arctic Scavengers: Recon

Feeds