" " - Shut Up & Sit Down

Hot Previews from the UK Games Expo!

Quinns: Hello everybody! I’m coming to you live from SU&SD’s sealed Con-Tamination Chamber, where I’ll be sitting until any convention germs I’m carrying are long gone. It’s nice in here! It looks a lot like Matt’s bathroom, actually. Matt might have just locked me in his bathroom. I’m not sure. He pushes a slice of toast under the door twice a day.

I was at the UK Games Expo this weekend, while I heartily recommend to anyone who’d consider going. It’s grown considerably in recent years, and it was a lovely space to buy games, try games, and attend all sorts of special events.

Today I want to tell you about the best unreleased games I got to see there, including a new Vlaada Chvátil party game! Oh, yes.

Players create their own kingdoms by skillfully building their settlements, aiming to earn the most gold at the end of the game.

Nine different kinds of terrain are on the variable game board, including locations and castles. During their turn, a player plays their terrain card and builds three settlements on three hexes of this kind. If possible, a new settlement must be built next to one of that player’s existing settlements. When building next to a location, the player may seize an extra action tile that they may use from their next turn on. These extra actions allow extraordinary actions such as moving your settlements.

By building next to a castle, the player will earn gold at the end of the game, but the most gold will be earned by meeting the conditions of the three Kingdom Builder cards; these three cards (from a total of ten in the game) specify the conditions that must be met in order to earn the much-desired gold, such as earning gold for your settlements built next to water hexes or having the majority of settlements in a sector of the board.

Players work to develop their own civilizations in a shared environment. Each player starts the game with five building cards, and on a turn a player either uses one of these cards to construct a building or discard one or more cards to make an offering to a god. Cards come in six colors: red for military, green for resource production, blue for trade, brown for scoring, purple for temples, and yellow for a variety of effects.

The game ends either when all the barbarian villages on the game board have been surrounded and attacked or when all the temples have been constructed. Whoever has the most points wins.

Who doesn’t enjoy a little bit of empire-building now and then? Paul certainly does, which is why he was excited to look at Deus this week, something he did entirely of his own choosing and under no sort of godly compulsion.

With a modular board, lots of little wooden pieces to arrange and a huge deck of cards representing everything from legions to laboratories, could this be a new favourite game of centurions and conquest?

(Our huge apologies for this missing Friday after a mind-bursting five attempts, it uploaded! Have a lovely weekend!)

Imperial Assault: Joining the Dark Sidekick

Matt: Initially, I didn’t spot the mistake. Enthusiastically firing out a message that proposed a date for a day of Star Wars: Imperial Assault, I was met with five excited replies. I looked at the box. “2-5 players”. Bums.

Telling one soul that Christmas was cancelled while their sisters unwrapped a BMX mountain felt too cruel to be any kind of option – I had to make six players work.

Quinns: Paul, I’ve got great news!

Paul: Russia’s pulling out of Ukraine?

Quinns: No, I… we got an email from a reader called Timothy Meyer. He says-

Paul: The Western Black Rhino is no longer extinct?

Quinns: STOP IT he heard from Ystari customer service that the legendary Consulting Detective expansions, previously available only in French, will be arriving in English in January 2016!

New cases are coming! Don’t bury your copies of the phenomenal Sherlock Holmes game just yet.

Paul: I have taken a lot of medicine in a huge overreaction for what might be a very mild cold so let’s do this how could this news possibly go wrong there was caffeine in those painkillers I am so up for this let’s-

Quinns: Hello everybody!

It’s been a slow week on the site due to a scheduling snafu, so I’m here to wave a white flag and apologise. But wait, what’s that written on the white flag? Why, it’s news that Shut Up & Sit Down just passed 100 published videos!

While SU&SD is very precocious for a four year old, able to tell simple stories and bend over without falling (mostly), it’s the videos that we’re most proud of. Since we receive a ton of emails about how to do what we do, I thought I’d do an FAQ.

Behold! Everything we’ve learned pratting around on camera for four years.

Paul: Hello! Welcome to our Games News! Thanks for taking the time to look around. If you’ll step this way, we’ll show you why we think this Games News is not only one of the most exciting there is, but why it’s a Games News that’s perfect for you.

Quinns: We’re all really excited about Games News here. Come this way, just put your umbrella in the rack. Stepping into the vestibule, we can see what is arguably the centrepiece of this wonderful and unique Games News.

Paul: Arguably.

Quinns: Arguably.

Does anyone remember our written review of the fabulous Star Wars: Armada? No? Of course not. You lot are visual creatures. You need to watch us nudging these tiny Star Destroyers and tinier X-Wings around the table before you’ll believe a word of it.

Today, we proudly present a full, 300 point game of Armada between Quinns and his friend Lovely Tim, bolstered with the first wave of expansions, including such vessels as the Star Potato and the Long Fellow(?).

Special Thanks to Youtube channel Mini War Gaming, whose handicam style we totally nicked.

Paul: I think I can trace my excitement for custom dice right back to my earliest gaming experiences. Dice were supposed to be uniform, six-sided things that counted from one to six. The moment I saw that you could put other things on dice, my world was turned upside down. Icons? Pictures? Why stick to just six sides? Any shape you roll could be a die! What was to stop me shaving numbers into the dog’s fur and tempting her to roll about the hall floor to decide our gaming fates? Nothing, friends. Nothing.

The first time I heard about Roll for the Galaxy’s 111 multicoloured custom dice I had to be sedated. I don’t actually remember much of the day but Matt says they had to call an ambulance and I recall Quinns, Brendan and Leigh visiting me in a facility specially constructed and arranged to avoid reminding inmates of the platonic solids. Thing is, in that place we still had our black market deals that the staff didn’t know about. Ten pounds to touch a D12. Forfeit an evening meal to roll some X-Wing attack dice.

Oh yeah, Roll for the Galaxy. I’d better tell you about it.

Hot Previews from the UK Games Expo!

Kingdom Builder

Deus

Review: Deus

Imperial Assault: Joining the Dark Sidekick

Games News! 26/05/15

Some Tips From SU&SD, 100 Videos In!

Games News! 18/05/15

SU&SD Play… Star Wars: Armada

Review: Roll for the Galaxy

Feeds