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SU&SD’s Best Games For Your Family

Paul: Like a snowman at the door, having a wank through your letterbox, Christmas is coming fast. Everyone and their dog is going to be asking for board games and hoping to unwrap something special but, but not everything that you ask for is going to be suited to families.

Does your brother want to play Twilight Imperium for eight hours? Does your dad understand how the Ambush card works in Memoir ‘44? Will your mum flip the table again if she loses another game of Space Hulk?

Here, then, are Shut Up & Sit Down’s recommendations for games your family can play at Christmas. These are all games with rules you can learn in just a few minutes, and won’t keep you returning to the manual. Some are simple, some are smart, some are physical and some are outright dangerous. But they’re all terribly, terribly good fun.

Quinns: Hello! Is it time for Games News? I feel so jetlagged that this is quite likely to be a terrible dream. Any second I’ll wake up still on the plane, one of my eyes gummed shut, the overweight man on my right having spilled an entire vodka miniature in my crotch.

Best to just enjoy this reality while it lasts, with its crunchy toast, hot coffee and board game news.

First up is the mighty Eurogamer, which has published a couple of articles about Chess 2 and Pandante, games that attempt to “fix” chess and poker, respectively.

A perfect balance of cooperative gameplay and back-stabbing goodness.

An artifact of untold power lies in your hands. To claim it, you must escape the caverns alive. No less than nine horrific beasts stand in your way – that, and the greed of the other players.

In this game of kill-stealing, you decide whether to swing for a whopping 50 points of damage – or hold back, awaiting a more opportune time to strike. Only the final blow matters if you are to score the kill. Hold back or sabotage other’s plans too much – and the entire party will die, without a winner.

Would you like to come on an ADVENTURE? Get some treasure, some glory, back home in time for tea?

So you’ll come? …What’s that? Oh, nowhere special. Just the Cutthroat Caverns. No! Come back! It’s only a name!

What about you, dear reader? Will you join us? If you’re brave enough, you’ll see there’s an awful lot of fun to be had in those dingy, treacherous caverns. Assuming you’re just a bit of a jerk.

This game entry refers to two nearly identical games which are not compatible with one another. Ages 6 and up. PitchCar and Carabande are dexterity games where large, wooden, puzzle-like pieces are used to construct a race track that looks very similar to a slot car track when finished. But instead of using electrons, players use finger-flicks to send small pucks around the track, a la Carrom. PitchCar is produced by Ferti. It currently has five expansions which add “tight” curves, crossroads, small jumps, long straightaways, 45-degree curves, and curved bottlenecks. PitchCar apparently also has two editions, where the first edition has the black laminate on the top and bottom of the track pieces, where the second edition only has the laminate on the top of the track pieces. In the BGG photo gallery, PitchCar has red rails.

You are head of a family in an Italian city-state, a city run by a weak and corrupt court. You need to manipulate, bluff and bribe your way to power. Your object is to destroy the influence of all the other families, forcing them into exile. Only one family will survive…

In Coup, you want to be the last player with influence in the game, with influence being represented by face-down character cards in your playing area. Each player starts the game with two coins and two influence – i.e., two face-down character cards; the fifteen card deck consists of three copies of five different characters, each with a unique set of powers.

When you take one of the character actions – whether actively on your turn, or defensively in response to someone else’s action – that character’s action automatically succeeds unless an opponent challenges you. In this case, if you can’t reveal the appropriate character, you lose an influence, turning one of your characters face-up. Face-up characters cannot be used, and if both of your characters are face-up, you’re out of the game.

If you do have the character in question, you reveal it, the opponent loses an influence, then you shuffle that character into the deck and draw a new one, perhaps getting the same character again and perhaps not. The last player to still have influence – that is, a face-down character – wins the game!

No moderator, no elimination, ten-minute games.

One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a fast game for 3-10 players in which everyone gets a role: One of the dastardly Werewolves, the tricky Troublemaker, the helpful Seer, or one of a dozen different characters, each with a special ability. In the course of a single morning, your village will decide who is a werewolf…because all it takes is lynching one werewolf to win!

Because One Night Ultimate Werewolf is so fast, fun, and engaging, you’ll want to play it again and again, and no two games are ever the same.

Our very TWELFTH podcast has arrived! Twelfth doesn’t look like a proper word, does it? Twelfth. What are all those consonants doing? It sounds like a Lovecraft monster. So: Quinns is back from Board Game Geek con, and he’s fit to BURST with news of Nordic LARP, sinister physical games and a board game designer … Read more

The Shut Up & Sit Down Community Guidelines

Paul: Hi everyone.

We wanted to take a moment, between videos where we fall over and lewd reviews of bean-trading games, to set out some community guidelines.

We want this to be a safe, friendly, welcoming space for everyone. That means we’re queer-friendly. We won’t tolerate sexism, racism, bigotry, or any form of hate speech.

We’re so proud of our community. You’ve been fantastic, supportive, intelligent and contributed so much. Don’t see this as us saying we’re unhappy with you guys, only that Shut Up & Sit Down is growing faster than ever. It’s important to us that we set the tone and that everyone who comes here feels comfortable. You can help with that and, indeed, you already have. So much.

Quinns: Paul and I work in games media, but we’ve never seen a community as kind and respectful as you guys. Respect! On the internet! It’s a rare thing, and something we’ll be working to protect in our comments from here on.

If anything should bother you, please do email the contact address at the bottom of the site. That’ll reach us. Oh, and you’ll only need to stay shivering out in the comments for a bit longer. Your forum will be ready in the new year.

Thanks, everyone!

Paul: December arrives, and with it comes a large, old man dressed in red, banging on my door after midnight with one leather-gloved fist while another tightly clutches a ragged cloth sack that smells of old skin. The crazy hours I keep means I can’t begin to claim was anywhere near asleep, but as I hold open the door to let in the moonlight, the winter air and the sight of his craggy, crumpled face, I sourly ask him what he wants and what’s in the bag.

He strikes me across the bridge of the nose with the butt of a concealed weapon. “GAMES NEWS,” he bellows, his voice heavy with rum. I wake up tied to a chair in my living room. The man rants as he paces back and forth, my head throbbing in time with every syllable.

SU&SD’s Best Games For Your Family

Games News! 09/12/13

Cutthroat Caverns

Review: Cutthroat Caverns

PitchCar

Coup

One Night Ultimate Werewolf

Podcast #12: Quinns’ Holiday Crush

The Shut Up & Sit Down Community Guidelines

Games News! 2/12/13

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