Alien Frontiers

Do you have what it takes to be a deep space colonist? An alien frontier awaits the brave and daring! This new planet will be harsh, but if you have the skills to manage your resources, build a fleet, research alien life, and settle colonies, the world can be yours.

Alien Frontiers is a game of resource management and planetary development for two to four players. During the game you will utilize orbital facilities and alien technology to build colony domes in strategic locations to control the newly discovered world.

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Podcast #99: Sea Football

Matt, Quinns and Ben are circling podcast #100 like talkative nerds circling a numerical drain. Quickly! Before they slip away, why not listen to them talk about the games? On this podcast there’s chat about party game We’re Doomed! (02:23), classic card game For Sale (10:00), 2010 smash hit Alien Frontiers (15:40), the enigmatic Wooly Wars (23:26), hot new box Air, Land & Sea (30:03) and Kickstarter behemoth Cerebria: The Inside World (40:11). There’s also a lovely reader mail this week asking which games have the best Endgame Energy. In news that continues to blow our minds, podcast transcripts are available here courtesy of our fabulous community, and are usually completed within a week of the podcast’s release. Also, if you’re a geologist who would like to contribute to our discussion of sand, please do leave a comment. We’re clearly idiots, and we need all the facts that we can get.

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GAMES NEWS! 30/01/17

Quinns: Oh my god, Paul, it’s awful. Did you seen the news over the weekend?

Paul: I did. What’s the world coming to?

Quinns: I don’t know, but I know we can’t stand for it.

Paul: You think so? I had no idea you felt so strongly about Reiner Knizia’s Ingenious being renamed AXIO Hexagonal.

Quinns: …Paul, did you turn on the TV over the weekend?

Paul: No, I got the weirdest feeling that it would be rather like blasting a jet of pure sadness square at my own face.

Quinns: Right. Yes.

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Feature: A Day in the Life of Quinns’ Game Collection!

Quinns: Ladies and gentlemen, roll up! It’s time for a new series where we take a look a team SU&SD’s board game collections. Come and see! Be amazed. Be aghast. Be envious. Comment with thought-provoking assertions like “why do you have that game it is bad”.

You guys will have seen my collection in the background of loads of SU&SD videos, but I don’t think you’ve seen the work that goes into it. Come with me today as I perform… a CULL.

But before that, let me show you my collection as it stands. It’s both completely ridiculous and not as ridiculous as you might think.

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Game Salute: A New Kind of Publisher?

Game Salute: A New Kind of Publisher?

Since our last foray into Actual Journalism was so well received (It was? — Mark.), we’ve decided to give it another go. This time, we take a look at Game Salute, a company headquartered deep in the hinterlands of New Hampshire, a state that somewhat resembles in shape a standard reference pear.

Game Salute styles itself as a new kind of publisher, one that does much more than handle marketing and fulfillment (fulfillment meaning “getting the game out to customers”, from receiving, to warehousing, secure storage, picking, packing, shipping, tracking, sales to stores globally and customer service).

Among the flexible services they offer are solutions for other publishers, and, intriguingly, managing Kickstarter campaigns, boasting such success stories as Alien Frontiers, as well as unique titles ranging from Chicken Caesar to Pixel Lincoln.

It was started as a response to the many pain points its CEO Dan Yarrington saw in the board game industry. To find out how the cure compares with the disease, we sent Actual Journalist Mark Wallace off to have a good long chat with Yarrington, and he came back (from a phone call, not from New Hampshire) with this exciting and informative Q&A!

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Games News! 13/05/13

Kickstarter for the 4th Edition

Quinns: Dearest disciples. Today, the doors of the great house of Fantasy Flight hath opened, bringing news of a GREAT MANY games (three).

Above you’ll see the forthcoming Wave Three ships for the X-Wing Miniatures game. According to my tome of Star Wars apocrapha, they’re… hang on, the pages are stuck together. Paul must be on the milkshakes again. OK we’ve got the deadly B-Wing and Kyle Katarn’s own HWK-290 for the Rebels, and a TIE Bomber and Lamba-class shuttle for the Imperials. Oh, I guess I could have just read the press release. Hmm.

I’ll be honest, I just check the Fantasy Flight homepage on a daily basis for Netrunner news. Like this! And this! Because it’s exciting to know which cards I’ll be failing to use properly next.

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Games news! 25/03/13

Love Letter

Quinns: We’re used to board games testing our brains, reflexes, even our privates. But lungs? That’s a new one.

Enter Antoine Bauza’s Rampage, which should be landing this year. Bauza’s one of our favourite designers here at SU&SD, having crafted 7 Wonders and Ghost Stories, both of which are capable of collapsing your face into deep thought like a strong man might fold a deck chair.

With Rampage, 2-4 players will be dropping their wooden kaiju monsters to crush buildings, blowing on civilians to claim their pathetic lives and even flicking themselves at one another in foul, animal anger. Doesn’t that sound perfect?

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The First Ever Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast

Paul: What is this?! Why, it’s the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast! At last, you can enjoy SU&SD while shelling crabs, or during an exceptionally banal bout of lovemaking. As our chat bubbles (and meanders) like a mountain stream, we touch on some of our viewer responses, beautiful hexagons, a dream about plants, some … Read more

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