Review: Guts of Glory

Review: Guts of Glory

Quinns: Full disclosure! Guts of Glory is the work of a couple of friends of mine, and their background isn’t in table gaming, but the prestigious New York game design scene. And you can tell.

The manual’s hilarious. The box has some kind of space age linen finish, and art that goes all the way around it. Most importantly, it’s a game with a theme that isn’t contemporary, historical, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, adventure or steampunk, which is something I can say about zero of the eighty games in my living room. Here, finally, is something inventive.

Guts of Glory is a post-apocalyptic, surrealist, competitive eating competition. A game of using motor oil to wash down boxes of spiders, or snatching an extra jaw from another player to help you chew a time machine. If that doesn’t intrigue you, my last recourse is the following line from the manual: “Play begins with the hungriest player. If there is a tie, play begins with the angriest player.”

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Designer Interview: Zach Gage

Designer Interview: Zach Gage

[Zach Gage is a New York-based game designer, artist and friend of SU&SD whose work recently saw a change in direction. After success in the App store with SpellTower and such high-profile experiments as a videogame that penalises failure by deleting files on your computer, he’s started working with table games. Guts of Glory is his post-apocalyptic eating contest, and is arriving very, very soon. We got in touch to find out where the shift came from.]

Quinns: Can you explain how the New York University Game Centre came to commission Guts of Glory?

Zach Gage: Sure thing!

Actually I think they wanted me to make a weird artsy game. They commission a few people each year, and typically, one of those people is the type of person who sometimes makes really odd games. Robin Arnott and Terry Cavanagh filled this roll in years past. I think Charles was expecting something closer to Lose/Lose or Killing Spree from me, the card game came a bit out of left field.

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The “Very Third” Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast

Paul: As well as bouncing between topics like a pinball between flippers, this is an important podcast for us for two reasons. First, we’re announcing an exciting thing and second, we’re also asking you, our audience, an important question about a decision we’re thinking of making. But we won’t make it without consulting you first. … Read more

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