Podcast #106: The Very First Quarantine Special

Welcome to the loosiest, goosiest episode of the Shut Up and Sit Down podcast yet, where three adults try to have a conversation via the internet without talking over each other all of the time. Experience the mixed results contained therein! Marvel at how 5 games are spread thinly over an hour of your life, like existential marmalade made of cardboard and opinions. What games, specifically – I hear you roar? I was getting there, no need to get impatient.

This week we’re bobbing around on an ocean of average in Flotilla, drinking some questionably garnered tea in Alubari: A Nice Cup Of Tea, and pelting druids with rocks in Cairn. Sandwiched amidst these activities one can find a brief segue through the eccentric Tokyo Game Show, and a brief visit to the ancient tabletop colossus that is The Castles of Burgundy. Also in this podcast: meandering chats about how the team is faring under quarantine, and a few brief teases of potential bread-based content.

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

Read more

Podcast #98: Seize My Silky Rails

Having just arrived back from Belgium’s fantastic Zomerspel tabletop convention, Matt and Quinns were inspired by Belgian chips to create this episode of our award-winning podcast. It’s long, crunchy, filling and if you eat nothing except this podcast then you will probably die? Games discussed in this episode include the fascinating Taverns of Tiefan Thal (01:51), the taut little Feld game Carpe Diem (13:48), the simple-yet-delightful Luxor (26:47), the gross-yet-charming Silk (33:13) and the simply superb Rail Pass (49:37). Matt and Quinns also discuss some of the video reviews they’ve been working on, including Pipeline (1:00:58) and Too Many Bones (1:06:54). Enjoy, everybody!

Read More

GAMES NEWS! 11/02/19

Matt: Good morning, Quintin! I awaken from a vivid dream in which the twist at the end of Return of the Jedi was that the whole thing was entirely being imagined by a man called Ryan who worked in Market Research, who was having a fantasy about what it might be like to be a smuggler called “Han Solo”.

And now – as if by space magic – I’m being thrown straight back into Star Wars again. Another game in the genre of Firefly, Merchant of Venus, or Xia: Legends of a Drift System – Star Wars: Outer Rim sees players competing to be the cream of the galaxy’s scum and villainy. Flying around space, smuggling goods, hiring recognisable crew members and reasonably frequently rolling some dice.

Quinns: Let us apply Occam’s Razor. Is the simplest possible explanation here that you, Matt Lees, created this game in a dream?

Matt: Yes

Read more

Our Shopping Guide to the Best Cheap Board Games!

Paul: Hot summer strawberries! It’s the middle of August, the sun is (sometimes) in the sky (here it’s mostly just windy) and this is the season that you finally get into board games. It’s an intimidating prospect: you’ve eyed those enormous boxes on the shelves with price tags that would make a banker blush, but this really doesn’t have to be a hobby that destroys your wallet.

Wait! What’s that noise? An approaching siren? An… ice cream van?! It’s me pedalling furiously toward you in the Shut Up & Sit Down Budget Bus, adding a host of surprising prices in this sequel to our indispensable article, How To Build an Amazing Board Game Collection for $10. GET ON BOARD.

Read more

SU&SD Take on The Board Game Geek Top 100: 20-11

Imperial Assault: Joining the Dark Sidekick

Quinns: Matt, we have to abort this feature! Reddit’s disapproval is reaching critical levels.

Matt: That’s not the Reddit alarm, that’s my egg timer. I’m making everybody lunchtime eggs to keep up our strength.

Quinns: Wow! I could kiss you.

Matt: Don’t kiss on me, daddy-oats, kiss on these great games.

Read More

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.

Read more

SU&SD’s Top 50 Games Ever, 2015! #50 to #41

SU&SD's Top 50 Games Ever, 2015! #50 to #41

Quinns: RETRIEVE YOUR OFFICIAL SU&SD-BRANDED MOIST TOWELETTES! It’s about to get hot in here.

Last year we presented something never-before-seen in board games. Our Top 25 Board Games, Ever was a list of our most favourite games ordered from least-most favourite to most-most favourite. Ever since then, the SU&SD Supercomputer has been calculating a method by which we could possibly top this. Last week, it provided a schematic for something… incredible.

The science behind the following Top 50 is complicated, but in layman’s terms we’ll be “publishing” “instalments” every day this week, and beyond(!).

Enjoy, everybody.

Read More

Our Belated Top 5 Games Of 2012

A Few Acres of Snow

Paul: How’s your tux?

Quinns: A little tight. How’s yours?

Paul: I went with the dress. It was cheaper. HELLO, ladies and
gentlemen, boys and antiboys. It’s time for our top 5 games of 2012, which will almost certainly be as well-organised and halcyon as our top 10 Upcoming Games of 2012 feature, which ended up being 14 games, none of which we agreed on.

Quinns: Step this way, banishing all preconceptions from your mind, AND ALSO any thoughts that this feature is three months later. And let’s kick things off with…

Read More

Review: The Castles of Burgundy

Review: The Castles of Burgundy

Paul: Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, Jesus! That looks like the lovechild of a maths textbook and hotel room art. I’m not having that in my house.”

Hold on. The Castles of Burgundy, which casts 2-4 players as the holders of estates in medieval France, has the whole board game community bleating with quiet joy. We absolutely had to get hold of a copy and try it out. You know what? I actually think it’s quite special, too, although I appreciate it’s such a placid, thoughtful, deeply European game that it won’t be Quinns’s kind of thing. Still-

Quinns: No, no, I really like it.

Paul: You do?

Quinns: Yeah, it’s excellent.

Paul: But-

Quinns: And here’s why!

Read More