Top 10 Games to Play with Your Family This Christmas

Matt: Hello! My name is Matt from Shut Up & Sit Down, and maybe you want to play a game with your family in the not too distant future.

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

Today we’re going to go through a bunch of games, most of which are available almost all of the time, because we appreciate it’s a pain in the *** when we say “hey, we love these games” and then you go on the internet and they’ve all gone.

Not only that, we are going to be giving you two options for each of our suggestions – we’re going to go with like “Yes! This is a great suggestion, everyone will love this. You cannot go wrong.” And we’re also going to give you a side suggestion for each game that’s a dash more spicy! And what do we mean by that? The second options will be the sort of thing where you start playing with your dad and then halfway through he says “I don’t understand the rules. I don’t like this. I want to go home.” “Dad, you can’t go home. This is your home. We’ve talked about this. And secondly, I love you, but gosh if you don’t understand how the game works just tell us before we get to the end?”

We got a big stack of games here and we’ve categorized them into all the different types of games that you might want to play. So feel free to just watch it all and pick a favorite, or scrub and jump around like an absolute maniac.

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How to Play RATS: High Tea at Sea

A banquet on a sinking ship can’t last forever, but there’s just enough time to prove yourself the most fabulous rat aboard! Each round you’ll be scavenging for supplies and competing with your honorable host in a most delightful competition of dishes and decorations – all the while forgetting that the ship is sinking beneath you!

Download the game here, or visit this page for half of your purchase to go to environmental charity – let’s make our cardboard addiction a more sustainable hobby together!

RATS: High Tea at Sea is a print & play, roll & write boardgame for 2-6 players that’s playable over the internet, in the same room, or a combination of the two! It is preposterously easy to learn and teach, but has sneaky twists and turns that will reveal themselves every time you play – a lovely little treat for whoever fancies climbing aboard.

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Review: Mystic Vale & bonus Mystic Crumble

mystic vale thumbnail

Ahh, is there anything more beautiful than that most classic of English summers? What about the so very gorgeous cards of Mystic Vale, cards you don’t just play, but cards you can build, piece by piece?

Intrigued? You bet you are! We took our two most experienced druids, Quinns and Matt (Paul is a bard), and we put them in a room with cards and crystals and radiant peaks. We asked them not only how it compares with our two very favourite card games, Trains and Arctic Scavengers, but if it’s capable of being as beautifully magical as the luscious Seasons.

Unfortunately, there was too much conjuration energy in that room.

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Review and a Recipe: Celestia and a Fluffy Frittata

Celestia

April 29, 2016 Reviews, The Opener Celestia, New to Games?, Quick Games It’s time once again for you to place your evening in our large, spindly hands. Following on from Arboretum and Pasta With Trees, why not invite your friends over for a game of Celestia and a fluffy frittata? Lovely push-your-luck mechanics? Check! Little cardboard … Read more

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Review and a Recipe: Arboretum and Pasta with Trees

Review and a Recipe: Arboretum and Pasta with Trees

The Opener returns! Everyone’s favourite series featuring a straightforward game paired with a sexy recipe. Except we’re not calling it The Opener any more, it’s just “review and a recipe”. Nice and simple! Just like the game. And the recipe. And Matt.

Don’t be deceived by that svelte little box, though. Not unlike the trees it depicts,Arboretum is beautiful, tough, and all about hidden depths.

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The Opener: Love Letter & Gingerbread Pears

The Opener: Love Letter & Gingerbread Pears

At last, we give the video treatment to one of Shut Up & Sit Down’s favourite games, Love Letter! On this Opener, Matt explains why this petite, elegant and excellent game is both an essential and a great way to introduce new people to the hobby.

It’s not just an excuse to dress up, not at all, and Matt actually has a very interesting story related to that.

It is an excuse to show you how to make gingerbread pears, perfect for any holiday season.

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The Opener: Sheriff of Nottingham & Chicken Apple Bread

The Opener: Sheriff of Nottingham & Chicken Apple Bread

The Opener returns with another game to get your friends into board gaming! This time it’s Sheriff of Nottingham. Would you like to see your mum smuggle five barrels of mead past your dad? Or watch your girlfriend get busted with a “cheese cart” full of crossbows? Of course you would.

This game’s got a history, actually. Originally a 2006 Brazilian release titled Jogo da Fronteira, it had little tin suitcases with players trying to smuggle cigars, tequila and ancient relics around South America. In 2011 it was rethemed as Robin Hood, before finally receiving yet another overhaul in this year’s Sheriff of Nottingham. The more you know!

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The Opener: Gravwell & Wicked Beans

The Opener: Gravwell & Wicked Beans

It’s an Opener! With Quinns! Has the world gone mad? No, but Gravwell definitely has. It’s a racing game set in the ninth dimension with no gravity except that created by your friends. And weirdest of all, it actually works!

And finally, two years after we first mentioned it, you guys are receiving the recipe for Quinns’ Wicked Beans. Enjoy, everybody!

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The Opener: Takenoko and a Hot Toddy

The Opener: Takenoko and a Hot Toddy

It’s not hard to catch SU&SD’s eye. An award on your box will do it. Or a panda! Or the colour pink. Or three-dimensional components. Or an inlay with phallic slots. In offering all five at once, though, Takenoko could have been made for us.

Is it a good Opener, though? The perfect game to open a friend’s mind to the wonders of board gaming like you were opening a cheap tin of brain-beans? Tell us, Matt! We have to know.

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The Opener: Pandemic, Expansions & Penicillin

The Opener: Pandemic

The Opener is back with another perfect game to start your board game night, your collection, or set your friends down the Cardboard Path. It’s Pandemic and penicillin! Meaning a whiskey cocktail called a penicillin. Going to your friends’ house and eating their mold colonies is not only unpalatable, it’s quite rude.

It might sound less attractive than Skull & Roses with fresh pizza, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a great game of Pandemic. Catching that redeye flight to Seoul, praying you can prevent an outbreak? Driving around Africa, crates of your precious cure rattling around in the back of your jeep? That’s the good stuff, and it gets even better with Pandemic: On the Brink, and even more nightmarish with Pandemic: In the Lab.

G’wan! Treat yourself and pick up a copy. No other game is this tense and rich, and yet this accessible.

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