Space Lions: The Story of Twilight Imperium

We’ve come a long way, baby!

Six years ago SU&SD published a review of the grand, weird game of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition. Today, we present a first for the board game industry. Please enjoy our amateur attempt at a documentary on the history of the game – which is really the history of Fantasy Flight Games – and the development of the new, shiny, 4th edition. Huge thanks to our donors, without whom this project (which we started work on back in 2015!) would never, ever have been possible.

As you buckle your seatbelt for this ride through time and outer space, please bear in mind that the doc doesn’t cover the nitty-gritty of game mechanics that have changed from 3rd to 4th edition. We’ll be covering that in our forthcoming review of Twilight Imperium 4th ed, which Quinns will be creating since he had almost no involvement in the doc.

Instead, we tried to make the documentary of broader interest, so please consider sharing it with board game-curious friends. Or just tell your mum it’s Netflix? That might work.

Enjoy, everybody!

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Review: Bärenpark

August 19, 2017 Reviews barenpark, bears, SU&SD Recommends, Quick Games, New to Games? It was bound to happen sooner or later. Even if we’d tried, if we’d deployed all the forces at our command, we’d never have been able to keep Paul away from reviewing Bärenpark. It’s a tile-laying game and it features bears. The best … Read more

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Announcing the SU&SD Twilight Imperium Mini-Doc!

Big news everyone! Fantasy Flight Games have just announced a new edition of their galaxy-sized flagship game, Twilight Imperium. Which means we can announce something of our own… !

Here at Shut Up & Sit Down we’ve been huge fans of Twilight Imperium since we reviewed the 3rd edition all those years ago. It’s the grandest, silliest game that we know; an epic brawl featuring everything from capitalist cats to a race of sentient vegetables. So back in 2014 we got to talking with owner of Fantasy Flight and original designer of TI Christian Peterson, one thing led to another, and we agreed to document the process of making TI 4th edition.

How do you go about making the grandest board game in the world even more grand? Find out later this month!

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Review: Terraforming Mars

For many board gamers, Matt Damon wasn’t the biggest imaginary thing to happen on Mars in 2016. That honour belongs to Terraforming Mars, a game so popular that the publishers have already announced four expansions!

But what will we make of this smash hit? As Matt Damon said so aptly last year, “Wrap your face flaps around this! Mine’s a lumpy one.”

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Review: Secrets

What’s the new hidden role game that’s got SU&SD buzzing? That’s full of laughs and surprises whether you play it with 4 players, all the way to 8? That has the single nicest components that Quinns has EVER TOUCHED?

We couldn’t possibly say. Those are Secrets, you see.

Please note that Secrets isn’t out yet, and arrives in shops in August. If you’re interested, we recommend contacting your friendly local game shop and asking to place a pre-order.

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Announcing our 2017 Summer pledge drive!

Hello everybody! It’s been 17 videos, 14 podcasts and 55 articles since we asked our audience for donations in (who could forget?) our Christmas advert.

Today, we’re once again asking you to give as much or as little as you can afford. Please, click here (or if you’d prefer, click the seductive, golden button in the upper-right) to join the thousands of people who’ve donated to SU&SD in the past, paying us to keep working, and to keep finding great games.

The above video says it all, but two things bear repeating. First off, we’re putting up two videos in the next two weeks to make up for starting the pledge drive today. And second, we really are confident that the next six months will be the greatest in the site’s history. There is so much cool stuff coming up.

We hope you’re having a great summer, and thanks for sticking with us for just over six years of Shut Up & Sit Down.

Who wants another six?

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Review: Near and Far

July 8, 2017 Reviews Near and Far, New to Games? Paul has been hankering to try Ryan Laukat’s Near and Far for over a year now, but being a Kickstarter release, all the world’s copies only went out to backers, right? Wrong! Hearing that this game of epic adventure and dangerous expeditions was now out in … Read more

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Review: Tigris & Euphrates

June 23, 2017 Reviews Tigris & Euphrates, Heavy Games, SU&SD Recommends Everybody, it’s the most wonderful time of the year! We of course refer to the Annual Summer Goodtime Tile-Based Reinerstravaganza, and this year the star of the show is the new Windrider edition of Reiner’s 1997 classic, Tigris & Euphrates. Don’t know who Reiner is? … Read more

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Review: Imperial 2030

June 9, 2017 Reviews Imperial 2030, Heavy Games, SU&SD Recommends Money! Money makes the world go round. Money also makes factories, fleets and armies that around that world and bash each other to bits, at least that’s according to Imperial 2030! But is it really all about war? Just because it looks like Risk and … Read more

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