Paul: We’re back from Minneapolis! And what a trip it was. We had a terrific time at Worlds, Fantasy Flight Games’ annual championships, watching hundreds of skilled players compete to for the title of the best of the best in games like Netrunner, Imperial Assault and X-Wing. It was also our chance to get first-hand experience with Star Wars: Rebellion, Wave 2 of Armada and the latest editions of both Runebound and Fury of Dracula.
BUT ALSO it was a chance for other people to make videos about us (for a change!) and this week we want to link you to two interviews we gave.
The first comes courtesy of the fabulous Team Covenant, who sat down to talk to us about everything from the future of board games, to making the hobby inclusive, to the unfortunate fate of some plastic Nazi paratroopers.
Later, as Worlds was coming to a close Fantasy Flight’s own enormously hard-working Cynthia Hornbeck, interviewed us live even as the convention was dismantled around us (and it’s not often you can say you see something like that). The interview begins almost exactly five hours into this stream. Do excuse the occasional microphone fuzz, but that’s all part of the drama of a live broadcast. (Sadly, I can’t find a way to embed this video with Twitch enthusiastically autoplaying many hours of Imperial Assault.)
Want more Worlds? You can watch Fantasy Flight’s voluminous convention coverage on their Twitch page and, while I’m here, I’d all like to thank them again for their very professional help and hospitality at Worlds. They’re a credit to a growing industry.
Everyone and their dog wants Shut Up & Sit Down to come to their convention and, believe me, flying, accommodating and feeding a team of people is expensive, especially for a site with an extremely modest budget. While this sort of thing is commonplace outside of the budding business that is board game media, Fantasy Flight have been the only people so far to offer any help (full disclosure: they provided us with accommodation and gave us access to games) and it makes it much easier for us to provide good coverage, to try new things and generally to just do our job. Remember, Shut Up & Sit Down doesn’t carry adverts or any kind of sponsored or paid-for content, relying almost entirely on donations. We’re always making very careful choices about where we go and what we cover.
I’d also like to extend our congratulations to all the winners and our good wishes to all the attendees! Worlds was another reminder of how friendly, positive and enthusiastic the board gaming community is.
We’ll catch you all next week, when things will be back to normal. In the meantime, I’m going to be playing a little more Loopin’ Chewie and trying to get some much-needed sleep. Have a fine weekend.
