Special Features 11 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Paul’s Nostalgia Trip

Imagine Paul sat by a crackling fire, speaking calmly to you in his warm, academic, almost mahogany voice…

In fifty years time I shall be a very wrinkly and very old man, but all the stats suggest I’ll still be very much alive and, I imagine, probably still playing board games too. I imagine myself sat with the odd youngster now and then, perhaps grandchildren, great nephews, or just
the odd whippersnapper who has tossed a coin in my cup and told me to get a job, but whoever it is I’m sure they’ll ask me what board games were like in my day.

“Board games?” I’ll ask, with a Santa-like twinkle in my eye, a Twainish bounce in my crazy-old-dude hair, “Oh, well it was all very different back then. They didn’t self-assemble, for a start. In fact, it was all something like this…”

“Why is everything going wobbly?!” the Dickensian sprog would cry. “I am afeared!”

“Worry not, tis but a flashback! A flashback to… TORPEDO RUN.”

Paul: If 2011 didn’t spoil us enough with board games, it looks like 2012 will. Below we present our top ten games coming this year. Ten whole games! That’s a towering collection, a veritable Cleopatra’s needle, so you lot had better start commissioning specially-constructed barges to ferry those needles home to you. Games barges. For these towering games needles. Yes.

One thing’s for sure, though. The most exciting games in the coming year are definitely something Quinns and I will both agreed on. Definitely.

Quinns: Oh, god. Let’s get this over with.

Quinns: There’s a WAR ON here at SU&SD. A disagreement of olympic proportions. You see, I think board games should be about interacting with one another, and Paul is an asshole. I’ll let him explain.

Paul: Quinns is not a fan of certain kinds of games. Worker placement games, games where the players are a bit more independent, or games where players are otherwise free to act without having to worry about one another. You know, all those great games like Runebound and Agricola, and a while ago he got mad at Stone Age. All those well-lived, charming, innovative games that are adored by millions. He’s going to try to explain why and he’ll flap more than an army of penguins. Watch.

Quinns: The other day I was perched on a windowsill and talking to myself. Nothing strange there, then, but what’s (comparably) interesting is what I was saying to myself. I was explaining the rules of a card game, as if to a group of first-time players. I had people coming over that evening and I wanted to make sure I could explain the rules as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Is this something you’ve ever done? Does it sound crazy to you, rehearsing a rules explanation? Well, look here. You wouldn’t invite over a group of friends only to have them find you sprawled on the sofa in your dressing gown, a hint of your genitals barely visible like some cowardly and as-yet uncatalogued subterranean mammal, would you? No. You respect these people too much to let them see you in such an embarrassing state of unpreparedness. So you should also respect them enough to be able to present those rules like a pro.

For me, writing and filming SU&SD is an exercise that frequently swings between excitement and painful nostalgia, a bit like a pendulum that strikes you in the balls on every arc. Or like one of those Newton’s Cradles that strikes you in the balls on every arc. Or like pretty much anything that strikes you in the balls regularly.

The problem I have is that every other game I want to talk about is a
game I don’t have. More than a few of them are games that I did have, but don’t have any more. It’s a sad state of affairs that all I have left of HeroQuest is the board, the dice and so many fading memories.

Well, I have even less left of Space Crusade, Games Workshop’s science fiction counterpart to HeroQuest, released a year later. I barely remember the components, or even how to play the game. Today, looking through old photos, I’ve been trying to remember and trying to avoid that metaphorical whack in the sack.

My mum’s attic is a narrow crawlspace some four feet high and seventy feet long. If you imagine poking around inside a building’s intestine, you’re most of the way there. I was up there the other month, scrambling around on my hands and knees and squinting through sweat and dust when I found exactly what I was looking for. A box containing my old copy of RoboRally. Hell yes!

Paul’s Nostalgia Trip

Excitement: The Top 10 Games Coming in 2012

It’s war: Player Interaction

Our guide to: Rules Explanations

Floating Round My Tin Can

Robot Rock

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