Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: Fungi

death, butter, vomiting, secrecy, jealousy, everything you need for a lovely day out

Good news, everyone! Supremely talented game reviewers and SU&SD contributors Philippa Warr and Chris Thursten are going to be working together on SU&SD reviews. Like butter and mushrooms, we’re sure you’ll all agree that this is a tasty combination and (probably?) not at all poisonous.

Pip: CHRIS! You know how I’ve always wanted to go mushrooming but was afraid I would kill us all by accident? Well, GOOD NEWS! With Fungi we can now do this from the safety of the living room table and no-one needs to die at all.

Chris: Nobody needs to die, but somebody needs to win. This is because mushrooming is an intensely passive-aggressive competitive exercise, obviously.

Pip: Only when someone decides to take all of the frying pans. Well, the joke’s on you this time because I brought my own frying pan which I found in the kitchen. There is literally nothing in the rules that says I can’t.

Chris: This is because everybody starts with a pan. One pan. On a card. You can sub in your (my, actually) real pan if you like, but that would be purely an act of roleplay. And this is no time for roleplay, Pip. This is time for passive-aggressive competitive mushroom maths.

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How to Play Arctic Scavengers!

a lack of food, a lack of mercy, an understanding matt

Public service announcement: 2009’s Arctic Scavengers isn’t simply still a great game. It might still be the greatest game to ever let players slip cards into their personal deck and go “Ooh, this feels a bit nice.” And if you’re new here, you should know that that’s a hotly contested genre.

If you missed our extensive coverage of this frosty classic you’ll find Quinns’ original video review here and his investigation of 2015’s Recon expansion here. And remember, you can now get the base game and the Recon expansion in a single box! You scream, I scream, we all scream for icy warfare.

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Review: Power Grid Deluxe & The Stock Companies Expansion

stripping down, laser tag, star trek voyager, eats

Hold onto your hardhats! Power Grid was one of the first reviews SU&SD ever did (archivists will find that ancient episode here), and now Quinns has returned with yet more hot air, desperate to expunge his thoughts as if he were a dirty old steam turbine.

This time around we’re reviewing the “deluxe” 10th anniversary edition, as well as the new The Stock Companies expansion that’s compatible with either edition of the game. Has this classic still got what it takes, or is it fossil fuel?

(That blast of dance music half-way through the video is Showdown by F.O.O.L.)

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Podcast #42: Fairytale in North Korea

mythic Australians, the assassination of mickey mouse by the coward quintin smith, germs

Strap on your jackboots! It’s time for a veritable military parade of a podcast, impressive and pacy but nonetheless going on for slightly too long. Games covered include A Feast to Die For, Quadropolis, Fairy Tale, Pandemic: Contagion and Dear Leader, as well as the long-awaited second half of our spoiler-filled Pandemic Legacy chat! Don’t worry about that particular minefield. It’s very clearly signposted at the end of the podcast. Following a startlingly unprofessional link from Paul, we eventually manage to produce a folk game and some fan mail, too. Enjoy, everybody!

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Games News! 13/06/16

hey look a dungeons and dragons ride, your pustules, are the army even allowed to do jokes

Paul: Hello and welcome to a very fresh and very exciting Games News! Today I shall bungee from the precipice of journalism deep into the chasm of news, bouncing back upward with only the most thrilling of scoops, the choicest tidbits of board game gossip, the tastiest morsels for your so very particular palate. Does latter suggest that I’m actually dropping out of the sky to snatch at food, like a snickering seagull? Well, I suppose that would be the killjoy’s way of putting it.

Anyway! Let’s kick off with some good old-fashioned wooden chunks.

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Review: Mystic Vale & bonus Mystic Crumble

having a bear, druid dealing, whale song, assisted by the gods of the volcano

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: Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear

a cartoon buzzing, a non-existent bear, a wet firewalker, a nonsense

Thrower: Why don’t you play wargames? Why, after all I’ve forced SU&SD to publish about them at gunpoint, have you not pressed the nuclear button on this this amazing corner of our hobby? There’s lots of reasons I can think of. Possibly it’s their rumoured rules complexity. Maybe the focus on simulating men being sad in some mud. Or perhaps it’s the drab art and thin components?

WELL, I’ve got a game for you with none of that! It’s called Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear (a series you might remember from my primer on wargames or my article on the best introductory wargames) and Academy Games made it just for you. Yes, you. The publisher even said so on its sister game, Storms of Steel. “The historical wargame that Eurogamers love to play,” was the actual marketing copy.

You can smell the difference between CoH and typical wargames the second you open the lid. It’s the faint scent of solvents from the decadent, multi-coloured printing used on the mounted boards and fat counters. Oddly-named German tanks rumble around in the box. You can even see a flamethrower doing what flamethrowers do in slightly more detail than you probably want. Alas, in spite of the name, there are no actual bears.

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Games News! 06/06/16

boatylicious boats, paul's broken jungle, wooden lemons

Quinns: Exhausted from the UK Games Expo, I have slithered up to my desk with a biscuit and a cup of tea to write the news. Huge thanks to everyone who came along to our live shows, played a part in our live review or witnessed our epic game of Question Wood Toy Folds High. If you weren’t there, not to worry! All will be posted on this site in good time.

As for the spicy slivers of news I’ll be dishing up like a powerful dad, we begin with the announcement of 2016’s Spiel des Jahres nominations! A shadowy council of German board gamers has once again met to hand out board gaming’s most prestigious award, and the only one that can multiply a game’s sales 100 times over. But this year we’ve played all the nominees!

I wonder what we shall think…

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Review: Quadropolis

the furtive pigeon, the exciting office, the bechstein's bat, so easily forgotten

June 3, 2016 Reviews Quadropolis, SU&SD Recommends, New to Games?, Conflict-Free Games, Quick Games, Games for Two HOT TAMALE-BEANS! It’s Quinns with a Shut Up & Sit Down review of Quadropolis! Who could have guessed I am writing this from the UK Games Expo we just did a live podcast and I’ve got no energy … Read more

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Podcast #41: Misery, farkles and Soren Johnson

sexy space cops, sexy church games, bad dryads, wizard martinis

Psst! Down here! Climb into this cramped cave of chat with us. There’s room for one more person. In what could well be our most feature-filled podcast ever, Matt, Paul and Quinns discuss Torchbearer, Merchant of Venus, Dragon Farkle, The Red Dragon Inn and the concept of playing board games in virtual reality, before getting down to (yet another) peculiarly erotic folk game. But wait! There’s more! Quinns snagged video game designer Soren Johnson of Offworld Trading Company to discuss civilisation-building and trading board games. Enjoy, everybody.

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