This week on Shut Up & Sit Down…

The Lawyers Are Coming, There's Also An LCDSS Song That Works, Everything's Good In CarnegieTown

Tom:  Hello! HELLO?! Is this the games news? I think I might have gotten lost somewhere on the route from Videoville to Stream-On-Thames and ended up here, of all places. The void betwixt the content. The great unknown. The endless woods of anticipation. What’s to be found in this unhinged time-limbo? I’ve just caught a glimpse of the video  from Quinns that we’ll be publishing on Wednesday, a review of an excellent game whose title can be sung to the tune of the very best ‘Track 9’ on my 3rd favourite Parquet Courts record? Have fun decoding that one, SUCKERS. We’re not sharing our video secrets THAT easily. And what’s that? In the distance? A crowd of lost souls chanting ‘RAISE’? ‘YOUR’? ‘LAWYERS’? The people have demanded it, and we must provide it  – on Tuesday we’ll have a full-length technicolour stream of legal simulation Lawyer Up. It’ll be confusing and amusing! I’m excited to play it, and equally scared that I have to teach it. Last, but not least, please feel free to take a seat inside the Podcastle this Friday for an exhaustive (exhausting?) ramble about Carnegie – a game that contains nary a trace of Union-Busting. Just like the man himself would have wanted. Whew. That’s ‘this week’ over here sorted. I’m knackered already.

Read More
94 Comments

Podcast #128 – In The Pocket Of Big Vampire

Is that twelve games in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?, Vitamin V, You Have Just Got Beansed

In the unbelievably 128th podcast we spend a surprisingly long time chatting about Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta, a game with as much blood as it’s got colons! This pink-hued game doesn’t take a rose-tinted view of the source material, which Quinns and Matt get deep into a big nostalgia blanket for. How sweet! Eventually we might even talk about the game. We wrap up with some racist beans, and a surprising experiment with Tom’s pockets!

Have a lovely weekend!

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

Read more

Leave a comment

Review: Oceans

The Big Blue Wet Thing, terror from the deep, poor little bobbit

Splish splosh, splish splish splosh. It’s time to get SALTY! This week’s review sees Matt diving into Oceans – sadly not in real life as he lives in central London. Wrong time of year, too – frankly. Enjoy!

Read More
Leave a comment

This week on Shut Up & Sit Down…

Life’s a vendetta, down where it’s wetter

Ava: Greetings humans and gentleworms! Welcome to a whole new week at Shut Up and Sit Down, the website where humans turn board games into thoughts that we blast directly into your ears and eyes. This week is the last week in January, objectively the worst month of the year, and we’re nearly through it! Well done folks, we did it together. Try not to look directly into the eyes of February, a month that would technically be worse if it wasn’t a whole three days shorter. How are we going to get you through the final Jan-stretch? Well, on Tuesday, we’re going to be streaming our porkiest stream yet, a game of City of the Big Shoulders, an economic cube pushing game with some of the stock market shenanigans of the baffling board game sub-genre known as 18xx. I have no idea how it works so I’m likely going to be thrashed by Matt and Tom, what a treat! Wednesday is review day, and I’m permitted to tell you that it’s likely to be the wettest review of the year so far. Matt will be serving up a platter of opinions that shouldn’t actually make you wet, but you do you. Finally, we’ll wrap up the week with our traditional podcast, our tentpole discussion this week is Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta, a game we tried on stream and I quite liked but was worried it might be a little unbalanced. What will Quinns, Matt and Tom think? I’ll find out when I start editing the podbeast, but you’ll have to wait until Friday. What lovely bit of anticipation for you. Aren’t you lucky! So everybody, tell me, what’s been getting you through the chilliest, toughest time of the year? Or if you’re in the southern hemisphere, what can you tell me about summer? Is it really real?

Read More
54 Comments

Podcast #127 – Dune Imperium: Matt Lees vs. The People

Dune: The Desert Planet, Dune: The Dorito Planet, Dune: The Salt Planet

In this garishly 127th episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Matt, Tom and Ava have a meandering little chat-a-thon about Dune Imperium – a spicy hot game that at least two of the folks on the podcast… aren’t all that hot for. I bet you can’t guess who.

We’re trying a bunch of new formats to see what fits in our new world of weekly pods – so, as always, your thoughts and feelings are appreciated.

Have a lovely weekend!

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

Read more

Leave a comment

Review: 10* Button Shy* Games in 10* Minutes!

‘The Alligator’, A Crypt in Poor Taste, Villainous Plants, Animils, Red Red Wine

Initially the pitch for this video was 10 reviews overlapping one-another all at the same time, providing a sort of ‘dreamscape’ where the viewer doesn’t know exactly what they just watched; but instead have a strong sense-memory of really enjoying about half the games.

Instead, this. It’s probably more confusing, and it put me (Tom) into a slight frenzy. I’m now going to have a very long lie-down. Good luck!

Should you desire it, Button Shy’s games can be purchased through their website! Don’t pay them after dark though, or else something something gremlins reference.

Read More
Leave a comment

This week on Shut Up & Sit Down…

just put it in your pocket, beany babes, spicy worms

Matt: Hello and welcome to MONDAY! Gosh, what a peach! It’s grey outside my window but the inside of my heart is a vibrant orange. Honestly, I should see a doctor! This week will kick off properly tomorrow: in reaction to last friday’s podcast celebrating the work of Uwe Rosenberg, we’re hopping onto Twitch to play a game of Excalibohn: the delightfully arthurian-themed twist on the bean-based card game Bohnanza. If you’re in the mood for chilling with us while we’re undoubtedly silly, tune in. On Wednesday you can look forward to a video from Tom that features more tiny games than you can wobble a huge stick at, before finally this Friday you can look forward to an episode of the podcast that’s entirely about Dune Imperium. I believe the podcast is tentatively titled “Matt Lees vs The People”, but I refuse to spill the beans any further than that. That’s double-beans so far, so let’s go for the triple: what kind of beans are your favourite beans?

Read More
72 Comments

Podcast #126 – Who is Mr Uwe, and What Does He Want?

A Feast of Beans, Talkin ‘bout the Olds, 15 Secret Hops and Spices, The Ugliest Artwork Ever Conceived

In this frighteningly 126th episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Ava and Quinns try their very own best to convince our very own Tom to play their favourite Uwe’s. What’s an Uwe? I thought it was a big sheep, but I’ve been wrong before.

But before the great Uwe Showdown – where we discuss games as great and diverse as Nusfjord, Glass Road, A Feast for Odin and Le Havre – we first have a neat little discussion about Hallertau; the biggest and bumpiest box of bricks, bits and bobs that Germany has EVER seen. Does it live up to the hype? What’s the bottom line? And most importantly… How many beans?

We tried to keep this one shorter, as per the new podcast-a-week project, and we failed miserably! Please enjoy our nonsense rambling for close to an hour, until we start to get knackered.

Have a lovely weekend!

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

Read more

Leave a comment

Review: Rococo Deluxe

a basket of bats, completely stitched up, what are clothes made of

Goodness gracious, we’re starting our 2021 video reviews with a… well, not a bang, exactly. A bang would be gauche.

Rococo Deluxe is a swanky new edition of hit 2013 board game Rococo that also plays host to the old game’s Jewellery Box expansion and all sorts of little extras.  Seven years later, will we still find Rococo to be elegant and classy? Or will it have become dusty and old-fashioned?

Click play, and find out.

Read More
Leave a comment

This week on Shut Up & Sit Down…

wampires, an empowered pod, frost damage

Quinns: Hello everybody! Welcome to our new look Monday post. Today, with a heavy heart I must announce that after many years of faithful service, the Games News is being retired. This will be sad news for its regular readers, but the Games News demanded a tremendous amount of work from our team while outright refusing – and you’ve got to hand it to the ol’ Games News here – to ever grow in popularity. So this year, instead of doing the Monday news our team will be redoubling its efforts to make more of the stuff you like, as well as taking the time to come up with brand new features. Instead, on Monday we’re going to be doing these nifty little posts checking in with our community and teasing what we’ve got coming up that week. For example: On Tuesday of this week (tomorrow!) head over to our Twitch page to watch us play the new and pleasingly mauve-coloured card game Vampire: The Masquerade – Vendetta. On Wednesday I’ll be presenting our first video review of the year, a eurogame that Shut Up & Sit Down donors will already have heard me squeaking about in our behind-the-scenes newsletter. Then on Friday you can look forward to podcast #126, which was a LOT of fun to record- Tom, Ava and myself discussed the new Uwe Rosenberg game Hallertau, and then spent the whole rest of the podcast discussing which Rosenberg games Tom should play. But enough about us! What did you get up to this weekend, everybody?

Read More
90 Comments