Shut Up & Sit Down

The Amazing World of 1 Player Print’n’Play Games!

and a chapstick, your broken bathysphere, your ruined rutabagas, your hot lil' lonesome

It’s time for us to apologise the only way we know how. By smearing raw egg on Quinns.

If you caught the first instalment of our Solo Special, you’ll remember we didn’t always find 1 player games easy to recommend. But since then, Quinns has disappeared into the wild thicket that is absolutely free print’n’play solitaire games, and we’re not sure he’s coming out.

To get stuck in yourself, we recommend browsing the winners of BGG’s yearly print’n’play solitaire contest: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013.

Godspeed, folks! And do let us know what you find.

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GAMES NEWS! 27/04/20

LiBOOrary, Smartphone Incapacitation, Delicious Buttons, The Time Captain; First and Last of his Name

Tom: … and then once both of your time tokens reach the end of the track, the game is over! You’ll score based on the number of buttons you have left, and any empty spaces on your quilt will be scored negatively.

Mart Leez: When do I eat the buttons?

Ava: Mart, for goodness sake, if you’re going to be part of the team you’ll need to understand Patchwork, at least. We’ve been trying to teach you for a whole week, I’m starting to thi-

Mart Leez: Hello to the folks at home! This week we’ve got an exciting bunch of streams for you, fresh from the LeesCorp streampipe-

Tom: Ava why is it doing that

Mart Leez: This week we’ve got the final part of the Gloohaven stream, where the original LeesCorp drone will continue its sisyphean task, compiling the box in which it will eventually be buried. Tune in on Tuesday! Then, later in the week, we’ll be testing the machine-learning capabilities of our other models by continually achieving consensus. That’s right, it’s Wavelength with SU&SD, live on Thursday!

Ava: …

Tom: …

Mart Leez: Can I eat the buttons yet?

Ava: … that’s enough of Mart for today… Let’s power you down and get on with the news.

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The Great SU&SD Migration

Quinns: Shut Up & Sit Down is always experimenting. That means having to consider and reconsider which areas of the site are best serving us and our community.

While the Shut Up & Sit Down Discord, along with the Disqus comments under all of our articles and pages, remain places for folks to meet one another and connect, we’re announcing the closure of our hosted SU&SD forums on May 8th.

Matt: We’re immensely proud of all of the friendships and play-by-forum games that the forums have hatched over the years, to say nothing of the glitz and glamour of the Pearple’s Choice Awards – which we’ll keep hosting on the main site, and give it more prominence here in the future.

There are so many great memories to be found there, and we’d love to make this week a celebration of that fun. Why not post your favourite threads in the comments below?

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Podcast #108: Beatdown, Madness, Chaos in the Train

Right Turns Only In Japan, Rules Spaghetti, Escape! Quinns’ Office, Why does nobody call him Tricky Ricky

Look, I’m really sorry that I sat on the podcast intro music but what am I supposed to do, check every seat for audio files before I sit down? I know it’s a bit crushed and quiet, but if we give it enough love and care then it’ll spring back soon enough, I’m sure – and I can always do my own version of the music for the time being… Oh the podcast is meant to be out… today? I’ll see what I can do…

This podcast may contain traces of trains – perhaps more than a trace, even, as Matt and Quinns discuss both Russian Railroads and 1889: History of Shikoku Railways in the space of just one hour. I know, it’s all getting a bit exciting. Squashed between those discussions like a fun filling in a games sandwich, Tom yammers on about Calico, Pax Pamir 2e and Watergate; games that somehow all contain the same levels of tension and despair in spite of their wildly differing themes.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

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The Quiet Year – A Perfect Game for Isolation

A Deluge of Drawings, The Sinking of Squidtown, Fish Apologists, #relatable

Tom’s been dealing with isolation in the only way that anyone reasonably can: inventing ludicrous stories of wizards and tentacles, and then drawing them onto a fictional map and pretending that everything is totally fine. Find out why 2020 might be the perfect time to revisit The Quiet Year. Oh! And this is Tom’s first solo video – hasn’t he done well? What a nice young man, here’s 50 pence – don’t spend it all in once place.

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GAMES NEWS! 20/04/20

because that’s jersusalem artichokes anyway, Didn’t make ONE fartichoke joke, Something is rotten in the state of LeesCorp, unexpected actual news item in the bagging area

Ava: Who goes there?

Tom: Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

Ava: Oh thank god it’s you Tom, I thought I’d seen a ghost on the news-battlements.

Tom: Not this time, but I have had one pale figure looming over me on my rounds. Please enjoy a short word from our sponsors at LeesCorp.

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Our 1 Player Game Review Roundup!

orange you sad you saw me do that, loner fiesta, y(s)olo

WE NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD COME TO THIS.

After years of ragging on 1 player board games, it’s time for SU&SD to eat crow. It turns out that solitaire games can be fun, if they’re consumed in a rational and safe fashion. We’d wholeheartedly recommend Aerion, Kosmos’ new Adventure Game series, and then also in this video there is The Hunted: Twilight of the U-Boats.

Enjoy, everybody!

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GAMES NEWS! 13/04/2020

The return of the Newspipes, Science Junk, BREAKFASTRON, Freebies galore

Ava: Come on, we’ve got to get this news flowing or we’ll have nothing to report this week and people will be sad.

Tom: I’ll join you in just a moment. Matt’s busy demolishing me at Terra Mystica on BoardGameArena and I’ve got to focus all my energy on losing so that HE doesn’t feel sad.

Ava: It’s the important work. Especially when he pays my invoices and decides if our news is news enough.

Tom: Wait, Matt can see this? Oh cripes.

Ava: Did we ever bother telling you what an editor is?

Tom: Some kind of fruit?

Ava: Oh dear.

Matt: Hey now! I beat you with my darkling buddies FAIR AND SQUARE. Ooh, While I’m here – don’t forget we’re now streaming on Twitch every Thursday at 3pm UK time. It’s mostly just silly stuff with me on my own for now, but that will change soon, once I can work out how to do magic with wires. Anyway! Ava – do us some GAMES NEWS!

Ava: OK! Games News. In inevitably increasing multimedia empire news, some art got turned into a role playing game got turned into a telly show and now a board game.

Tales from the Loop is a cocktail of 80s nostalgia, weird sci fi and large mechs. The board game take on Simon Stålenhag’s moody artwork offers a selection of scenarios and adventures. Players take the role of kids playing detective and co-operating to solve some mystery or another caused by that eponymous underground particle accelerator.

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Podcast #107: The City of the Pork Shoulders

It’s Alive! With Tom Brewster, Storming! Hungry! Bowling!, Grandma Bonus, The Deafening Sound of Solo Silence

‘Ello ‘ello ‘ello, wot’s going on ‘ere then? Looks and sounds like there are three english men crammed inside one english cupboard talking about a series of “board games” from who knows where. That’s a recipe for disease-based disaster right there. City of the Big Shoulders? You’re certainly crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in here, though one of you is a bit smaller than the others. I’ve heard it’s as good an economic euro as any, though I, for one, prefer my commodity speculation games a little less beige. Last Bastion? I’ve heard that one’s a pretty dandy co-operative game, but personally I felt the fantasy redesign was a little lacking.

Wait, I swear on me nan’s ghost that I saw more games in here when I first burst in. Are you hiding ‘em? What’s that on there? Is that a game on your mobile device, Mr Lees? Is it Vlaada Chvatil’s classic tableau-builder, Through The Ages? You of all people should know those is contraband, as they remind people of ‘the time before’, when they could play games with their friends around their tables spreading all their germs. Not any more. You’re going to prison, but seen as we can’t go outside, I’m locking you in your own dishwasher. It’s for the best.

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

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GAMES NEWS! 06/04/20

Let’s kick some bubblegum, Cruisin’ for an Oozin’, Night at the Newseum, Cubes are not your friends

Tom: Whose idea was it to go steal from the Newseum during lockdown? It’s spooky and it feels, I don’t know, a little wrong to take advantage of a cultural site under public ownershi-

Ava: Shh… keep your voice down. This is where all the best news is kept, if we’re sneaky then we can get some good stuff to put in this week’s games news, and no-one will even know it’s missing until after lockdown. We’ll put it right back when we’re done!

Tom: I’ve only been here a few months, and already I’m doing heists! My contract said ‘all sorts of hijinks’, but I didn’t think we’d be doing actual newscrimes.

Ava: You should’ve read the small print. Hijinks is a very complicated part of contract law.

Tom: So I keep hearing.

Ava: Too big to not mention (even though we’ve mentioned it before), is the game with the biggest box and the coldest setting, which only makes me assume this Gloomhaven sequel will actually be a fully functional fridge.

Frosthaven, from Isaac Childres, is smashing through the millions as quickly as you’d expect the follow up to one of the most lauded games of the last decade. Now that pretty much everyone knows what’s in store from a Gloomhaven game (and if you don’t, check out Matt’s almost as enormous review) it’s no surprise this dungeon crawling, legacy behemoth is covered in big numbers.

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