Shut Up & Sit Down

Podcast #99: Sea Football

how small is sand?, which sheeps are you?, and how do i anxiety?

Matt, Quinns and Ben are circling podcast #100 like talkative nerds circling a numerical drain. Quickly! Before they slip away, why not listen to them talk about the games? On this podcast there’s chat about party game We’re Doomed! (02:23), classic card game For Sale (10:00), 2010 smash hit Alien Frontiers (15:40), the enigmatic Wooly Wars (23:26), hot new box Air, Land & Sea (30:03) and Kickstarter behemoth Cerebria: The Inside World (40:11). There’s also a lovely reader mail this week asking which games have the best Endgame Energy. In news that continues to blow our minds, podcast transcripts are available here courtesy of our fabulous community, and are usually completed within a week of the podcast’s release. Also, if you’re a geologist who would like to contribute to our discussion of sand, please do leave a comment. We’re clearly idiots, and we need all the facts that we can get.

Tactics and Tactility #1 – On going with your gut

numerical tentacles, agonising mistakes, and switching off the targeting computer

[Introducing a new bi-weekly column! In Tactics & Tactility, Ava Foxfort will be exploring the culture and magic of tabletop, accompanied by fabulous illustrator Tom Humberstone. The series began its life on this blog, and we feel privileged to offer it a new home.]

Ava: I can see all the numbers in front of me. Power Grid lays out every variable incredibly clearly. So many numbers, spread out in stout cables across the board, paper money rustling in my hand, and adorable little power stations. Every number is ready for taking, and there’s just no way I can get them all into my head.

Good evening, folks, it’s time to watch my brain slowly crumble.

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GAMES NEWS! 12/08/19

damaged dungarees, pseudo-wizards, Sneezing diamonds, zero player games

Ava: Quinns, you’re looking a bit peaky today?

Ben (he/him): Erm…

Ava: Wait a second, you’re not Quinns! You’re three interns standing on each other’s shoulders in a long jacket!

Ben: We tried that, and we still weren’t tall enough to pass as the real Quinns. As a fresh new intern I’m contractually obliged to replace Quinns where required, whether that is providing irreverent board game news commentary or tasting any food he eats to check for poison.

Ava: Well then, unQuinns, let’s get you a past sell-by-date sandwich, a mop and a big bucket of news. There’s work to be done!

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Announcing our Summer Donation Drive!

keeping the lights on, not all the time though, that would be bad for the planet

Quinns: Hello, everybody. It’s that time again!

Twice a year, our team here at Shut Up & Sit Down requests donations for all of the heartfelt stuff that we’ve made over the last six months. You can donate using this very link.

We don’t like to bother our audience about it, but the fact is, Shut Up & Sit Down runs almost entirely on donations. It sounds improbable, but it does work. If you’ve not gotten involved yet, and you can afford it, perhaps this could be the Summer that you make a pledge?

If you’ve supported us at some point over the last eight years(!), I can’t tell you what a difference it’s made to us. This is the best job that any of us have ever made, and we hope that we’ve shown our dedication to paying it forward.

Have a great weekend, everybody. And thank you.

Review: Le Havre

scream-induction, a medium-sized war, the grand ham, fugly rangin'

Ava: Le Havre could be the perfect resource shuffling game. It’s a tightly wound knot of decisions and possibilities, that unfurls and unwraps as you play.

An elaborate and ever-increasing roster of buildings offers ways to process, use, acquire and sell as many goods as you can. Tiny, square, double-sided tokens flood the board, spilling out of warehouses that heave with potential, begging for you to grab them before someone else does.

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GAMES NEWS! 06/08/19

chewy deets, Av-Ra, keyforge meets love island, a grand slurry

Ava: Quinns, is it getting hot in here, or have I just taken off all my clothes.

Quinns: Hopefully neither, it’s just that the site has been redesigned! And not unlike a person who’s taken off their clothes, the site is now smoother, sexier, and (most importantly) faster.

Ava: Ooh. It’s like you’ve snuck into my bedroom and tidied everything up. But not in a creepy way!

Quinns: I’m glad you’re feeling good, because it’s time for us to jump into the grand slurry of news which came out of GenCon. Hold your nose!

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Review: Kemet: Seth and Kemet: Ta-Seti

grey baby quinns, putting the khonsu into khonsu see that's a terrible idea

What’s great? Killing your friends in the desert. What’s better? Doing it with robust publisher support.

In this review Matt tackles not one, but TWO expansions for magical wargame Kemet. There’s Kemet: Ta-Seti, which adds a range of exotic Egyptian modules, and Kemet: Seth, which transforms Kemet into an imbalanced, all-versus-one tale of Evil vs. Much Bigger Evil.

For more coverage of this amazing series, be sure to check out our review of Inis as well as the two best Cyclades expansions- Cyclades: Hades and Cyclades: Titans.

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GAMES NEWS! 29/07/19

trdvng, t r u d v a n g, trud vang, trudvang, troodvank

Ava: It’s Gencon this week, and do you know what that means? We’ve got to get in the news-canoe, sail to the heart of a newsicane, going right by a violent newscano. I’m all on my ownsome, without a Quinns to cling to. Wish me luck, and good news to you all.

This is the news, be careful out there, there’s a lot of it about.

First up we’re taking a trip to Cooper Island, a game that finally answers the question: ‘what if a eurogame, but taller?’

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Review: 6 Nimmt

accidental tinder, a cold cut-and-thrust, quimbles, who's that pokémon?

It’s been a while since we reviewed a classic of a card game, but holy cow!

6 Nimmt isn’t just great. It’s up there with Arboretum, Jaipur, Condottiere and The Fox in the Forest.

In fact, there’s more flow tucked into this tidy, tiny box than we’ve seen since Love Letter. Not sure what the heck “flow” is? Click play, and find out.

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Card Games That Don’t Suck: Cribbage

Our series on the best games that you can play with a 52 card deck has dealt out a wild card!

Cribbage is a great game for 2 players (though you can enjoy it with 3 or 4) that people are still playing after four hundred years. And yes, that means it’s a profoundly weird thing to learn, but it also means that there’s an undeniable magic to it.

For help internalising the rules of Cribbage, we thoroughly recommend Cribbage With Grandpas, which is better than a phone game about Cribbage has any right to be.

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