Shut Up & Sit Down

GAMES NEWS! 11/02/19

salty bet, ice cream mines, tremorers

Matt: Good morning, Quintin! I awaken from a vivid dream in which the twist at the end of Return of the Jedi was that the whole thing was entirely being imagined by a man called Ryan who worked in Market Research, who was having a fantasy about what it might be like to be a smuggler called “Han Solo”.

And now – as if by space magic – I’m being thrown straight back into Star Wars again. Another game in the genre of Firefly, Merchant of Venus, or Xia: Legends of a Drift System – Star Wars: Outer Rim sees players competing to be the cream of the galaxy’s scum and villainy. Flying around space, smuggling goods, hiring recognisable crew members and reasonably frequently rolling some dice.

Quinns: Let us apply Occam’s Razor. Is the simplest possible explanation here that you, Matt Lees, created this game in a dream?

Matt: Yes

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Reminder: Click “Follow” On Our Twitch Page!

push it, just push the button

Quinns: Hey everybody! If you’ve not checked out our live Twitch streams yet, you’re officially missing out. They’re basically an extra-long, live Let’s Play, and I can now proudly say the channel has developed a frighteningly witty chat community. If you’ve been part of our chat over the last few months, thank you so, so much.

But here’s the thing- you don’t actually need to remember when we’re streaming. If you just go to our Twitch channel and click on the button that reads “Follow”, you’ll get an email every time we start the show, which is once every couple of weeks. Also, you’re adding follower count, which helps us out.

Tomorrow we’re going to be trying the Great Western Trail expansion, Rails to the North, and the show after that… well, let’s just say you won’t want to miss it, and we’ll be confirming more details shortly.

Oh, and did I mention our Twitch chat has a custom emote of the LADY ON THE CONCORDIA BOX? That’s right! The wonders never cease.

Thanks again, everybody!

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Card Games That Don’t Suck: Ricochet Poker

four houses? quinns are you thinking of harry potter, no we can't play aces low

Oh my GOODNESS! Today marks the start of a brand-new series for Shut Up & Sit Down.

Every two weeks, Card Games That Don’t Suck will teach you how to play a game that we love, that you can play with an ordinary deck of cards. In doing so, we hope to make table gaming more accessible and wide-ranging, and maybe even learn a little bit of history along the way.

But there’s no history in our first instalment! Ricochet Poker is, in fact, a brand new game by designer James Ernest, and we think it’s just superb.

Enjoy, everybody!

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GAMES NEWS! 04/02/19

the brutal arena of instagram, 100% insane, the wobbly oblong

Quinns: How was your weekend, Matt? I got in some of our first playtests of Blood on the Clocktower. Adopting the role of a devious moderator, I cast a room full of players into a cutthroat logic puzzle that had them doubting not just their friends, but themselves. As I stalked back and forth with my grimoire that held all of the game’s secrets, men screamed, women died, and the forces of evil proliferated in the shadows.

Matt: I had IBS

Quinns: Oh no

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Review: Quacks of Quedlinburg

Do you feel a faint stirring in your heart? That’ll probably be because of Quacks of Quedlinburg, a game about stirring, excitement, dread, capitalism, and even more stirring. It’s also the second game about managing your own personal gambling den we’ve reviewed recently, following on from the very good Space Base. But this is better.

Special thanks to Wizarding Harry of Wizarding Harry’s Child Wizarding School for Top Wizarding Harrys for being such a superb special guest.

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SU&SD Play… The Champion of the Wild, Live!

matt vs. bat, the mating habits of manta rays, crippling penguillt

Remember our review of party game The Champion of the Wild? Well, we had so much fun with it that we decided to turn it into a live show at PAX Unplugged, featuring Jonathan Ying, Alan Gerding, and multiple facts about manta ray sex.

Also, remember how our review of party game The Champion of the Wild caused it to sell out? For anyone still craving a copy, the game is back on Kickstarter right now, with all sorts of little improvements.

EDIT: …Little improvements, and some new play variants including the way we play in this very video. Wow!

Enjoy the show, everybody! And huge thanks to our guests for being such good sports, as well as to everybody in the audience for being the real champions.

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GAMES NEWS! 28/01/19

Embassador Toadly, crap magicians, delicious minerables, roly poly

Quinns: Matt, I started reading a book on the history of gambling on the weekend and I can’t stop telling all of my friends FACTS.

Did you know that roulette, one of the coolest-looking games of all time, was invented by the English? And did you know we called it roly poly? I’m relieved to say that the French got their hands on it and began rebranding the wheel almost immediately.

Matt: That’s–

Quinns: Did you know that in the world’s first casino was the Ridotto in Venice, opened in 1638? Public displays of excitement or sadness were forbidden, but there was a darkened Chamber of Sighs where “unlucky gamblers could moan with despair.”

Matt: Quinns, you know the rule.

Quinns: …

Matt: Tell me the rule.

Quinns: …when there’s work to do, facts have to wait.

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The SU&SD Podcast is now available on Spotify

Quinns: Good news, everyone! The SU&SD board game podcast is now available on Spotify. If you’d like to listen to it, it can be found there now, in addition to the other places where it can usually be found. A short FAQ follows.

Q: Can I now listen to the SU&SD podcast on Spotify?

A: Yes

Q: Will brand new episodes of the SU&SD podcast be on Spotify?

A: Yes

Q: Using Spotify, can I now put the SU&SD podcast into my ears?

A: Yes

We hope that clears everything up! If you have any further questions about the SU&SD podcast being on Spotify, please leave a comment and I’ll see if I can help out.

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Podcast #90: The Generation Train

saxomophone, grasping at grasshoppers, oily caviar, desperate bakeries

Oof! Matt and Quinns have thundered unsteadily into 2019 with a podcast overloaded with games. There’s Blackout: Hong Kong (again), Just One (a party game), Sumer (which isn’t a board game), Quacks of Quedlinburg (which is a board game), Schummel Hummel (or “Cheating Bee”), The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 (a game of the film), Pipeline (which doesn’t have that many pipes actually) and Gen 7: A Crossroads Game (our first disappointment of the year). After that, we’re sad to report that the structural integrity of the podcast collapsed, killing everyone inside. Extra special thanks to musician and super cool guy Mr. Steve Davit for hooking us up with those sexy new musical stings, and helping us to make our 2019 that much brassier.

GAMES NEWS! 21/01/19

whither falafel, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Puggsy was C.R.A.P.

Matt: Good MORNING Shut Up & Sit Down Shupuppers. That’s my new name for anyone reading the news right now – you can’t do anything about it, I’ve sent the stickers to print. It’s a bright and bracing day in London and I am positively brimming with vigor and vizz – partially because of a chilly morning bike ride, but mostly because of the weekend efforts of everyone involved in Hbomberguy’s charity stream. Raising almost $350,000 for the UK trans support charity Mermaids – in response to other mainstream funding being cancelled after a campaign of organised spite – this colossal achievement had me grinning all weekend at the sheer joy of what now seems possible. A US Congresswoman dropping in on a Donkey Kong 64 stream is exactly the tenor of madness that I get out of bed for – but the whole event has flicked some sort of switch in my head, and I now feel so much better about reality in general. So if you were involved in that in any way – thank you! Quinns: Wow! I just spent the weekend making some falafels.

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