twenty times as heavy, a nasty little pulp song, a happy and hairy fellow
Matt: Rising Sun is a big-box Kickstarter darling filled with frankly massive plastic things, with a hefty retail price of £75 / $80. Set in a god-powered version of feudal Japan, players act as one of six different clans vying for control of those lovely islands. But the plus-size map and plastic armies are slightly misleading: Rising Sun is not what it appears to be.
If you’re expecting a traditional game of nudging toy soldiers around a map, Rising Sun might leave players bored, confused, or quietly in a huff. But if you can get your head around what it is, and teach your friends what it is (and isn’t), Rising Sun can be really very good.
Would you like to meet team SU&SD at a fabulous, warm, profoundly silly three day gaming party? Well, now you can! Last year tickets sold out in just over a week, so this year we’re moving to a substantially bigger venue that can contain even more SU&SD fans. Still, we’d recommend you book early to avoid disappointment.
For an idea of what there is to do at SHUX, you can either watch the above video or click on that link. But most importantly, if you’ve never been to a board game convention before, that’s perfect. SHUX will be designed with you foremost in mind.
As a glimpse of the madness of last year’s SHUX, below we’ve uploaded this late-nite Q&A with myself, Paul, Matt and RPG reviewer Cynthia Hornbeck. I’m not sure I’ve laughed that hard since!
Gosh, watching that video makes me so happy.
For more information, check out the SHUX 18 site. Any further questions? Email [email protected]. Would you like to join our fabulous team of con volunteers? Amazing! Email [email protected] with a couple of hundred words of why you’d make a great volunteer.
Finally, do you represent a business who’d like to inquire about sponsorship or getting a booth in front of 2,000 SU&SD fans? That’s [email protected].
look at my carrots, the grand bum plug, a heavy chicken dinner
Quinns: Goodness gracious, I’m beat! I’ve just finished moving house from London to Brighton and it turns out my grasshopper-like body is nowhere near as good at lifting boxes as it is at reviewing them. On the subject, believe the hype: the Kallax shelving unit is the prettiest, cheapest board game storage made by anyone, anywhere.
But enough about my new flat*! This is the Games News, not the Quinns News, and I’ve got some smokin’ hot stories to get my journalistic tongs around.
Uwe Rosenberg could be the most consistently excellent designer working today, and this explanatory post on his next game, Reykholt, just shot it to the top of my most-wanted list.
what about the bees, hobbit in a hardware store, booky buffet
March 30, 2018 Reviews Ex Libris, New to Games? This week, bookworm Paul wiggles his way into Ex Libris, the library-building game of hardbacks and homunculi, of novels and necromancy. What sort of collection will he build, what strange and wonderful assistants will employ and is he really as well-read as he claims to be? … Read more
quinns is undone, matt is sleeping with tim schafer, paul has seen a dog
This week, Matt, Paul and Quinns reunited in a hotel! We didn’t record them all crying with joy for five minutes straight, but we did record them sitting down afterwards to discuss some board games. First off, the team discuss stress-testing some of their favourite games from the last year at the 2018 Game Developer’s Convention in San Francisco. Did Ethnos, Fog of Love, Azul or Barenpark buckle under pressure? But wait, there’s are new games too! Matt has thoughts on the as-yet unpublished Puzzlegami, Leigh joins the team to describe the as-yet unfinished Four Empires, and Paul provides some thoughts on Star Wars: Legion and Age of Steam. Enjoy, everybody! And if you’d like to hear the team record a live podcast in person, we’re recording two of ’em at the UK Games Expo in June. Come stop by! New podcast feeds (if you’re missing episodes 71 onwards, try these):iTunesGoogle PlayRSS for your favourite player
boat soup, Dobble: The Movie, it's just catan all the way down
Paul: Welcome to Shut Up & Sit Down’s Games News, the only organic board games news on the internet, specially selected by our team of expert newsologists and prepared for you with only the very highest quality ingredients.
Quinns: That’s right. Our artisanal news is of the very highest quality and proven by science to be extremely good for your health. Ah, I see the first course is being served now! A light soup full of tiny boats, representing the latest expansion for legendary drafting game 7 Wonders- 7 Wonders: Armada!
Paul: Of course! What is the ocean if not a really, really, really big soup?
a sweary han, a forceful box, a noisesome backbone
Eric: Star Wars has always had a strange magic for me, a modern mythological mojo which transcends its contrived plots and sometimes stilted dialog.
I first felt the tingle of that power when I was seven years old. It was an open house at a local technical school. Back in a corner, away from the admittedly-modest crowds, was a little display for a “flat screen” television, cutting edge technology of that long, long time ago. The exhibit had just started, and as I walked up, two droids were surveying the blasted landscape of Tatooine. Perched on a ledge, I sat for the next six hours and watched the entire trilogy, lost in a galaxy far, far away.
That makes Star Wars: Legion, the new miniatures game from Fantasy Flight, hard to review. It tempts me to be too generous – just putting a lightsaber in someone’s hand provokes the ghost of a chill. At the same time, it makes me worry I will set the bar too high. To have expectations no collection of cardboard and plastic could ever meet. I say this to acknowledge that I come to this game as the farthest thing from a blank slate. I am a fanboy, with all the enthusiasm and critical nitpicking that entails.
cuddling in the ballroom, crying in a park, is it getting hot in here?
As if it were needed, Jacob Jaskov’s Fog of Love is definitive proof that board games can be sexy, and it’s finally in shops the world over. But there’s more to this box than just sex! For example, there’s sometimes a troubling absence of sex. Sometimes there’s heartbreak. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s true love.
Don’t let this game be “The one that got away,” everybody. Take a look at our definitive review, and see if it’s for you.
mister legacy, one swanky cuzco, until the last nickel hits the bucket
Paul: We know it’s Games News time when we hear the honk of the Games News Freighter (SS Games News) as it makes its way up the Games News channel, to disgorge Games News upon the Games News docks.
Quinns: OH NO A MAN HAS BEEN CRUSHED.
Paul: Such is the weight of Games News and the danger of not taking things easy. We should all relax with Alubari: A Nice Cup of Tea (seen above).
