Paul: Quinns I am so sorry I have not been well recently please can you do most of the news please I have had some energy and did some shopping and even went out today to a Halloween gathering but my nose is some weird tap for strange goo that I can’t control and-
Quinns: Paul shh shh. It’s okay.
Happy Halloween y’all! To celebrate this most fiendish of holidays Paul’s brought a game back from the dead.
SU&SD first covered Werewolf with Matt’s candlelit review. Since then we’ve fallen in love with One Night Ultimate Werewolf and its standalone sequel, Daybreak.
Today Paul investigates the next game in this undying chain. One Night Ultimate Vampire significantly en-complicates the series we know and love. Can it possibly survive?
Read More
Quinns: That’s right, after little more than five and a half years the SHUT UP SHOP is open for business!
Would you like a Reference Pear t-shirt? Do you want to nobly swagger about the house with our logo across your chest, or remind people of that time we inexplicably came to represent the nation of Japan? I hope you do because those are the only options right now.
That said, we’re hoping to expand our merch in the near future. We know you guys want SU&SD mugs, posters, buttons, road-legal vehicles and more, and we want them too!
In the meantime, thanks so much for your support, everybody. It’s thanks to you that we’re where we are today.
xox
Read More
Pip: Okay, so you know how in comedies there’s that standard scene where someone walks past a storefront and out of shot, then walks backwards into shot, captivated by something in the window? That was pretty much exactly what happened in real life when I walked past the charity shop window display featuring Exploration.
Exploration is a board game with a box I prop up to display the cover, like it’s some kind of dramatic photo I want to casually lean on the mantlepiece. It’s not something I suggest playing when people come over but I just love seeing on my shelf. It brings me enjoyment through its art and aspirations rather than anything it achieves through play. It also shows this moment in board games from the past. There are so many of those moments – weird blips in terms of theme or odd shaped pieces or bizarre ideas that together make up the whole history of boardgames, with some becoming popular and others quietly retiring from print. I love catching sight of these moments. Exploration is this extinct thing. It’s a box that just demonstrates the moment someone went “what if we do dice rolling but ALSO somehow mountaineering AND diving AND there are ziggurats?”
Paul: All right, everyone, please stand back. Yes, there has been an explosion of games news, but we’re handling the cleanup and you don’t need to panic. Stay inside your homes, keep your windows closed and don’t eat anything off of the floor. As much as you can avoid eating things off the floor, anyway. We know what you’re like.
So! Talking of explosions, let’s begin with Armageddon!
Paul: Welcome! Welcome to a very particular corner of my home. While apartment life in Vancouver doesn’t afford me the sort of cavernous attic that we peeped into when Quinns talked about his game collection, I do have a very particular place where I keep mine, all safe and warm and pristine. Welcome to my Games Closet. Welcome to the home of my fun. Please, take my hand as I invite you into a midnight tour of a very snug, very intimate space in my life. Don’t worry! You’re quite safe. Now, walk this way with me. Walk this way. Just around here. Toward the light…
Like a domestic Sisyphus, Paul and Quinns continue on their quest to play all of the things! Quick, listen to this podcast before their boulder of relevancy rolls back down the side of Mount Internet. This month games discussed include Pax Pamir! Conan! Game of Thrones: Hand of the King! A Touch of Evil! And litttle Schotten Totten! Of course we’ve got our usual special features in the form of listener mail and the Folk Game of the Month, but there’s even more besides. Always keen to go the extra mile for the podcast, Quinns visited a real-life Crystal Maze and Paul had sex with a beast. What new game have you been enjoying recently? It doesn’t have to be a new release, just new to you. Let us know!
Read More
Quinns: Could our top story be anything other than the first details emerging of Pandemic Legacy: Season 2, the sequel to one of the greatest board games ever made?
Paul: No. I mean, I put it right at the top of the docu-
Quinns: Prior to this week all we knew was that “Season 2” would be a new standalone game that would once again turn the excellent co-operative puzzle Pandemic into a surprising campaign. Now we know… that it’s going to be a little more ambitious.
Who cares if the pound has reached a 168 year low? Why, BOARD GAMES will let us travel the world from the comfort of our own homes!
For example, Istanbul lets us explore the smoky souks of the Ottoman empire, and lots of fun they are too. But are they as fun as the noble Concordia? And what about Caverna, or Terra Mystica? Hmm. There’s nothing for it but to play all of them again.
Have a fantastic weekend, everybody!
Read More
Disclaimer: Quinns, of this site, was a paid consultant on this game. Originally we weren’t planning to cover it, but ultimately decided to send it to Pip for an impartial review.
Pip: Summary for the super spoiler-conscious: League of Legends – a videogame with a frankly enormous player base – has made a first foray into board gaming with Mechs vs Minions.
Mechs vs Minions is REALLY good! The developers bill it as Robo Rally meets Descent to give you an idea of how it plays. I’ve been playing through the campaign with Chris Thursten. We’re having a blast and I’ll get into the more detailed explanations in a moment BUT!
I wanted to say how much we’re enjoying it up here because the game is an episodic campaign with each mission coming in its own envelope so as to deliver a few surprises as you play. With that in mind I figured it would be best to say “It’s so good!” up front in case you wanted to go in with as close to zero knowledge of the contents of the game.
Everybody else? Come stomping this way.