podcastles 19 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Podcast #91: The 2018 Pearple’s Choice Awards!

the board game manger, hallucinatory spaghetti, art, burps

It’s a podcast! You know the drill, everybody. Recover your audio tubing from the protective sheaths and retreat to your listening hutch. In this episode Matt and Quinns share their experiences with Wingspan (you’ll find the NPI review here), Chronicles of Crime (our SHUX Preview here), Franchise and Woodlouse Chaos, before strapping on their tuxedos for the annual Pearple’s Choice Awards, which we last celebrated back on podcast #73. Who will win Best Game? Best Production? Best Designer? And will SU&SD’s audience finally decide that mum and dad… are bad and wrong? Enjoy the show, everybody, and thanks again to clg6000 for putting these awards together.

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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.

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Podcast #89: Those Unattainable Vegetables

bad hexagons, bad prawns, bad words, and crunk monks

Matt and Quinns are joined in this episode by Microsoft Powerpoint(!) to discuss their experiences with a selection of hot new board games. They’re talking about the trashed monks of Heaven & Ale, the unattainable carrots of Reykholt, the questionable fishing practices of Captains of the Gulf, the bad nouns of Trapwords and the passive-aggressive parapets of Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig. In a rare mailbag double-bagger, the pair then field two questions, one about the phrase “The Teach”, the other about theoretical business ventures for SU&SD. Quinns wants to open a new telephone hotline and Matt wants funding for… erm… well, it’s not exactly clear. This podcast is also available as a video, which includes the 20 minute Q&A with the audience at the end.

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Podcast #88: Neon Salads of Hong Kong

you must mmm the slurp, gather your batteries, and most importantly, blurp

My goodness. We always say this, but… have we ever had so many luminary board games on one podcast? In this episode, Matt and Quinns discuss the twin games of Cockroach Salad and Cockroach Soup, a discovery so exciting that Quinns has since hunted down all of Drei Magier’s “Ugly Animals” games. The pair then move on to chatting about the wicked worldbuilding of Neon Gods, the dexterity magic of Men at Work, the small-form joy of Targi, the BEHEMOTH box that is Lisboa, and finally their game of the podcast, Blackout: Hong Kong. We also answer a particularly tricksy question from our mailbag. If Chess had never been invented, how do we think it would be received today? Enjoy, everybody!

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Podcast #87: Cheese on the Clocktower

unless i'm drunk or poisoned, you're the baron and he's the washerwoman

Matt, Quinns, Paul and Pip gather beneath a stormy sky to discuss games of WIT and CHANCE. Dare you ENTER their CEREBRAL LABYRINTH? The challenges ahead include Shadows: Amsterdam, The Shipwreck Arcana, Cryptid (a bit), Kung Fu Zoo, Illusion, Wavelength (coming to Kickstarter soon), High Tea Assassin from The Edible Games Cookbook, and finally, their game of the show, Blood on the Clocktower. What awaits you at the centre of their fortress of the mind? That would be telling… but suffice to say, Matt is in possession of a package that he’s wanted to give away for quite some time. This podcast is also available as a video!

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Podcast #86: Doctor, My Dice Are Bleeding

fish suppers, a plastic oncologist, quintin throws shade at an ivory tower

You dice are bleeding, you say? Not to worry! It’s nothing a podcast won’t fix. Matt and Quinns kick this one off with a big, hairy discussion of Ultimate Werewolf Legacy, which segues into a discussion of legacy games in general. The expected “era of legacy games” is failing to materialise, and they offer some theories as to why. Next up they chat about the smooth operations of V-Commandos, which is about to be re-implemented as an official Assassin’s Creed board game. After that they discuss their time spent nursing cubes back to health in the disturbing (and entertaining!) facilities of Dice Hospital, which was a fun surprise for them both. Finally, they consider the carefully orchestrated fish feasts of Uwe Rosenberg’s Nusfjord. Oh, your dice are still bleeding? Oh dear. Well, try to not get it on the carpet. That’s our advice.

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Podcast #85: Do you have any Fascist Fish?

let's buy a forest, marduk's loyal goats, when a potato becomes a samurai

Come on up! Make yourself at home in our twiggy podcast nest, where Paul and Quinns are ready to regurgitate some warmed-up board game knowledge into your waiting beak. This episode features the quietly fabulous tile-laying of Gunkimono. There’s Taj Mahal, the fourth in a fantastic series of beautiful Reiner Knizia remakes. We’ve had a first play of Trade on the Tigris, a new negotiation game from the designer of Space Cadets. Quinns talks about how GKR: Heavy Hitters is almost his favourite game of all time, if it could just be combined somehow with Critical Mass (see podcast #84). Also, like the rest of the internet, we’ve begun playing Root and can’t seem to stop. Finally, the pair chat about a reader mail asking when, and where, we’d consider playing board games for money. Full podcast transcript available here.

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Podcast #84: The Post-Gen Con Blowout!

The Princess' Holiday in Hell, The joy of a felt-tip, A bad day for Mr. Mayor

Can you hear a distant rumble of people applauding, firing party poppers and doing synchronised donuts in their cars? Don’t panic! Nothing could be more natural when our post-Gen Con podcast rolls around. It’s possible that there’s never been such a diverse and exciting array of games tucked into a single SU&SD podcast. Today, Paul and Quinns exchange first impressions of Keyforge: Call of the Archons, Fantasy Flight’s new collaboration with Richard Garfield where every deck ever printed will be unique to you. Up next is Gen 7, the dramatic and curious sequel to Dead of Winter that takes place aboard a generation ship. Then there’s Nyctophobia, a game where all but one player is blindfolded and being hunted by a murderer. Critical Mass, which might be the best game of mecha-on-mecha violence ever made? Railroad Ink, which is the first roll-and-write game we’ve found that could steal the throne from Welcome To. And the pair close by talking about The Estates, which is both the meanest and most devious game of auctions that Quinns has ever experienced. Among those six games are no less than four contenders for the prestigious SU&SD Recommends badge. You heard it here first- the rest of 2018 is going to be absolutely fabulous. UPDATE: We now have a complete transcription of this podcast, courtesy of SU&SD fan InkyBloc!

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Podcast #83: The Villain’s Criminal Google

a greek salad and a can of coke, a bunny with a big hat, a booger set ablaze

Pop on your monocle and climb into your biggest chair, because this is a podcast where we are most definitely the bad guys. First off, Matt and Quinns discuss the be-hyped box of Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game with the help of some royalty-free music. Next, the pair shatter a few dreams with their description of Disney’s Villainous board game. There’s then a quick discussion of Cryptozoic’s Wallet, in which a mob boss has the wallet of a… 9-year-old boy? Finally, the group plumb the depths of Google in a few rounds of Weird Things Humans Search For. Enjoy, everybody! And look forward to podcast #84, because it’s gonna be a stormer.

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Podcast #82: Welcome To My Viking Fungus

free butter, muddy dice, some frankensteins, what is egg rolls

Everybody, pick up your pencils! No, you’re not having another stress dream about being back at school. We’ve just finally found a roll-n-write game that we absolutely love. It’s called Welcome To, and podcast #82 starts with an explanation of what it is, and why you should get excited for the release date in September. And that’s just the beginning of this… peculiarly positive cast. Paul and Quinns soon move on to the happy kitchens of Wok Star (3rd edition), there’s talk of the fun they had in Fungi, and of the surprisingly strong Champions of Midgard. There’s also some disappointment about Village Attacks, but it wouldn’t be a SU&SD podcast without some vigorous complaining, would it? Finally, the pair end with a particularly sticky reader mail. Has their taste in games changed with time? And if so, how?

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