Coup - Shut Up & Sit Down

GAMES NEWS! 10/08/20

Ava: Expelled? From board game school? But I played by all the rules! And you’re not even the head of board game school, you’re just a janitor! Surely you can’t have expulsion privileges?!

Tom: Ava, everyone has expulsion privileges at board game school. It’s a loophole in the rules – the only way to get back in is to write a compelling 2,000 word essay on this week’s hot games news. Either that, or eat a whole copy of Roads and Boats.

Ava: Hmm, I had Bus for breakfast. I guess it’ll have to be the news.

Ava: Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn took quite a few by storm back in 2015, and wrapped up with a big finale after a successful run of expansions. Now it’s all happening again, like a groundhog-flavoured phoenix.

Paul: Hot summer strawberries! It’s the middle of August, the sun is (sometimes) in the sky (here it’s mostly just windy) and this is the season that you finally get into board games. It’s an intimidating prospect: you’ve eyed those enormous boxes on the shelves with price tags that would make a banker blush, but this really doesn’t have to be a hobby that destroys your wallet.

Wait! What’s that noise? An approaching siren? An… ice cream van?! It’s me pedalling furiously toward you in the Shut Up & Sit Down Budget Bus, adding a host of surprising prices in this sequel to our indispensable article, How To Build an Amazing Board Game Collection for $10. GET ON BOARD.

[Following on from our expedition into Quinns’ board game collection and the polite visit to Paul’s, it’s now Matt’s turn. Enjoy, everybody!]

Matt: Contrary to popular belief, I am not a man of infinite luxury. Paul has an entire cupboard just for games – Quintin has a cavernous loft to explore. Many have climbed that ladder and never been seen alive again, fading away to become a new addition to the dark and dusty collage of cardboard and bones. Basically those boys have space to play with. I however, have a shelf.

But it’s a big shelf! Oh my. There’s plenty of room in the rest of my flat, but my wife is a bit of a cheery dictator when it comes to interior design – so the sins of the husband must be tidied away. It’s occasionally annoying, but it does mean I get to live in a genuinely beautiful, tidy place? Swings and roundabouts, life is compromise.

SU&SD's Top 50 Games Ever, 2015! #50 to #41

Quinns: RETRIEVE YOUR OFFICIAL SU&SD-BRANDED MOIST TOWELETTES! It’s about to get hot in here.

Last year we presented something never-before-seen in board games. Our Top 25 Board Games, Ever was a list of our most favourite games ordered from least-most favourite to most-most favourite. Ever since then, the SU&SD Supercomputer has been calculating a method by which we could possibly top this. Last week, it provided a schematic for something… incredible.

The science behind the following Top 50 is complicated, but in layman’s terms we’ll be “publishing” “instalments” every day this week, and beyond(!).

Enjoy, everybody.

Paul: QUINNS IT’S AWFUL.

Quinns: paul wha-

Paul: QUINNS IT’S AWFUL. HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEWS. IT’S AWFUL.

Quinns: paul of course i have not heard the news nor any other news this is games news this is where i hear the news pau-

Paul: QUINNS THE BUNNIES ARE GETTING DIVORCED.

Paul: It’s Games News time! Welcome, everybody, welcome. Please, come into my Games News hovel, the tiny hut in which I construct all of our Games News by hand, painstakingly assembling each tiny cog, ratchet and spring, bent over my work from dawn to dusk.

Today’s Games News is a special, post GenCon Games News, with no loud noises or big names. Instead, we’ve worked hard to bring you a few what you might call artisanal news pieces. Some are funny, some are very serious, but they are all the choicest pieces of news. Nobody brings you better Games News than Shut Up & Sit Down.

Quinns: So let’s start with some candles.

Quinns: What a weekend! Tabletop Day, then a Netrunner tournament. I feel a sense of… union with the cardboardverse. Hang on, I’m having the strangest thoughts… Could it be? Is the games news coming to me?

I see a man… I see Ted Alspach, designer of the incredible Suburbia and One Night Werewolf. He’s announcing his new game! Castles of Mad King Ludwig will still have players laying tiles, but now sleepy suburbs are swapped for the colourful castles for real-life king Ludwig II.

I can also see that this very second, Ted is eating a burger with a knife and fork. Really, dude? C’mon. Cut that out.

Quinns: Today’s Games News is brought to you by this endless remix of the BBC News 24 theme, which I’ll be listening to throughout. At the time of writing my friend Alex, who works at the Guardian, has been listening to it for about 40 minutes. “At 28:44 you may experience a feeling of oneness with journalism,” he warns me. “It is a lie.” Everyone who is similarly mad can join me by following that first link.

NOW, our first order of business is to bring “…and then we held hands…” to everyone’s attention. This is a print’n’play game jam project that imagines two players as a couple, struggling through a failing relationship. Imagine a heartbreaking Hanabi where instead of managing a firework display, you’re navigating the metaphorical fireworks of two lovers arguing in an apartment.

Like vinyl records or the world’s most cheerful case of herpes, The Opener is BACK! Once again, Matt wants to guide you through the perfect game + recipe to open either your game night, your friends’ minds or your own board game collection. This time it’s Coup, a teeny little game of being a disgraceful liar.

If you’ve missed The Opener until this point, you’re in for a whole selection of treats. We’ve got Mascarade and cheesy twists, Ultimate Werewolf and chilli con carne, Ladies & Gentlemen and homemade scones, and even fire-fighting game Flashpoint and some flaming B-52s.

Shut Up & Sit Down: Working to make board gaming figuratively and literally delicious since 2011.

Quinns: At the end of last year Kotaku asked me for my top table games of the year, and I pulled this article from my bottom with the grace of a magician plucking a dove from his jacket. It starts like this…

As I’ve talked about before, board games aren’t simply enjoying a resurgence right now. They’re in a glittering golden age with fabulous releases every single week, the entire hobby evolving and adapting with Borg-like ease. There’s no easier way to prove it than with my favourite releases from 2013.

Included on this list are a real-time Star Trek simulator, a uniquely dark game of managing a sunny colony, and a card game… with just 15 cards. But each one of these is a classic.

And proceeds to list my three favourite releases from 2013, plus one runner up. Does that sound like something that might interest you guys? If so, please, go read!

GAMES NEWS! 10/08/20

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Feature: A Day in the Life of Matt’s Game Collection!

SU&SD’s Top 50 Games Ever, 2015! #50 to #41

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Games News! 24/02/14

The Opener: Coup & Sweet Potato Fries

Quinns’ Top 3 Games of 2013

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