Faiyum

Podcast #131 – A Petulant Pharaoh

In what is clearly the 131st episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast, Matt, Tom and Ava are going to continue recent pod-tradition and natter about just the one game, thanks. That’s right, it’s Faiyum! A game about being both (a) in Egypt and (b) confused! Happens to the best of us. We’re going to be chatting about how it really works, how it sort of works and how it doesn’t work in a hodgepodge chat about one of the stranger board game offerings of 2020. We had some technical difficulties with this one, so apologies if things feel a bit bumpy. It suits the game in question!

The oasis-like basin Faiyum was artificially built 3,900 years ago by enlarging the Bahr Yussef channel that connected to the Nile to create a regulated flood plain. During the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, this swampland was slowly changed into farmland under the aegis of pharaohs such as Amenemhet III and Sesostris II. They ordered their … Read more

Tom: It’s beige week, baby! This week on the site, we’re rattling through the Taupe of the Pops, journeying down umber, and a third beige-based joke. Hold onto your trousers, because each and every game featured this week will have some element that’s distinctly beige – be it colour, theme, or feeling.

Take this week’s Tuesday stream, for example. Red Cathedral isn’t a beige game, in many ways – just look at that lovely cover! Feast your peepers on that sweet, segmented season board! You’re practically drowning in colour! And yet, your eyes must only drift a little to spy the distinctly sepia edges of the board and stunning tagline; ‘Lead a construction team to build Saint Basil’s Cathedral under the Tsar’s reign’. Now THAT’s what I call Beige Week.

What about this week’s video review? Well, my clues so far have led you people to guess the game with worrying accuracy – so I’ll let this week’s theme do all the talking. How’s that for a clue!? It’ll be like finding hay in a haystack.

Finally, in podtown; a sienna subversion to our tripartite of tan. On Friday, we’re going to have ourselves a lovely chat about Faiyum – the most technicolour beige game ever to exist – not just in its actual colour (it’s actually quite colourful!) but also in mechanics. So it’s not really beige at all; and maybe that’s what’s so thrilling about beige week.

But one question remains. What have you been up to, everybody?

Tom: Ahhhh. Don’t you love the fresh air, the rolling hills, the dry stone walls, the tiny paddocks? The babbling brook, the adorable bleats, the bark of the collie hard at work? ‘Tis a fine day to work the fields.

Ava: I don’t know why you’ve brought me here, but I’m pretty sure there’s a terrible joke coming.

Tom: It’s time to round up the Games Ewes.

Ava: Yup. There we go.

Ava: I wasn’t particularly gripped by the pitch for Disney Shadowed Kingdom in the press release, but at the last minute it said that this was going to be followed up by new bits for Unmatched, and realising Mondo was the same publisher almost made me curious. After all, Quinns recently gave Unmatched a pretty glowing review.

Podcast #131 – A Petulant Pharaoh

This week on Shut Up & Sit Down…

GAMES NEWS! 14/09/20

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