Fields of Arle

Podcast #115: Score the Boogie Bonus

Picture it now; you’re sitting in a lovely english garden in the midst of summertime. You’ve got a delicious cup of iced Bovril in your hand, and the sun is warming the grass under your feet. Life is bliss. Suddenly, a tall sweaty man and a short sweaty boy leap the fence – cracking open warm cans in mid-air – fistfuls of board game bits clutched in their four greasy hands. It’s time to podcast, baby.

In this undeniably very 115th episode of the Shut Up and Sit Down podcast, Tom and Quinns resume the age-old tradition of shirtless podcasting – kicking off with a chat about The Deadlies, before pinging over to Super Skill Pinball: 4Cade. Then, Quinns gets wistful about his foray into Fields of Arle, and we end on a highly controversial chat about Undaunted: North Africa. Strap in.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Tap below for full timestamps and more info!

Paul: This week’s Games News speeds toward us with all the speed and power of a hovercraft. You know why a hovercraft is the most powerful of vehicles? Because it can cross both land AND water. Like a frog. But much bigger. A giant frog. Once again HUMANITY TRUMPS NATURE.

Quinns: OK, first off, a hovercraft is just a poor man’s ekranoplan. But speaking of plans, can we talk a bit about Vital Lacerda’s Escape Plan, which has been confirmed as a 2018 release?

Paul: Ooh, ok! Heist games have been doing rather well at Shut Up & Sit Down this year (we’ve all become big fans of Burgle Bros and Blades in the Dark), so it’s easy to see why you’d be so excited about Lacerda’s latest, which is all about a team of bank robbers trying to get out of town. What’s the best way to get out of town? Put the police on someone else’s tail.

Paul: I’m not sure what it is about all this grit and graft that hooks me. Uwe Rosenberg keeps making games about hard work and manual labour and there I am again, scraping at the soil or sweating at the forge as I worry if we have enough food for the winter. My servile son shoves another horse into the stables, while my wife trudges through the fetid, bubbling peat bog that marks the edge of our land. There is so much that needs doing. Fields of Arle is the greatest farming challenge I’ve ever taken on and… is it weird that I relish that?

Quinns: As we continue our marathon-like jog through Board Game Geek’s top 100 games ever, today I can reveal that we’re out of the weeds. We’ve played every single board game in the 60-41 slot!

Which isn’t to say that we always enjoyed ourselves…

Here’s a question for you. What contains Fields of Arle, Spoils of War, Conflict of Heroes and Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs? That’s right! The answer is “A fistfight over an archaeological dig site in Northern Germany.” But another valid answer would be the 58th ever SU&SD podcast, wherein Paul and Quinns discuss all of these games. What’s more, Quinns reveals the results of his months-long experiment using the BG Stats app. After all of that excitement the boys relax by dipping into the mailbag for a question on why board games seem to be getting more expensive, and close the podcast by talking about the noble art of marble racing. Enjoy, everybody! (Thanks to BGG User Steph Hodge for this podcast’s header image!)

In the worker placement game Fields of Arle, set in the German region of East Frisia, players develop an estate and expand their territory by cutting peat and building dikes.

The game covers nine half-years with alternating summer and winter seasons, and each season allows or denies specific player actions. Different and detailed manufacturing processes allow a player to create goods needed to expand her estate. In addition, trades with adjoining municipalities can help a player gain the needed resources or goods for building and expanding.

Quinns: Morning, everyone. The bad news is, you’re all going to die because the end of the world is coming. The good news is, you can pick your flavour of ragnarok.

I’m referring to Fantasy Flight’s new range of pen and paper role-playing games! From left to right they’ll cover zombies, angry gods, aliens and murderous machines. In a great little twist, though, all the players control themselves. So, Paul Dean and Matt Lees having to use their real-life skills to survive when their fridges and lawnmowers start wanting them dead.

Quinns: Hello! Or as they say in Germany, das hallo! It’s a special Mostly-German edition of the games news today, because a lot of our news is from Germany and I am very creative.

Uwe Rosenberg, designer behind such pastoral heavyweights as Agricola, Le Havre and Caverna has revealed his next project! What bold new setting are we getting this time, Uwe? What magical new mechanics have you birthed from the recesses of your labyrinthine mind?

“In the worker placement game Arler Erde, set in the German region of East Frisia, players develop an estate and expand their territory by cutting peat and building dikes.”

Ah. More of the same, then. That’s a shame! In the very same week, similarly prolific German mentat Stefan Feld has announced that his next game is about scientists that hang out with octopuses and crystals at the bottom of the ocean. Is “Team Feld” a thing? We should make it a thing. SU&SD hereby announces it is TEAM FELD!

Podcast #115: Score the Boogie Bonus

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Review: Fields of Arle

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