Space Cadets - Shut Up & Sit Down

Review: Pit Crew

Paul: Sometimes you gotta go fast.

And in a world where that speed comes from pounding alloy pistons, feels like warm, rubber-scarred asphalt, stinks of fetid fumes and fury, the Pit Crew are the kingmakers. They, and thus you, decide the monarchs of motorsport, with deft hands of restoration and renewal.

Collectively you wrench home a new wheel, working as well together as the finely-tuned machine you maintain. Nobody is screaming for petrol, nobody has broken the engine, nobody has just dropped a card. It’s fine. It’s okay. You’re the pit crew.

Quinns: Ladies and gentlemen, roll up! It’s time for a new series where we take a look a team SU&SD’s board game collections. Come and see! Be amazed. Be aghast. Be envious. Comment with thought-provoking assertions like “why do you have that game it is bad”.

You guys will have seen my collection in the background of loads of SU&SD videos, but I don’t think you’ve seen the work that goes into it. Come with me today as I perform… a CULL.

But before that, let me show you my collection as it stands. It’s both completely ridiculous and not as ridiculous as you might think.

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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.

Your Guide to Space Cadets: Resistance is Mostly Futile

Quinns: Last year we floated the idea of “Expansion January” or “Expansionanuary”, where we’d start the year by revisiting old favourites and seeing how they’ve been updated. Since you guys weren’t entirely repelled by the concept, welcome to the FIRST EVER Shut Up & Sit Down Expansionanuary.

We’re kicking it off with what’s being called the “first” expansion for Space Cadets, Resistance is Mostly Futile. Remember how we first covered Space Cadets with an itemised guide as to why your friends are going to do a terrible job of flying a spaceship together (and then later demonstrated it in a Let’s Play)?

Let’s give you a guide to the new terrors in the expansion! Starting with a new job that nobody’s going to want to do: the Science Station.

Quinns: Oh my GOODNESS GRAVY, this week we’re giving you something you’ve been asking for for 3 and a half years. A list of Shut Up & Sit Down’s top 25 games of all time, ordered from our least most favourite to most most favourite, and all just time for Christmas.

An awful lot of thought, time and love went into this list, so we very much hope you enjoy it. We’ll be posting one instalment a day, right the way through to the end of the week. A bit like an advent calendar, except too short and every day it’s just us again. You’re probably best off taking it back to the shop.

Without further ado, let’s KICK THIS BABY OFF A NOTCH.

Quinns: Good morning everybody! At least, I think it’s morning. Popular new videogame Destiny has afflicted Team SU&SD like a Dinklebot-powered plague. Sleep has become a luxury. Buttocks have fused with beanbag chairs. As I type this my right index finger is continually twitching, still trying to attain headshots on digital aliens. I’m not sure I can remember how to Games News, but I shall try.

Ooh, they’ve released the full rules for the new Space Cadets expansion, Resistance Is Mostly Futile, and it will add a SPACE KRAKEN. Which is probably the only thing that could have made our Let’s Play any more ridiculous.

[Following on from last month’s interview with Eric Zimmerman, we dispatched intergalactic bounty hunters to next track down Geoff Engelstein, the man behind SU&SD favourites Space Cadets and Space Cadets: Dice Duel. With two expansions and a new Space Cadets game on the horizon, we needed details on the future of this runaway brand, and how it came to be.]

Quinns: Wake up! Alright “Geoff”, you can earn your freedom by answering no less than eight questions.

Geoff: What? You wanted an interview? You could have just asked.

Quinns: Oh, you’d have liked that, wouldn’t you. NOW: The year of Space Cadets, eh? Does the prospect of continuing to work with the Space Cadets license exhaust you at all? No new and fair pastures for Mr. Engelstein?

Paul: Welcome, welcome to Games News. How many of you are there? Just the one, or you might be joined later? Very well, please follow me. Here, is this seat by the window acceptable? Excellent.

Today’s specials include a particularly unusual video, a wide selection of Kickstarters, some very special special editions and a veal with nut roast. Ah, I see you’re interested in the Space Cadets buffet, a smorgasbord of space chaos. Let me recommend you an excellent wine to go with that.

Once again, purely for your amusement, we suffer yet more pain and indignity in deep space. This time, Pip, Matt, Brendan, Quinns and Paul are all playing Space Cadets, a co-operative game of spaceship piloting where everything can and will go wrong. Repeatedly. Forever. It’s okay! Quinns has played it before and knows what he’s doing, though he’s not actually in charge.

Brendan may have too, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. Set engines to gingerly.

You’ve called for more Let’s Plays, so this is an HOUR LONG video and we very much hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it. We want to give special thanks to Ben Prunty for kindly giving us permission to use some of his music for this video. You might also have heard his work in the famous video game FTL.

Space Cadets is one big game made up of many, many minigames, which means that, if it goes to hell, it’s one big disaster made up of many smaller ones. But that’s not going to happen, is it?

Is it?

That’s right, babies! You asked for more regular podcasts on your subscriber questionnaires, and we’re doing exactly that. The system works! Ignore that clattering and keening coming from our servers. Right now, in this moment, the system works. Packed into podcast #11 are discussions of Freedom: The Underground Railroad, Keyflower, Space Cadets , Rattus and … Read more

Review: Pit Crew

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

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

Your Guide to Space Cadets: Resistance is Mostly Futile

SU&SD’s Top 25 Games Ever! #25 to #21

Games News! 06/10/14

An Actual Interview: Space Cadets

Games News! 03/03/14

SU&SD Play… Space Cadets

Podcast #11: All Your Broken Monsters

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