Videos 25 - Shut Up & Sit Down

Card Games That Don’t Suck: Fight the Landlord

Did you catch the first instalment of Card Games That Don’t Suck, Ricochet Poker? This week we’re travelling from America to China to tell you about a fantastic shedding game called Fight the Landlord.

Watching the video, you’ll notice that “2s” are valued higher than royals. It’s possible that this comes from the game’s communist roots, in much that same way that following the French revolution, it was considered distasteful to play games where kings and queens were desirable. The more you know!

Oho, with the unexpected release of the Mother of Dragons expansion for the Game of Thrones board game, did Fantasy Flight think they were the only ones who could return to an old game?

They’ve got another thing coming. We reviewed this board game back in 2011, and now we’re reviewing it AGAIN. So stick that in your moon door and smoke it.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Oh my GOODNESS! Today marks the start of a brand-new series for Shut Up & Sit Down.

Every two weeks, Card Games That Don’t Suck will teach you how to play a game that we love, that you can play with an ordinary deck of cards. In doing so, we hope to make table gaming more accessible and wide-ranging, and maybe even learn a little bit of history along the way.

But there’s no history in our first instalment! Ricochet Poker is, in fact, a brand new game by designer James Ernest, and we think it’s just superb.

Enjoy, everybody!

Do you feel a faint stirring in your heart? That’ll probably be because of Quacks of Quedlinburg, a game about stirring, excitement, dread, capitalism, and even more stirring. It’s also the second game about managing your own personal gambling den we’ve reviewed recently, following on from the very good Space Base. But this is better.

Special thanks to Wizarding Harry of Wizarding Harry’s Child Wizarding School for Top Wizarding Harrys for being such a superb special guest.

Remember our review of party game The Champion of the Wild? Well, we had so much fun with it that we decided to turn it into a live show at PAX Unplugged, featuring Jonathan Ying, Alan Gerding, and multiple facts about manta ray sex.

Also, remember how our review of party game The Champion of the Wild caused it to sell out? For anyone still craving a copy, the game is back on Kickstarter right now, with all sorts of little improvements.

EDIT: …Little improvements, and some new play variants including the way we play in this very video. Wow!

Enjoy the show, everybody! And huge thanks to our guests for being such good sports, as well as to everybody in the audience for being the real champions.

“Start as you mean to go on,” as they say. That’s why for our first review of 2019 we picked a fantastic game, put on the loudest shirts that Matt owned, broke out the eyeliner, and squeezed in an homage to The Muppets.

Don’t get distracted by all of those lovely colours, though. Featuring a bit of bluffing, a bit of logic, a bit of deduction and a lot of laughter, Treasure Island is a game that deserves some serious consideration.

Announcing our 2018 Donor Drive!

Quinns: Hi everybody! It’s that time again. If you’ve enjoyed the work we’ve done this year, or if we’ve just helped to point you towards some great games, please consider donating to Shut Up & Sit Down.

And this month, we’ve got a little bonus for you! If you enjoyed the little trip down memory lane in this video, the unedited 30 minute video of us commentating on early Shut Up & Sit Down will be in this month’s donor newsletter. And however much you choose to donate to us, you’ll get your cute self on the mailing list.

Thank you, everybody. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to spend the year working for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and pick up some festive snacks for our special, extra-long Christmas stream that we’ll be doing tomorrow! So far we’re planning on playing (a) Keyforge, and (b) a jigsaw puzzle, because why the hell not?

For our last review of the year, Matt pulled out all the stops… and then Quinns appeared and started plugging them back in again.

It seems this pair can’t quite agree on Keyforge. Is it fun, or not-fun? Is the business model good or bad? Is the universe a joke or a failure?

Let us know your experience with Keyforge in the comments! Whatever our thoughts on it, Keyforge’s staggering initial sales hint that this game is going to be with us for quite some time.

The choice of which game of play on our Twitch channel this week was a no-brainer. Which is to say, we knew we’d have no brains remaining after flying back from PAX Unplugged, so we chose a game that could be enjoyed by eight-year-olds.

Men at Work is the next beautiful box coming out of Pretzel Games, makers of Flick ‘Em Up and Junk Art, and we love the heck out of it. And like those previous games, it functions as a lovely object, as well as a silly challenge, and – if you so choose – an arena where actual tactics can be deployed.

If you’d like to watch the full stream, with the beginning, the end and all of the hilarious comments in between, it’ll be available here for the next sixty days. And if you’d like to hear about us talk about Men at Work on the podcast, you’ll find that sweet ol’ chat on episode #88.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

What are the very best card and board games to play with coworkers and family this holiday? Games that are actually FUN – that you could bring to a party as a great gift for cheap, or tuck in the stocking for Christmas Eve?

Quinns will be writing a piece next week about games more suited to those who already love the hobby, but as part of our ongoing mission to convince the world that board games are great, we wanted to put together an easy resource for the question we seem to get almost all the time: “What game should I buy to play with my family?”

If you’ve been linked to this by someone else who loves board games, hello! We’ve put this list together as both a video and a written list. Enjoy!

Matt: Greetings Holiday Humans, it’s time to mildly panic as you realise that family will soon descend upon you like a flock of seagulls to a discarded ice-cream. Rather than trying to explain your job to relatives to the point that you might have a mental breakdown, we’d recommend playing board games instead.

These are the 15 best big-family games: all play with at least 6 people, and most can handle 8. In no particular order, let’s go!

Card Games That Don’t Suck: Fight the Landlord

Review: Game of Thrones – Mother of Dragons

Card Games That Don’t Suck: Ricochet Poker

Review: Quacks of Quedlinburg

SU&SD Play… The Champion of the Wild, Live!

Review: Treasure Island

Announcing our 2018 Donor Drive!

Review: Keyforge

SU&SD Play… Men at Work!

15 Great Games to Fill Your Table This Christmas

Feeds