Card Games That Don’t Suck: Oh Hell

For the third instalment of Card Games that Don’t Suck, Quinns has dug up a game that’s fun even if you don’t gamble. That’s right, everybody! Those card game scientists finally cracked it.

Oh Hell is a trick-taking game for 3-7 players that might be the ultimate idle time waster. It’s a short, simple game that somehow expands to fill a whole hour, like a wad of dough rising in the oven of your minds.

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Review: The Quest for El Dorado and the Heroes & Hexes expansion

With the release of The Quest for El Dorado, it seems that board gaming owes yet another debt to venerable designer Reiner Knizia. This game is a nail-biting race through a troublesome jungle, and we think it’s superb. A solid, simple, clean design.

…But what if you want a wobbly, complex, dirty design? Well, then you could pick up the Heroes & Hexes expansion, which Quinns also investigates in this video.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

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SU&SD Play… Great Western Trail: Rails to the North

Slowly but surely, SU&SD is learning what makes a good board game stream. “Two and a half hours of Matt and Quinns playing a complicated resource management game” might not be the answer, but one thing’s for certain: That’s what we’ve uploaded to YouTube this week.

This video also documents Matt and Quinns playing the new expansion for the terrific Great Western Trail, Rails to the North, for the very first time. To be charitable, it’s not what they expect. To be candid, they play the worst game of Great Western Trail of their adult lives.

Enjoy, everybody!

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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!

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Card Games That Don’t Suck: Ricochet Poker

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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!

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Review: Quacks of Quedlinburg

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.

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

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.

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Review: Treasure Island

“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.

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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?

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