The Opener: Gravwell & Wicked Beans

The Opener: Gravwell & Wicked Beans

It’s an Opener! With Quinns! Has the world gone mad? No, but Gravwell definitely has. It’s a racing game set in the ninth dimension with no gravity except that created by your friends. And weirdest of all, it actually works!

And finally, two years after we first mentioned it, you guys are receiving the recipe for Quinns’ Wicked Beans. Enjoy, everybody!

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Review: The X-Wing Miniatures Game

Review: The X-Wing Miniatures Game

We’ve got some continuity to sort out after last week’s sci-fi special, but let’s sort out another bit of continuity first.

Almost two years ago Quinns sat down to write this review of the X-Wing Miniatures Game core set. Today, Paul joins him in the stifling cockpit of internet television for a review of the game proper.

HUGE thanks to our fans at Industrial Light & Magic for providing that intro sequence. We were skeptical at first when they asked for literally all of our donation money, but the results speak for themselves.

Enjoy, everybody!

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The Second Sci-Fi Special

The Second Sci-Fi Special

So Mars is under attack from Reiner Knizia, right, and Team SU&SD are the only ones who can stop him. We also welcome back Susie Pumfsk, and Brendan is an alien!

Look, don’t ask questions. Basically we had too much sugar and when we regained our senses we’d filmed this extra-special episode, featuring reviews of Infamy, Time’n’Space AND Rex: Final Days of an Empire, with time to spare for a re-review of Netrunner (original review here).

Huge thanks to Rachel Leipacher for her vocal stylings and to Team Covenant for their sexy Netrunner footage. And everybody, beware of Knizia. Even if some of his games are suspiciously good, he’s still out there. Watching. Waiting. Mathsing.

Thanks so much, everybody!

(Donor note! This is the second of our super-videos, promised in the stretch goals of our first donation season. Did you miss the first, our Megagame Special? Definitely don’t miss that! That would be awful. — Team SU&SD)

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Review: Blueprints

Review: Blueprints

Industriousness! Caution! Precision! Forethought! Patience! All skills vital to construction work that we don’t have. Surely then, an architecture game that we like must have done something wrong?

Or maybe not. Blueprints is a clean design, constructed by professionals. Does your collection have space for a small game of building tiny little structures, out of dice? Let’s be honest, now. How could it not?

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Review: Warhammer Diskwars

Review: Warhammer Diskwars

UPDATE: It had to happen eventually. We got one of the rules for Warhammer Diskwars partially wrong. We played the game again with the correct rules and you can find how that went here, though it didn’t change Quinns’ mind hugely. Apologies to everyone involved!

Today Quinns takes Warhammer: Diskwars out for a spin, the thinnest miniatures wargame a round. But will it be flippin’ great? Or wheely bad? Or just worth giving a quick whirl? We have to know! The world revolves around board games, after all.

OK, that’s all I got. And something tells me I’m still going to get shown up in the comments.

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The Opener: Takenoko and a Hot Toddy

The Opener: Takenoko and a Hot Toddy

It’s not hard to catch SU&SD’s eye. An award on your box will do it. Or a panda! Or the colour pink. Or three-dimensional components. Or an inlay with phallic slots. In offering all five at once, though, Takenoko could have been made for us.

Is it a good Opener, though? The perfect game to open a friend’s mind to the wonders of board gaming like you were opening a cheap tin of brain-beans? Tell us, Matt! We have to know.

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SU&SD Play… A Goddamn Megagame

U&SD Play... A Goddamn Megagame

Last weekend team SU&SD defended the world from aliens, had an international incident with the USA and almost dissolved the United Nations, all from the safety of a town hall in South London. This experience came courtesy of the Megagame Makers, an English society of game designers who specialise in the supermassive. It was an astonishing day, and so of course we had to make this supermassive video in tribute (WARNING: it also contains megaswears, so keep megakids away).

We’re hugely proud of this one. Enjoy, everybody. And our overwhelming thanks to the association of Megagamers to hosting us for the day.

(Donor note! This is the first of our super-videos, promised in the stretch goals of our first donation season. We know some of you wanted videos in the old SU&SD style. Don’t worry! We’ve got those coming too. 😀 — Team SU&SD)

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Review: Lewis & Clark

Review: Lewis & Clark

Are you ready for the most half-arsed impersonation of explorers Lewis & Clark the internet has ever seen? We’ve got you covered. We’ve also got a lengthy review of much-hyped board game Lewis & Clark, on the off chance you come here for the board game reviews.

It’s an interesting game, though. In a year when fantastic eurogames are coming thick and fast, like hail in the Great Plains, this one looks pretty enough to make a name for itself. But does it have that frontier spirit? Quinns will let you know. Probably. Assuming he doesn’t get distracted and start talking about sodding Timeline again.

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Review: Mice and Mystics

Review: Mice and Mystics

For literally our entire lives, Paul and I hadn’t played Mice and Mystics. Then we played Mice and Mystics. Then it was out of stock!

But this month will see a new printing of the much-discussed game scurrying onto shop shelves the world over. A game of daring-do and wild adventure! A story of tiny heroes with huge hearts. A tale… of cheese.

And so it was written that Shut Up & Sit Down would perform “The Review”, and take a quick peek at Mice and Mystics: Heart of Glorm, too.

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Review: Theseus

Review: Theseus

What’s this? Looks like your donations weren’t enough, everybody. Paul and Quinns are now moonlighting as space marines. No way this could go wrong! Especially not in the spooky space-lanes of Theseus: The Dark Orbit.

This was one of the trickiest reviews we’ve done in some time. If we have any designers reading this, do you think you could make your games a little less distinctive, nuanced, rich and basically a bit worse? As critics, we’d really appreciate it.

EDIT: Audio gremlins now fixed!

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