Quinns: Rum! Guns! Thievery and corruption! Broadsides and boarding actions, executed by daring captains, their magnificent ships reeking of fragrant spices and tobacco. A glittering sea, taken to foul moods and murderous storms. Sharks! MONEY!
Ain’t no backdrop like the 18th century Caribbean. If only there was a board game set amongst all this.
Oh wait!
We’re BACK! What’s changed? Not much! We’re still straining like weightlifters to bring you the best board game reviews this side of the moon, and you should still relax, grab a glass of your favourite beverage and enjoy. This episode we’ve got a huge game, a brilliant game AND a party game! Come see.
02:37 - Fortune & Glory review
11:08 - K2 review
15:57 - Pipe Down & Take a Chair: Gaming During the Blitz
19:33 - Bang! review
24:40 - SU&SD’s Quaint Foreign Gamers From Afar
Quinns: We’re always squealing about smart games here at SU&SD. I’m guessing actually reading our site is a bit like untying the knot of a balloon with IMTELLIGENCE written on the side and having it noisily exhale into your face for hours on end. Which is misleading, because we love stupid games too.
“WHICH ONES,” you cry, anxious to get to the bottom of this unsettling admission.
Well, The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus is pretty perfect, for what it is. Let us tell you about it.
Imagine Paul sat by a crackling fire, speaking calmly to you in his warm, academic, almost mahogany voice…
In fifty years time I shall be a very wrinkly and very old man, but all the stats suggest I’ll still be very much alive and, I imagine, probably still playing board games too. I imagine myself sat with the odd youngster now and then, perhaps grandchildren, great nephews, or just the odd whippersnapper who has tossed a coin in my cup and told me to get a job, but whoever it is I’m sure they’ll ask me what board games were like in my day.
“Board games?” I’ll ask, with a Santa-like twinkle in my eye, a Twainish bounce in my crazy-old-dude hair, “Oh, well it was all very different back then. They didn’t self-assemble, for a start. In fact, it was all something like this…”
“Why is everything going wobbly?!” the Dickensian sprog would cry. “I am afeared!”
“Worry not, tis but a flashback! A flashback to… TORPEDO RUN.”
Paul: If 2011 didn’t spoil us enough with board games, it looks like 2012 will. Below we present our top ten games coming this year. Ten whole games! That’s a towering collection, a veritable Cleopatra’s needle, so you lot had better start commissioning specially-constructed barges to ferry those needles home to you. Games barges. For these towering games needles. Yes.
One thing’s for sure, though. The most exciting games in the coming year are definitely something Quinns and I will both agreed on. Definitely.
Quinns: Oh, god. Let’s get this over with.
Quinns: The idea behind Dungeon Run is as sharp and alluring as a crescent moon. Up to six players control heroes running (of course!) through a monster-packed dungeon (yep!) on a breakneck quest to locate a huge dungeon boss, break its neck and snatch the all-powerful relic known as the Summoning Stone from its still-twitching claws.
…which is where the action takes off, because Dungeon Run isn’t actually a cooperative game. Only one hero can leave with the stone, you see. This isn’t some gameshow where everyone goes home with a pat on the ass and a consolation prize.
So what follows is a cruel, Cheeto-fueled re-dreaming of American football where everyone’s goal is to grab that stone, which will then give them full control of all the monsters in the dungeon, and escape through a last line of defense made of their former friends. Or, as the Dungeon Run box proclaims it, “YOU are the end boss!” A sentence so exquisite that if you repeat it to yourself over and over in a dark room you get an actual contact high off the game’s designer.
That’s Dungeon Run’s concept, anyway. The reality is… well, look, nobody said designing a board game was easy.
Come all ye gentlemen. Come ye ladies, too! The boys have released their Christmas Special, a frantic fumble with the quirky lady of board games. We’ve got dice games, solitaire games, print’n’play games, classics and MORE!
02:12 - Quarriors review
09:44 - Christmas… is… ruined?!
10:52 - Phantom Leader review
13:57 - Print’n’Play reviews
26:29 - Cosmic Encounter review
Paul: Draw Christmas, without drawing a Christmas tree. How would you do it? The clock is ticking. Tick tock, tick tock. Tick. Tock. Maybe you’d draw a Christmas dinner! Of course! Wait, no, what you’ve drawn looks like the Last Supper fix it QUICKLY NOW oh dear too late everyone’s finished and you didn’t even bother trying to guess what they were drawing-
Quinns: Don’t be difficult. You’re being difficult-
Paul: DRAW “DIFFICULT.”
Quinns: Pictomania is our game of Christmas, our recommendation for what you play with your relatives on the day itself. It’s our game for everyone. Sure, we looked at Game of Thrones to see if that was a gamer’s game for Christmas, but we still need a game to replace all those tired favourites you trot out on the day. In this review-
Paul: DRAW “REVIEW”.
Quinns: DRAW “PAIN IN THE ASS” oh God don’t actually jesus Paul stop.
Quinns: This month saw the release of a beautiful new edition of the Game of Thrones board game, a game of duplicity and scheming that, according to rumours, is so mean it’s actually capable of damaging friendships. Yesterday Paul and I played it, and today we seek to answer two very serious questions. One, should you buy it? And two, following his incredible defeat, will Paul manage to assemble an objective opinion?
Paul: I’m not bitter! There’s a lot about A Game of Thrones I want people to know, but they can start by knowing I was graceful in defeat. Under my rule House Tyrell were a staunch and honest ally for the entire game, which definitely wins me the moral victory.
Quinns: Aw! You must tell me how that feels, because I only know what it’s like to win the actual game of thrones. It’s also interesting you’re talking ethics when you spent the entire game convincing my neighbours to war against me.
Paul: I console myself with the terrible truth that success in A Game of Thrones means being a very, very bad person. Someone with no moral fiber, that maidens flee from and dogs turn their noses up at. Just like in the books, then.
Quinns: Absolutely. This game’s biggest success is how it feels worryingly like taking part in the baleful power struggles of George R.R. Martin’s novels. Click on through to read how we discovered that this game would make both the best and worst Christmas present imaginable.
Quinns: There’s a WAR ON here at SU&SD. A disagreement of olympic proportions. You see, I think board games should be about interacting with one another, and Paul is an asshole. I’ll let him explain.
Paul: Quinns is not a fan of certain kinds of games. Worker placement games, games where the players are a bit more independent, or games where players are otherwise free to act without having to worry about one another. You know, all those great games like Runebound and Agricola, and a while ago he got mad at Stone Age. All those well-lived, charming, innovative games that are adored by millions. He’s going to try to explain why and he’ll flap more than an army of penguins. Watch.
Quinns: Oh, I’ll state my case, alright. Games “where the players are a bit more independent” is a cute euphemism. What we’re talking about here are games that don’t see the players interacting.
