Shut Up & Sit Down

The New SU&SD Is Here

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:37:41 +0000

Paul: Back in January, we teased that we had something big coming. Teased.

It’s here.

Quinns: Everybody, please make your way to the new Shut Up & Sit Down site. Ah, no crowding! Form an orderly line! No rushing, people. Millicent! Calm down!

This site isn’t going anywhere, but updates will appear on the new one. Please update your bookmarks, friends. Safe journey.

Games News! 25/03/13

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:05:00 +0000

Quinns: We’re used to board games testing our brains, reflexes, even our privates. But lungs? That’s a new one.

Enter Antoine Bauza’s Rampage, which should be landing this year. Bauza’s one of our favourite designers here at SU&SD, having crafted 7 Wonders and Ghost Stories, both of which are capable of collapsing your face into deep thought like a strong man might fold a deck chair.

With Rampage, 2-4 players will be dropping their wooden kaiju monsters to crush buildings, blowing on civilians to claim their pathetic lives and even flicking themselves at one another in foul, animal anger. Doesn’t that sound perfect?

If you’re on the side of the civilians, though, you’ll want to take an interest in Hisashi Hayashi’s Trains, a respected Japanese game that’s arriving in the rest of the world this Summer. There are lots of railway-building board games. Who made them? And why? Like stonehenge, nobody really knows.

If, like us, you’re interested in solving this mystery, Trains looks like a great place to start. For a start, there’s the name. It’s not Bivalves and Cattle: Wisconsin Freight, 1840 Edition, or whatever. It’s just Trains. Would you like some trains? They’re in this box.

Actually, anyone looking for a step up from Ticket to Ride but still think Trains looks intimidating should keep an eye peeled for Trains and Stations, by Wizkids. No images of that one yet, but I’m curious. I’m positively vibrating with curiosity. That could just be the ADD meds.

But perhaps you wanted a Japanese-designed game you could buy now?

Got you covered. The new print run of Love Letter is arriving in shops this week, and I just ordered my copy. The hype is absolutely insane, especially so because all you’ll find in the box is a manual, a bag, some chits and sixteen cards.

Players are all suitors trying to get their love letter into the hands of a princess, but it sounds like this theme is a silken veil that would blow away if anyone sneezed. Basically, you all have one card with a big ol’ number. On your turn, you draw a card, and play one of your two cards for their effect, perhaps letting you compare your remaining card with someone, knocking the player with the lower valued card out of the round, or any one of a dozen different effects. The first player to win four rounds, wins.

Everyone’s saying it’s a tour-de-force of bluffing, chance and risk-reward. When the hype’s this potent, I buy now and ask questions later, but here’s a nice review for those of you on the fence.

The very THIRD expansion for Cards Against Humanity, a.k.a. “Apples to Apples for terrible people” is also landing in shops this week. Another amazing-sounding card game we still haven’t played.

Some friends of mine played it, though, and said their game peaked with a combination of “An international tribunal has found _____ guilty of _____.” The winning answer was “God” for the first slot, and “Ghosts” for the second.

If you’re interested in analog game design, bookmark this video right the hell now.

Last year I was lucky enough to see Dr. Richard Garfield, designer of Magic: The Gathering, Netrunner, King of Tokyo, Robo Rally and so much more talk on randomness in games. Today I discovered this! A recording of him giving the same talk at a different convention.

It’s not just that Garfield’s brilliant, he’s also entertaining and has a grasp of mathematics lends itself to the subject.

It’s the done thing to consider luck a vulgarity within game design. As an appetiser, consider Garfield’s point that luck increases the probability of unusual game states, demanding innovation and adaptability from its players. Then watch the whole thing because it’s AMAZING.

In “Oh god this is coming to our shelves” news, steampunk “fantasy monster fighting / aeronautical questing” game Teramyyd: Earthsphere shattered its Kickstarter goals this week.

Now… look. Part of being a critic is keeping an open mind. But somewhere between the extra “y” in the title, the dragons, the player character that’s a fox, the player character with her tits out and the fact that her home port is “Meppyarrwhyyl”, my mind snapped shut like a mousetrap. LEAVE SOME CONSONANTS FOR THE REST OF US, GUYS.

Quick, someone get me a Kickstarter that doesn’t feel like someone spitting in my coat.

Ah. This is nice. A Kickstarter to replace the player dice of the excellent Alien Frontiers, in which your dice are also your ships anyway.

No, hang on. The Alien Frontiers board is covered in nice squares in which the existing, chunky dice socket perfectly! ABORT. ABORT.

And finally! The news you’ve all been waiting for. An update on my Descent: Second Edition campaign.

It’s going well! Three quests won by me, the evil Overlord, and only one by the players.

See that little grey guy on the far right, though? He’s a bastard. Tomble the thief can use the defense dice of any player he’s stood next to, as well as his own dice pool. That horrible little Irish Frodo wannabe.

Any tips?

Review: Tease

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:37:00 +0000

[Introducing friend of SU&SD and games journalist Leigh Alexander.]

Quinns: So here’s what happened.

Leigh: OK.

Quinns: A while back some SU&SD readers joked that we should review Tease: The Liberating Game for Couples and Groups. I got in touch with the PR

Leigh: Oh, I’ll bet you did.

Quinns: I GOT IN TOUCH WITH THE PR, who said she wasn’t sure they should send a game to a site that would probably just make fun of it. Which was a fair cop. I just wanted to do a video where four men play Tease and are forced to give one another massages.

Except then they sent me the game anyway! And… it’s… pretty good!

Leigh: It’s okay. You don’t have to couch your desire for physical intimacy in funny jokes, Quinns. Just admit you wanted to try the game.

Quinns: I… do and I don’t.

Players roll dice and move around the board, landing on spaces that are - let’s see - take a drink, give a massage, remove an item of clothing, take a “Reward” card, take a “Forfeit” card, and Napoleon.

No hang on. I see now. Napoleon is the “Dictator” space. Where you can make other players do sexy things. Like take a drink, give massages or remove clothing.

But here’s the thing. It’s actually well thought-out. The manual states that men must begin wearing 7 items of clothing, and women 8. Then the entire game is about escalation. As you move around the board, orbiting SEX like some kind of filth satellite, the kiss spaces move from “Cheek”, to “Lips”, to “Neck”, to “Passionate”. And all the Reward and Forfeit cards are numbered in increasing order of sexiness.

Leigh: Okay. I have so many questions. Is this “swinging”. ARE YOU SWINGING

Quinns: I’m not finished! At the end of the game are different Fantasy cards you’re racing towards. Whoever gets there first gets the first pick of the Fantasy. Get there first, you might have to do a sexy job interview. Get there last and you might just get spanked by everybody. Literally.

Leigh: Sexy job interview? What kind of fantasy is that?!

Quinns: I had a sexy job interview, once. Actually it was kind of a mundane. It might have been a normal interview.

Leigh: Did you ask the interviewer to call you “Napoleon?”

Quinns: Would that have got me the job? I don’t think I got the job.

Leigh: God, I… I don’t even know. This is really challenging my previously-held misconceptions about what “sexiness” is.

Quinns: Sexiness involves rules, obviously. Everybody knows that.

Leigh: Having the women wear more clothes presumes that there is more of a desire to see women naked than men naked. That’s a weird rule.

Quinns: Mainly I’m baffled as a games critic as to what the parameters of this are. Leigh, you’re a sexy person. What would you look for in a sexy game? Or a game designed to disseminate sexiness like a kind of airborne virus.

Leigh: Oh, thank you Quinns. Give me a minute. I’m still trying to work out how you tested this. Did you passionately kiss Brendan? I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see that.

Quinns: Mostly I tested it by reading the cards as my eyebrows advanced into my hairline. One of the Fantasy cards involves you crawling under a bed, and two players of your choice enter the room and do “Whatever they’re comfortable with” with you beneath them like a startled burglar. It’s already been pointed out to me on our Twitter that these players should jump up and down on the bed while shouting absurdly.

Leigh: If we play this, I’m going to end up lying under the bed while you and Brendan read manuals for some other game.

Quinns: Judging by the number of drink squares on the board I think you might fall asleep under there. I’m going to go ahead and read more of these cards. “You get to take a very erotic photo, the kind that could be found in any hard-core porn magazine. This should involve as many of the players as you would like.”

That might be OK, if it was one of the advertising pages in the magazine. Brendan smiling at a packet of biscuits.

Leigh: Mmm. Yeah. Okay. I’m with you now. Also, I’m thinking I’d hate to be that one person at the table who everyone uses their “Forfeit” cards on, who is left out of the photo. Harsh. I mean, it wouldn’t be me, but poor whoever.

Quinns: No. You’d be posing with all the biscuits. But this is where it gets well thought out again! There are balance squares where players who are dragging behind get pulled forward, or the most-dressed player has to strip, or the least drunk player has to drink. As a Liberating Game for Couples and Groups, it has the will to liberate of an invading army.

It even encourages you to customise which cards you play with! So if none of you have rhythm you don’t have to give lapdances, or whatever.

Leigh: Lucky for you. Board gaming: Where you can’t even do sex without bringing up invading armies and Napoleon.

Quinns: I am entirely serious. What would you look for in a sexy game. We have to get to the bottoms of this.

Leigh: Oh, a bottoms pun. You’re quite on-form today, with the jokes and such. Um. Okay. Well, when you are talking about liberated couples and groups, all I can think about is the time we watched the Louis Theroux documentary on swingers, and how those people, virtually laying down plastic sheeting in order to get naked with vacant cheer, would probably be the target audience for this game. That was basically the least-sexy documentary I’ve ever seen.

Quinns: DODGING THE QUESTION. Look! They even included cards for you to write your own fantasies on.

Leigh: No, see, the thing is, I think putting it all out there isn’t super sexy. What I am into, about what you’ve described, is the concept of escalating disclosure.

Quinns: Ah. Now. See, lots of the low-level cards are just talking about sharing stories of your first crush. What you find most attractive about your partner. This is what I’m talking about! There are even a ton of tweaks in the back of the manual for if you’re playing with just you and your partner, or with no couples, etc.

Leigh: Well, I’d say I’d find my partner most attractive when they are not being made to drink and get groped by other people. You’d agree with that, right? But you can play this just with one other person?

Quinns: Yeah. Maybe that’s the thing to make a big deal out of. The drinking, massages, kissing. The fantasy cards. “Stroke a player’s hair for 30 seconds, saying ‘Poor kitty, poor kitty cat.’ If you laugh, you must drink.” “Explain what your favourite genre of porn is.” This could… this could work for two people.

Leigh: I AM, I admit, intrigued by the idea of systemizing and balancing intimacy as a concept. But there’s a line, you know? If you start commodifying intimacy, it has the potential to get cheesy really fast. Again, I’m just picturing that documentary guy’s house, a room full of sheet-protected floral mattresses and his exciting vinyl collection (not meaning records, of course). Shit, am I boring? I just like tension and secrecy. Tension and secrecy! When are they going to make Resistance: Sex House?

Quinns: Yeah, that’s a thing. Sex is secret. It’s quiet. Arguably a really accessible, liberating sex game would deal with discussing fantasies and then encourage a lot of behind-closed-doors stuff. This is really a game for people who are already liberated. Even if you play with the tame cards, it could still end up with you sat next to your friends in your pants. AND BEYOND.

Leigh: I wonder if your roommates would agree with your statement that “[sex is] quiet.” Or if Brendan wants to sit next to you in his pants. And yeah. You’ve got down to my issue, here: This is a game that already appeals to a conventional definition of “liberation”. I’m thinking of the games we used to play when we were teenagers.

Like, if you wanted to escalate Spin The Bottle you’d do Seven Minutes in Heaven or whatever, where you’re supposed to go in the closet with someone else. And if you didn’t want to make out, you’d sit in the dark, laughing awkwardly, talking, wondering what everyone else is thinking about what you’re doing in there. At that age you’re still too uncomfortable with yourself to really get much out of that kind of interaction, but there really are a lot of mysterious and complex social dynamics at work there. If you could put a system behind that, and then give it to adults, I’d be interested in that kind of thing. Lying under a bed eating biscuits in my pants, not so much.

Quinns: Are you saying that sex is ALREADY A GAME? That’s good. Someone should just make the rulebook for that.

Gross. I just found a forfeit reading “The player to your right must lick your lips.”

Leigh: “Must.” Yeah. I’m not saying pushing boundaries and having fun with them is bad, or anything, but you’ve got it: Sexuality is hot precisely because of the unspoken rules, the sort of primal way we navigate flirtation. I think there has to be a way that a card game could explore that more naturalistically. I mean, card games can be pretty sexy on their own, when you think about it: The intimacy of gathering around tactile objects, heads together, possessing the private calculations in your own head, wondering at those of others. You think so?

Quinns: Yeah. Right now I’m trying to actually make The Resistance: Sex House in my head. Something to do with locating your team-mates by getting a hand of fantasies and crushes, written out before by everybody, then sliding them to people in secret. “Is this right? yes/no?” Then it’s something you’re sharing with that player alone.

Leigh: Even in this conversation, you’ve been playing with me, in a sense, because you want me to talk about sex, and I’ve made allusions to things I like and don’t like, some serious and some less so. This is probably a more sensual interaction than if you’d whipped out a card that made me spank Brendan or take my top off at your kitchen table.

Quinns: I think I’ll make the conclusion of this pseudo-review “You should know this game exists. And for what it is, it’s a… quality product?” Like, even the cardstock is good. The dares are thoughtful. The rules are ruley.

So, doing anything later?

Leigh: Hmm, wouldn’t you like to know? But yeah — I don’t want to seem like I’m judging other lifestyles. This seems like it could be totally fun, or at least funny, for couples that are into swinging, or for the kind of people who attend a party in a PVC suit that screams “hey! I wear my sex organs on my sleeve!”

Quinnd: EW. I had an uncle that did that once.

Leigh: Runs in the family? But yeah, I just ask people out there that if you play this game, film yourselves. And please invite Louis Theroux. It’d be hilarious.

[Tease: The Liberating Game for Couples and Groups is available direct from the publishers here.]

SU&SD Present Their Favourite Team Games

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Quinns: I’ve had this nagging thought for a month now, like someone left a window open in my skull. Why aren’t there more team games? Not co-op games, but games that let you bond with your friends both as a team and in hatred of your filthy opposition. Surely that’s the best thing ever?

I’m still figuring out who I can telephone to complain about this. In the meantime, you guys could enjoy my favourite 5 team games, just published on Kotaku, in which I compare 1812: The Invasion of Canada to buckaroo, and give a shout out to Tease: The Liberating Game for Couples and Groups. Clicky click!

There’s also a board gaming secret in there. Shh! Don’t tell anybody. Not even your mother. Especially not your mother. Because I already told her.

Games News! 18/03/13

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 17:05:59 +0000

Quinns: Ooh! Can’t touch this! Can’t touch this! You can’t touch the games news! It’s because it’s on the internet.

This was a great week for fans of salmon and runs thereof. Jesse Catron’s off-kilter fish racing game Salmon Run is now available for pre-order, including an expansion that adds dangerous fisherman hexagons.

Maybe you wanted something a little… stronger? Step right this way.

No you know what I’m not done with the salmon thing.

Seriously, this game sounds excellent! You have to manage fatigue and a fish deck as you swim upstream, and can redirect bears and eagles towards your friends. “Sorry, Paul! Looks like you swam too close to that there grizzly!” Ha ha… happy days.

But maybe you prefer your water rare and your fish nonexistent. If so, why not head over to Planet Steam?

Fantasy Flight has announced that Planet Steam, their game of brutal economic battles in a steampunk world, will be coming out in the Summer. Which is interesting, because it came out five years ago. Probably what they meant to say is that they’ve now got the rights and are doing a new, spit-polished version. I’m sure that’s what they meant.

Players first bid on land, then deploy extraction equipment, socketing extra pieces onto their extractors to indicate the removal of water, ore, quartz or energy, like so:

They then struggle to store and sell the damn stuff on an open market with the lenience of an open flame. All of which makes it sound exactly like Black Gold, which we looked at and loved ages back.

WHICH GAME WILL BE BETTER? I have no idea. I’m spending all my time pawing at .jpgs of the other steampunk license Fantasy Flight have coming out.

This is it. What are you looking at, you ask?

OK. Pay attention! Sit up straight, and spit that gum out. Yes, into my hand. Thanks. Mm. *chew chew*

We start in 1959 with a game called Diplomacy. The designer, Allan Calhamer, actually died just last month. Diplomacy is a petrifying game where everyone spends an entire day controlling a European power, talking to other players’ European powers, ordering troop movements on such a zoomed-out scale that the only game you’re playing is one of talking; of who’s supporting who.

Diplomacy… isn’t really what you’d call fun. It’s more like a cross between an eight hour prisoner’s dilemma with everyone sat in a garbage compactor. But in 1982 Borderlands was released, a game that tried to crowbar a Diplomacy from an entire day down into just a couple of hours. Same focus on deal-brokering, but with a little resource management and a lot more lenience.

Today Fantasy Flight are making Gearworld: The Borderlands, pictured above. A steampunk update of Borderlands featuring bridges and steamboats and fights over literal scrap and all kinds of flavourful nonsense.

Yeah, Paul and I were disappointed by FF’s updates of Fortress: America and Wiz-War, both of them 80s games that didn’t play so well today, but Borderlands’ brand of politicky warfare is exactly what FF do well.

All of which probably makes me sound quite in-the-know. It’s not true! I screw my face up so often while reading BoardGameGeek that my brow now resembles a croissant. Look at this:

Belle of the Ball is a print’n’play card game, prototype available here, that’s getting a boxed release this time next year. It’s a game about having a party in a nonspecific dapper place and attempting to create the best atmosphere using what sound like despotic social eugenics.

“In order to ensure that they stay one step ahead of the other hosts, players will have to carefully watch the growing line of guests at the door, inviting those in that seem to share passions with partygoers already inside, all the while handing out their precious stash of Regrets to those who should seek refuge elsewhere. Of course, other hosts may find it advantageous to invite a rejected guest inside just to collect their accumulated Regrets for later use.”

If a game can teach SU&SD how to use our accumulated regrets, sign us up.

Next up is Castellan, which Steve Jackson games has started demoing properly. It’s a game that appears to be about building the worst castle ever and basically doesn’t look very fun.

AND FINALLY:

The Kickstarter for the new Flash Point: Fire Rescue expansion has begun! I won’t be backing it, because it’s called Flash Point: Extreme Danger and if Flash Point was any more dangerous it would actually set fire to you.

You can read about Paul and my time with Flash Point here, or you could just picture a montage of firemen gingerly walking into toilets that immediately explode.

“We know you want to get even bigger,” declares the chipper voice in the Extreme Danger Kickstarter video. NO WE DON’T.

“We’ll add rules for floor damage!”

Oh god. Floors? Man’s noblest servant? Is nothing sacred?

“Fireproof doors!”

Oh, that sounds ok—

“And critically wounded victims!”

Ah. Who’ll be on the other side of the fireproof doors. I’M ONTO YOU, PAL.

“We’ve got some ideas for stretch rewards, too!”

Oh yeah what kind of rewards

“Chemical spills!”

RIGHT. Nope. Not me. Not this firefighter. This was already a game where you’d arrive at a house and found someone had left a can of gasoline on their sofa. I’m going to go toast a bagel, and I’m not going to burn it, because I am great with fire. Never mind what your game says.

QUINNS OUT.

Our Belated Top 5 Games of 2012

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:39:00 +0000

Paul: How’s your tux?

Quinns: A little tight. How’s yours?

Paul: I went with the dress. It was cheaper. HELLO, ladies and gentlemen, boys and antiboys. It’s time for our top 5 games of 2012, which will almost certainly be as well-organised and halcyon as our top 10 Upcoming Games of 2012 feature, which ended up being 14 games, none of which we agreed on.

Quinns: Step this way, banishing all preconceptions from your mind, AND ALSO any thoughts that this feature is three months later. And let’s kick things off with…

#5: THE RESISTANCE: AVALON

Quinns: SU&SD are HUGE fans of negotiation game The Resistance, where a table of freedom fighters and double agents must debate who to send on missions, and how to react when those missions are sabotaged (swearing and screaming, usually), so it was hard to imagine they’d put a foot wrong with Avalon. A semi-sequel with added features.

Paul: Okay, I have no idea why this is in spot number five because immediately I can tell you it should be higher up and of course it should be here but it should be higher look you’re making me not punctuate and now I am hyperventilating.

Quinns: BREATHE. Tell the people what Avalon adds!

Paul: Well, this is the excellent thing. I’m not sure if I want to go back to vanilla Resistance now, because Avalon gives several of the players around the table special, game-altering powers which bring a new dimension to game.

The plot is cast back to King Arthur’s court at Camelot and one of the good guys becomes Merlin. He knows who all the spies are, which gives him an edge, but if the spies are able to identify Merlin correctly when the game ends, they win, even if they were uncovered.

And that’s just one of the characters! There’s Percival, another good guy who knows who Merlin is and trusts him, while the other good guys don’t know who Merlin is, and the evil Morgana, who appears to be Merlin to Percival and…

Quinns: Yeah. Avalon basically turns The Resistance from a mathsy puzzle with an element of “HE’S LYING, LOOK AT HIS EYES / MOIST ARMPITS” into something from Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. “But if he’s Merlin… then that would make you Lancelot… and him Morgana…”, until your endlessly telescoping brain just falls apart.

Paul: Which is exactly why this should be higher in the list. It’s more like a top three game of the year. Can you count that far? To three? It’s beyond five. Wait, no, it’s… if you count to five of course you can count to three…

Quinns: But it’s just The Resistance, really. We can’t have a minor improvement on an existing game go dominating our end of year list.

Paul: Well. Well. I think it’s a fairly big improvement to an excellent game and one that we said is a perfect introduction to board games. But let’s see what’s next on the list because the producer is giving us the signal with his hands.

#4: City of Horror

Quinns: Now we’re talking! Literally. Again. City of Horror is another game about talking. A spectacular grab-bag of game, with players trying to survive a zombie apocalypse by shuttling their survivors around, making the most of their dwindling reserves of equipment, and voting on who to feed to the hordes to buy the rest just one more hour in a doomsday machine of grudges and cunning.

Paul: Wait, no, what? I mean, yes, sure, this is good, but we can only have five games as our best of the year. I’m sure the list I handed in had some different names on it. There must’ve been a mixup.

City of Horror is a fine game of fierce negotiation, and cold, calculated decisions. What’s more, it’s built upon the simplest of rules. It’s dead easy to get almost anyone into it and it ties you up in diplomatic double-knots as you argue why the characters under your control should be the ones to survive the zombie apocalypse. It’s very good. But I’d rate it just outside my top five which SOMEHOW seems to have been mislaid.

Quinns: Tell you what. I’ll give you my top 5 reasons why this needs to be in my top 5.

Paul: QUINNS NO-

Quinns: HERE WE GO.

Paul: BUT THE FABRIC OF REALITY WILL BE IRREVOCABLY-

Quinns: One! It’s epic, while being comparatively quick.

Two! It blends negotiation, logic, patience and puzzling, so it’s nuanced while remaining simple.

Three! It can simulate a priest pushing a pregnant woman out of a water tower.

Four! It reshuffles itself, with the survivors, cards and building tiles you get, so it’s always a little different.

Five! It has a three-dimensional water tower thing.

Paul: Is he still going? I’ve moved onto the ne- Ah!

#3: Mage Knight

Yes. Yes! What a fascinating game. When we reviewed it earlier this year we warned you that it was an enormous, complicated and elaborate experience. It’s not an accessible game and it’s not an easy game, but it is absorbing, its full of clever mechanics and systems and it’s also a pretty damn fine lookin’ thing if you don’t mind me saying. The theme is one of epic fantasy and if anything gives you that sense of epicness, of epicality, of the epicious, it’s this. It’s part deck-building, with you gradually amassing cards that represent your powers, it’s part roleplaying, with you gradually improving your skills and abilities, and it’s part adventure game, sending you out to conquer citadels, to fight extraordinary monsters and to sack dungeons. And temples, too, if you want to be evil. Which you can!

Quinns: Yeah. We marked it down for being such an absurd, intimidating machine, but as a machine, it’s geek clockwork. After you’ve spent the two hours familiarising yourself with it, perhaps having torn your through your first dragon like a pinata, any hardy nerd will find themselves staring in awe at the intricacy of the parts and how they all fit together. You said it in our review. This game sits you in the cockpit of a jetplane, and it’s as demanding, and rewarding, as learning to fly. For every gamer who can’t be bothered with it, it’s going to be someone else’s game of the year.

Paul: I feel bad saying that it’s not for everyone, but it’s clearly not. It has quite the learning curve and even seasoned gamers might be a little intimidated. But if you can get into it, and if you don’t mind your rules on the more complex side, then it’s definitely something you should play and very much one of our games of the year. Looks like we’re finally getting this list sorted. What’s next?

#2: Castles of Burgundy

Quinns: Proof that Paul and myself aren’t wizard-obsessed manchildren! Castles of Burgundy is a vintage game that emerged this year from the dusty cellar of a German’s mind all about growing your own personal French estate. Yes, we cruelly compared it to “The lovechild of a maths textbook and hotel room art”. I later said that if someone came to my house and put this on the table, I’d deliberately spill wine on it. We also told you to love it in spite of that.

Paul: Castles of Burgundy is one of the best Eurogames I’ve played in quite some time, one of the best examples of its kind. Eurogames, you’ll remember, tend to be light on theme and not the shiniest things out there, but their value is found in their perfectly-crafted mechanics, in the head-scratching they demand, in their balance and their replayability. Castles of Burgundy demonstrates all of these things and while we’ve already played it several times over, we could easily play it a whole bunch more and never get tired of it. It’s an enormously engaging game that’s just full of stuff for you to do and there’s something brilliantly satisfying about gradually growing your own estate on your miniature board.

Quinns: It all just works. Like Agricola you’re building something, but the game has a pleasant pace, rather than one full of worry and disappointment. The tender joy of completing a town. The excitement of placing a new castle! The forbidden thrill of amassing piglets.

Paul: So many choices! So much personalisation! So many combinations! This is why we’ve chosen Castles of Burgundy as our game of th- As- Wait. This is slot number two, not number one. #1: A Few Acres of Snow

Quinns: OH GOD IT’S SO GOOD. It also technically came out in 2011, but so did Mage Knight. We’re going off when they landed in the UK.

Paul: To be honest, I don’t really care about exactly when they came out, or in what region. There’s been some sort of mistake, anyway. Hold on. If you just pause, we can sort this. I’d have put Castles of Burgundy at-

#1: A Few Acres of Snow

Quinns: We’re overwhelming fans of WW2 heroism-fest Memoir ‘44 here at SU&SD. A game where you’re one step removed from the battle, and your opponent, and you’re trying to bend the war to your will using the cards in your hand. A Few Acres of Snow feels like the next step up. A longer, richer, more epic battle, where your cards don’t just limit you, but actively surprise, enthrall and humour you. A Few Acres of Snow isn’t just a beautiful battle. It’s a challenge with its own personality, like a third participant in the duel. A battle where the map, the rules, and your opponent, all leave you wistfully remembering your time in Canada like a retired general.

Paul: Well, yes, this is a great wargame and one with a mechanic that is quite possibly borderline genius. I think I remember finishing my first game and stepping away from it to wonder what just happened. It’s exhausting, but in a good way, because as you build a deck that represents the war machine you’re creating, with all its troops and resources and bureaucracy, you’re similarly weighing yourself down with the complications of your creation. It’s such a smart idea and it makes for so many nail-chewing decisions and cruel, cruel compromises. Man, it makes you use your brain.

Quinns: “Borderline genius.” That’s the nut, isn’t it? There’s just no arguing about it. This game is a temple of rules, rules that fit together like stones and ceiling beams, sheltering you from everything outside the game. It makes me fall to my knees. It-

Paul: That’s all very nice, but I don’t think it’s the game of the year. We should probably go back and edit this. Something’s gone wrong.

Quinns: Oh, we’ll go back. Back… TO THE FUTURE.

#0: Android: Netrunner

Paul: WHAT HAS HAPPENED? What’s that noise? Is that ozone I can smell? WHY ARE YOUR EYES GLOWING.

Quinns: Now, you haven’t played this, so you just ask me questions about it. Ask the questions a reader might ask.

Paul: OH GOD GET ME OUT OF HERE Okay so what is this game then. Just don’t hurt me.

Quinns: It’s a re-launch of a game in the 90s by Richard Garfield, who designed Magic: The Gathering AND SU&SD favourite Robo Rally. Now, I’ve /heard/ that Richard Garfield was, in hindsight, disappointed by Magic’s inability to live up to some of the fun of playing poker. Magic isn’t always about how you play your cards. Netrunner was his attempt at fixing that, and it’s an unsettlingly entertaining card game set in a cyberpunk, Blade Runner type world.

One player is a hacker, with one kind of deck full of programs, hardware, energy drinks and illegalities. The other player is a corporation, with a deck full of intrusion countermeasures, employees and projects. But it’s a game of ruses and bluffs. The corporation has to successfully run projects without the hacker stealing the sodding things, and the hacker can go poking around anything, from the corporation’s private servers, to your hand, to your deck, to your discard pile. It’s beautiful.

Paul: I don’t understand. Where did the walls go? Where’s the producer? Why do you have tentacles? Okay, okay! So, erm, it’s not quite a deck-builder? What’s so good about the game mechanics in this one?

Quinns: This can wait for our proper review, but basically? Both players get to do something incredibly fun. The corporation plays like a corporation. You’re buildings walls, laying traps, perhaps leaving openings where a curious fly might come buzzing in. Meanwhile, the hacker plays like a daredevil criminal. Shaking tags on his location, slipping past security by the skin of their teeth.

Paul: Something’s gone wrong. We can’t feature one that we haven’t even reviewed! I protest. Plus, the games aren’t even in the right order and this… this isn’t London. And I don’t know what’s happened to you. I’m leaving!

Quinns: Paul. Do you feel that? Something’s… no! Impossible! Paul, we’re going back up!

#-1: R.E.X.

Quinns: Paul, we need to SIT UP & SHUT THIS DOWN.

Paul: OK, you close down the server! I’ll handle this.

R.E.X. is the reimagining of the classic board game Dune, or one of the Dune board games, but with Fantasy Flight changing the location from the planet Arrakis to Mecator Rex, the central planet in their own Twilight Imperium universe. The players will be wrestling for control of the planet, trying to conquer the most important locations across the game board, and everyone takes control of a race that has a unique special power. That means all of you get to do something that nobody else can.

What’s more, your special powers will inevitably, inevitably step on the toes of the other players. For example, one race is the arms dealer of the universe, and whenever players bid to buy equipment, they’re the one who collects the profits. Other players can collect political influence in the same way, can have knowledge of in-game events before they’ve happened, or can even sit out battles they know they’re going to lose. You all get to ruin someone else’s day and you usually get to do so at least once per turn, every turn. You fox, you.

Quinns: Last year Paul and I were grumbling harmoniously about Fortress America. We could tell it was based on an archaic 1980s board game with some rudimentary mechanics, and we had little time for it. R.E.X., then, is an odd one. Unquestionably one of our games of the year, it’s based on an even older game from 1979. And yet it works so well. This time, the foundations of the old game are simple, strong and plausible. Because the game is so simple, every troop movement, battle and ceasefire see players threatening, discussing and forging alliances. Everyone is interested in everything else everyone is doing. And yet R.E.X. also represents a kind of candy shop of everything that ages beautifully. Hidden information, asymmetry, negotiation, betrayals and tension.

Paul: All of which come together very, very nicely to make a game that is one heck of a challenge, where every play will be different and which, surprisingly, is very easy to learn.

Quinns: OK, my ISP says our internet will be down in the next 30 seconds.

Paul: What happens then? Will that save us?

Quinns: I don’t know. We can only h-

The Fourth Ever SU&SD Podcast

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:54:00 +0000

Quinns: While iTunes and RSS feeds are beyond us, as the stars are beyond the humble antelope, I’ll tell you what! Paul and I can totally put a mic on a table and shout at it for 60 minutes.

Poor mic. Hit play!

Alternatively download the fourth SU&SD podcast right here!

That is, if you’d like to hear us talk about The Resistance: Avalon, the X-Wing Miniatures Game, Libertalia, Eclipse, Puzzle Strike 3rd Edition, Descent 2nd Edition, Spartacus, Core Worlds and The Cave!

That is so many games! You couldn’t even carry them all at once!

If you’re new to our podcasts, you’ll find the first, second and third down those cyberlinks. Enjoy, children.

Games News! 11/03/13

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:49:00 +0000

Quinns: Fwsshh! It’s the weekly Games News, soaring into your life like a coment made of… news? Unlike a comet, though, Games News probably won’t kill you. It’ll just make you stronger.

This week was good news for fans of ships, starting with Gunship: First Strike!, pictured above. Successfully Kickstarted last year, it looks like this intimidating orgy of ships, cards and custom dice is now shipping!

It’s got fighter squadrons. It’s got a free campaign mode where losing a carrier feels like a punch to the soul. It’s got cards you put on top of other cards(?). It’s got so much I think I need a lie down but we’re just getting started.

It was last Winter that Fantasy Flight smilingly borrowed WW2 air combat game Wings of War’s “FlightPath” rules to craft the X-Wing Miniatures Game.

FlightPath is where everyone selects the little maneuvers for their little vehicles in secret, then they’re all revealed at once and you say things like “Oh crap, I meant to turn left, can I take that back,” and the other guy says “Hahaha no.” This week, it’s turned out Fantasy Flight aren’t alone!

Pictured above is Sails of Glory, which was just Kickstarted faster than a generator in a cathouse(??). Same pre-painted miniatures, same FlightPath rules, but with 18th century ships instead of ships in a galaxy far, far away.

In the same hot minute, WizKids announced Star Trek: Attack Wing. The same thing, but with Star Trek boats. Ships. I meant ships.

Is this interesting? I’m not sure I’m interested anymore. How many pre-painted ships do we need in our lives? Five, probably.

I’m much more excited by MACHINE OF DEATH.

In this week’s recommendation for something you should actually Kickstart, Machine of Death looks absolutely swank. A party game where players have to co-operatively or competitively come up with assassination plots against the clock. I could try and be funny here, but I’ll leave it to the designers.

“The GAME is about flinging SHARKS from CATAPULTS in order to kill imaginary people. It’s basically a game of Mousetrap or a Road Runner cartoon, except that it’s TOTALLY WITHIN THE RULES to create a QUICKSAND GENERATOR in a TREEHOUSE in order to DROWN A CHILD. (That was a real game we played.)”

Need! Neeed! There are still 8 days left on the Kickstarter, in case you also decide you need it (you need it).

Alternatively, you could aggressively fling your pennies at Deadwood Studios USA. A fancified, updated version of the Cheapass game, Deadwood is a dice game with an almost perfect theme. All the players are bit-part actors working or trying to work in a film lot that exclusively makes crap westerns.

On your turn you can rehearse for your role as Startled Bartender #2, or just give it a try, delivering the line to the table as you roll a dice to see how your performance was received.

I’ve not played it but does sound very funny, and if the game’s been updated then it could even be GOOD.

“But Quinns,” you howl, causing some pennies to vibrate and fall off your desk. “Both of these games are funny! I don’t want to Kickstart anything funny! I’m a serious guy! I have a car!”

That’s OK, because we’re about to look at the least funny game in existence.

Well. It might be quite funny. I can’t make up my mind.

The Emperor’s New Clothes is a board game on Kickstarter right now based on the fable of the same name, where the Emperor is sold clothes that only wise men can see, pretends he can see them, and walks naked through his city.

…except all footage and images of the game in question show blank cards and dice, a blank board, even a blank manual. Weirder still, the Kickstarter’s already hit its goal of $5,000, and is still spinning upwards.

So, it’s a hoax? Well. Apparently not? Despite the name of the company being “Hoke’s Games”, the designer’s emailed the BoardGameGeek news blog saying this:

“[Y]ou’re right – it IS a crazy art project, but it is also something that you can actually play, and backers actually WILL get a copy of the game.

There’s a bunch of other stuff behind the project, and the obvious “hoax” is only the first layer, the one that weeds out those who aren’t interested in thinking more deeply about it. I’m hoping that backers will find the experience richly rewarding by the end.”

If I were a real journalist I’d throw on my trenchcoat and run out of my house, in search of THE TRUTH! But I’m not. I ate breakfast at 2pm today. You want a hero, go break into your local fire station.

Or your local hospital! Quarantine is also about to hit the shelves, and it looks straight-up clever. Theme and elegance stacked expertly in a layered drink of medicine(???).

Building their hospital outwards, players have to contend with a queue of coloured cubes outside the entrance that represent patients. Patients go into your hospital, and when they go out again, those cubes are the currency used to buy more tiles. Except those cubes are also your victory points! Don’t spend them! Which will be easy, as the price of the tiles you’re all bidding for is set by the other players.

I’m excited about this one. Sometimes, after reviewing some monsterpiece with 800 components and a 40 page manual, games like these are just like real hospitals. They’re where I rest, recuperate, and occasionally poop myself.

This week also saw the announcement of Pick Me, a game which really simulates being a real rockstar by allowing you to flick tiddlywinks into a plastic cup full of hands.

And FINALLY:

I got my copy of Ladies & Gentlemen, which is arriving in shops around the world right now!

I’ve been shouting about it on the SU&SD Twitter, but I just can’t stop. This game was exciting enough when I knew it was simultaneous team play, with gentlemen struggling to make money in their own game while their ladies gossip insidiously and race to assemble outfits for a function happening in 6 days time. At the end of the game, the couple with the most glamourous lady wins.

Turns out, though, that there’s a variant for odd-numbered groups of players.

The final player is a courtesan, sat on the side of the ladies. At the end of each day she can approach any gentleman and ask them to buy her the same stuff- hats, jewels, dresses, fans. If the courtesan is the best-dressed lady at the end, her and the gentleman that bought her the most win the game together. If she’s the worst dressed, she scandalises the gentleman that bought her the least, losing the game for him and her wife.

Best. Game. Ever.

…probably. More on this one as we play it.

Until next week, news kitties!

Your Guide to Space Cadets

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Quinns: You know when you buy a game, and you know it’s going to be good… and it is?

Space Cadets is a game where 3-6 players fly a Star Trek-like space ship together in real time. That makes it a lot like SU&SD favourite Space Alert, but where that game compresses your flight (and the game’s jewel-like puzzle) into a brown-trousered 10 minutes, Space Cadets’ flight fills a whole evening.

It also has everyone manning different stations. We’ll be doing a full review when we’re a more competent crew, but for now, let me just walk you through each station. I can’t think of a better way to persuade you why you need this box in your life.

Captain

Can you imagine a better way to spend an evening than telling your friends what to do?

Me either. The manual will tell you the Captain’s job is to take care of some book-keeping while coming up with a co-ordinated plan for each turn. In practice, the Captain plays the metagame of drinking more than anybody else while berating everyone for their mistakes. Starting with sensors.

Sensors

Oh god. The poor bastard on sensors has to try and attain locks on mission objectives or enemy ships by reaching into a bag and removing the right symbol. They get one chance at this. It’s a bit like being the goalie in football, except instead of trying to stop a football, if they fail their job your team doesn’t get a football to play with. Meanwhile, your team’s being shot at by snipers.

Brendan tried sensors. How did sensors work for you, Brendan?

Brendan: Well, as you know Quinns, I have very nimble fingers. For instance, when I reach into my pocket I can skillfully tell the difference between my wallet, my pen, and my door keys. So I was very surprised when we were attacked by unseen enemy vessels and I pulled my hand out of the sensors bladder and produced a U-shaped tetramino, instead of the slightly-different-U-shaped tetramino we required. Yes, very surprised. Not as surprised as the panicking weapons officer, though, who looked impotently into what looked like empty space, asking, “Why, Brendan? Why?”

Quinns: Awful.

In the advanced rules, the Sensors officer can also activate your ship’s cloaking device. Due to what team SU&SD have decided is advanced cardboard technology, the Sensors officer will literally never succeed at activating the cloaking device.

Which is bad news for the helmsman!

Helmsman

This player flies the ship. Definitely let the friend who is most excited about this take the helm before you tell him how this works.

The helmsman is dealt a pitifully small number of cards showing maneuvers which must be placed into a number of spaces according to the ship’s speed. This experience can be compared to learning to drive in a car with no brakes in a field of small children.

At worst, the Helmsman will see you bouncing through an asteroid field with the enemy you’re meant to be fighting following confusedly behind.

At best, see “At worst.”

The Helmsman’s mortal enemy is the Weapons Officer.

Weapons Officer

Whoever’s firing guns has the easiest job on the ship. In order to load torpedoes, they have to load tetraminos onto little cards. Usually the weapons officer finishes their job first, allowing them to lend useful support to there peers, like “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU” and “DON’T DO THAT.”

This is followed by the worst job on the ship. Everyone watches as the Weapons Officer takes aim with their finger, and attempts to flick a wooden disc to the furthest pint on the range board because the Helmsman’s flying the wrong way.

Everyone holds their breath. It all depends on this… and you watch as the Weapons Officer ends up flicking it exactly half an inch.

“HOW DID YOU DO THAT,” screams the Captain. He is genuinely awestruck. The rest of the table spend a moment agreeing that they couldn’t have done something so crap if they wanted to.

Speaking of which, let’s talk Shields.

Shields

Brendan, you were on Shields too, weren’t you?

Brendan: Yes. But only in the sense that I was sitting by the shield station, and people expected me to have the shields powered up. It must have been very exhilarating for everyone to discover that, actually, the shields were often fully charged, just on the wrong end of the space submarine. At this point there was a lot of shouting and yelling and I think I heard my name once or twice or maybe even three times, followed by some loud sighing. But I honestly don’t know what any of that was about because, as you say, I was very busy with all the shields.

Quinns: Great. Finally, tangled up in everyone’s business like a slippery pervert is Engineering.

Engineering

Engineering decides how much power everyone gets, something they’ve probably been advised on by the Captain. They have to arrange tiles against the clock, with each full circle being one point of power for a different station.

Some problems the engineer faces:

Players with no power often can’t do anything.
Each power point you give Sensors and Weapons flatly multiplies their workload, allowing you to give these players PTSD.
The symbols for each station are obtuse enough that you both look and feel like a pensioner worriedly fingering their weekly medication.
The captain’s going to be telling you what to do.
The captain’s going to be drunk.
Whatever you decide on, or try and provide, you’re giving out energy for next turn. Rendering your job a sham.
Your job is a sham.
A SHAM

Which sums up all the main stations, the ones everyone plays simultaneously. Space Cadets isn’t finished, though! There are some more jobs to hand out.

Tractor Beam

Oh, god. Oh god.

On the reverse of each of these tiles is a number, colour and shape. To successfully tractor targets the officer has to flip just a couple of these, successfully getting matching shapes. But not the colours. But remembering the numbers, because failed attempts are the only way you’ll learn what’s on the other side of these. With the rest of the table watching.

Oh, and when you successfully match two tiles, they’re removed.

Imagine if you played snap for 18 hours, then drank a bottle of disinfectant. This minigame is what you would dream of.

In theory, you’ll flip the tiles, fail, but remember their shapes. In practice, you’re playing two turns of this game once every 20 minutes, which is mathematically exactly enough time for you to forget. No matter how good your team’s doing, the tractor beam station is a teabag of inadequacy dipped into the hot water of your situation.

Just like damage control!

Damage Control

We don’t like to talk about damage control. Not after last time.

Which finally brings us to the Jump Drive.

Jump Drive

There’s a lot of aggro in space cadets. A lot of friendly jibes.

Not for the Jump Drive, officer, though. The Jump Drive officer commands respect. Which is because no-one else at the table will have the faintest clue how his game works.

Engineering will be accidentally throwing him energy for the whole game, and he’ll be rolling dice. Shuffling cards about. What’s he doing? “That’s good,” he’ll say, nodding to his cards. His only true friends.

Until finally, at the very end of the game, the time will come to jump to light speed. Everything everyone’s been doing has led to this moment.

He rolls his dice. He moves some more cards around.

“We can’t jump,” he says.

The captain drops his drink. The helmsman starts to cry.

Brilliant.

In case it’s not abundantly clear, buy Space Cadets, everybody. For all these stations, it seems to work great with just 3 or 4 players. And with a series of increasingly tough missions in the manual and advanced rules for each station, there’s the very real possibility for you to become an elite team.

(You won’t become an elite team.)

I’d tell you to wait for our review, but lord knows if it’ll still be in stock then. Credit cards at the ready, cadets. Buy on my mark. And… BUY!

What do you mean you left your wallet in your other coat?

Review: King of Tokyo

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:41:57 +0000

We have a new addition to team SU&SD! The newest since all those insufferable attention bandits appeared in our Twilight Imperium Let’s Play.

Everybody, please give a big, big welcome to Matt Lees. He’s got a review of plastic slugfest King of Tokyo for us. If you’ve ever thought “I’d be a really good Godzilla,” watch this video. Because you’re wrong.

00:41 - Breakdancing dinosaur.

05:11 - Cameo from Quinns!

09:38 - MONTAGE!

Games News! 04/03/13

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:50:00 +0000

Quinns: Another week, another round up of games news! Give us your brain for a moment. We’re going to roll it down the carpeted staircase of what happened in board games this week. Starting with some Kickstarters you might want to get involved in!

Shut Up & Sit Down’s criteria for backing board game Kickstarters is simple. If, within seconds of opening your page, we say “…what?” at our monitors, as was the case with last year’s Salmon Run, you’re onto a winner.

Triassic Terror is one such winner. A game where players compete to spread their dinosaurs across a continent full of hungry raptors, with volcanoes popping like prehistoric blisters. The designer’s last game, Wars of the Roses, was apparently pretty great, but it was also thoughtful wargame. That makes Triassic Terror a bit of an unknown quantity. Plus plastic pterodactyls.

Perhaps you’re after something more traditional? That noise you hear is SU&SD scoffing, collectively. For reference, that sounds a bit like a sneezing vaccuum cleaner. In any case, you’d best take a peek at Dungeon Roll.

This was brought to our attention though a preview on the Wired Geekdad blog. Basically, players each get three chances at exploring the dungeon. You roll your hero dice. Someone else rolls the dungeon dice. You get slapped about, or you find some treasure.

BUT, but, you then decide whether to move onto the next level of the dungeon, rolling two more fistfuls of fretful dice, or end your turn. Which excites us, because games that turn your luck into some tangible that you can push around like a grumpy sibling are better.

Discussion of Dungeon Roll appears to centre around the box, which is shaped like a tiny treasure chest. “Which is awesome!” cry the geeks of the world.

NO. A non-standard box means it won’t tesselate into shelves. Meaning the designer might as well be shipping this game to cities with a polaroid of themselves giving the camera a middle finger.

This is the Londoners of SU&SD giving you a middle finger RIGHT BACK, Mr. Dungeon Roll Man. If that is your real name.

This week also saw the launch of the second Zombicide Kickstarter, or “Zombicide: Season 2”. What you’re paying for here is either an expansion for co-op zombie-fighting game Zombicide set in a shopping mall, a stand-alone expansion set in a prison, or both.

Go and look at how much money it’s raised in just a few days. Then come back here.

So, here’s the thing. Kickstarters are sold by artwork, miniatures and theme, something best evidenced by Kingdom Death: Monster. A two million dollar-funded board game Kickstarter powered by distinctly human urges to (a) peer into the abyss and (b) see tits.

I haven’t played Zombicide, but I’ve heard it’s a perfectly passable D&D-alike. I do want to play it, though, because it offers a campaign - allowing you to string together your evening’s gaming with the same characters - without anyone having to play the bad guys.

Sounds good to me! A bit intense, though. A bit murdery.

Maybe we should have a nice game next. With roses and children gumdrops and working together to make something.

Something like The Little Prince: Make me a planet!

This comes to us from the firm, guiding, and slightly hairy hand of the BGG News Blog. Based on Le Petit Prince, the most translated book in the French language, here’s a game of trying to piece together a planet from a stack of tiles, but with only what you want on it.

So, fabulously, the player serving The King wants a single rose on the planet. Just one. The more roses there are, the less points you get, because each rose becomes less special. Mostly though, this just makes me want to read the book. From Wikipedia:

‘Though ostensibly a children’s book, The Little Prince makes several profound and idealistic observations about life and human nature. For example, Saint-Exupéry tells of a fox meeting the young prince during his travels on Earth.

The story’s essence is contained in the lines uttered by the fox to the little prince: On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. (“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”)’

Where was I? Right, board games.

Terra Mystica’s been spinning up Board Game Geek’s byzantine hype dynamos recently, and a release date of April was just announced.

I’m excited about this one. Each player controls one of 14 different fantastical peoples, from Mermaids to Cultists, all of whom are trying to spread across one of the game’s 7 landscapes. These are Desert, Plains, Swamp, Lake, Forest, Mountain and “SOLITUDE”. So that’s awesome.

In a contest with almost no luck, players can construct buildings, bridges, terraform the world, and even progress down four different religious cults, in something that looks as intense and tricky as an oiled armwrestling match.

And FINALLY, a game’s started appearing in shops that I’m very confused about.

I am Vlad, Prince of Wallachia is a game from the esteemed developers of Let’s Pumpkin(?) about “the real life of Vlad the Imapler, and about the habits, mysteries and actual facts of Wallachia and Transylvania.”

That sounds pretty interesting! Do you have anything el—

“Gameplay takes place on two boards: the Game Map and the Underworld Map.”

Right.

“I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia has two types of battles: against enemy units and against neutral units; for both types, players use battle cards, magic cards, tokens, and an eight-sided die. Other tactical actions are made through tokens, gold coins, outposts, and so on.”

Hmm. Possibly don’t buy I Am Vlad, everybody. Got a bad feeling about this one.

And DOUBLE FINALLY,

After being snarky in last week’s news about the new X-Wing Minatures Game expansions, I had the chance to play with them. The Millenium Falcon and Slave 1 are HUGE. Pictures don’t do them justice. They’re the size of your fist. This changes everything, obviously. Buy them immediately.

And finally AGAIN, in aesthetically-pleasing news, we also played String Railway.

Review coming soon. But probably buy String Railway.

Until next week!

Review - Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 12:01:00 +0000

You know when you buy a game, and you know it’s going to be good?

“This will be a great time,” you announce to your cactus or spouse. “I have been convinced by this game’s art and premise that I will enjoy myself.”

Your coat’s still on. You pick up the phone. “Barry?” You say. “It’s me. Would you like to come over and have a great time?”

I was convinced Robinson Crusoe was the game for me. Guess what!

Crusoe is a co-operative game where 1-4 shipwrecked players do their best to not die in a tropical wilderness. The box itself is like some piece of flotsam that might wash up on a beach. Mysterious, poisonous, bloated with cards and concepts.

And in one sense, Crusoe is the game I hoped it would be. It’s so bleak that I started laughing during the rules explanation and never really stopped.

Players begin on a single “beach” tile of a larger, unexplored island, with an objective hanging over their head like a thundercloud. In the case of the starter scenario, players need to amass wood, and assemble a grandiose bonfire across whole months. Light the fire, you get rescued. Simple!

You decide to spend your character’s turn exploring. Hopefully you’ll find a tile with some trees on it, and on later turns you’ll—

“WAIT,” cries the player opposite you, the one who’s played Crusoe twice before. He has a flurry of white stubble and a wonky eye. “We don’t like to do anything… rash… around here.

“We’ll need food,” he tells you, his loose eye orbiting like a washing machine. “One cube of food per player, every turn. And shelter! So we’ll need furs. Which means weapons! And that means rope.”

“OK,” you say. “I’ll spend my turn trying to craft some… rope?”

“NO-OO,” howls the veteran, teleporting spittle onto the lens of your glasses. “We need a map first! Don’t you know anything?! Look, you make a map. I’ll read this bible to raise our morale meter. Go!”

Here’s the thing.

This game has one of the greatest themes I’ve ever encountered. You and your friends exploring an island! Someone finds a river, solving your food problem. Another finds a source of lumber! Joy.

As the weeks pass you don’t just chuck up a shelter, you develop its roof and walls seperately. You fill it with the laughably mundane stuff you make, each one a tiny, touchingly human victory against darkest night. Your team’s basket. Your sling. Your belt.

Always, though, the board has all the horrific potential of some creature rustling through a distant bush. Nobody wants to draw a card from the sinister animal deck. Nobody wants to roll the dice. Best of all is the game’s deck of “adventure” cards, which are so inappropraitely named I’m giggling even as I type this.

Rolling the dice might see you rolling the “question mark” icon, which you’re best off mentally appending to the question “How are you going to get f**ked?”

Let’s say you’re at the shelter, trying to craft the pinnacle of your group’s technological knowhow, which is probably a sack or a brick or something. You roll a question mark. Everyone around the table groans because you have an adventure! You draw the card with a heavy heart.

This next bit’s really cute. You draw the adventure card, but it doesn’t do anything right away.

So you’re working on your sack, and you draw the “Shoddy Construction” card. You notice that this shelter you’re working under? It’s actually a bit rickety. Now, as with every adventure card, your group has two choices. One! Laboriously shore up your shelter, which you really don’t have the time to do. Two! Ignore the card, at which point it gets shuffled into the event deck you draw from every turn. Meaning every turn there’s the possibility your shitty shelter is going to collapse. Inevitably during a snowstorm.

All of these adventure cards are great, and so, so thematic. You climb a hill, only to see stormclouds on the horizon. You’re skewering fish on the beach and stumble across a human corpse. You’re hunting a parrot for lunch and end up getting bitten by a snake and it MIGHT go septic unless your group goes casting off into the wilderness for a cure.

As you can see, this surprising, funny, colourful game. The best thing I can say about Crusoe is that you really do feel trapped in this horrific place with your friends.

The problem, though - and it’s overwhelming - is that Crusoe’s challenge is opaque.

When you’re playing, how important is weather? Shelter? Inventions?

Can you ignore hunting? When do you start completing objectives, or stop exploring? You need to play it to grasp it. Which means playing Crusoe is mostly an experience of getting f**ked and then ow and jesus, until by your third game you have a vague idea of what you’re doing.

But that means the fundamental problem with co-op games - bossy players telling the rest what to do - is not only not tackled by Robinson, but actively fostered.

Each player only gets two actions each turn, so it’s the simplest thing for one player to mentally assign everybody else to different tasks. They can disagree with you, sure. But unless they do so from experience with Crusoe, they’re going to lose you the game.

Crusoe isn’t the playground it appears to be when you open the box. Nor is it a fascinating yet accessible puzzle, like Ghost Stories or Pandemic. It doesn’t give players a reason to keep to themselves, like Shadows Over Camelot or Battlestar Galactica, and it doesn’t put players in charge of their own part of the game, like 1812 or Space Cadets.

In short, we could never recommend Crusoe over a game that… that actually functions as a game. Because what we’ve got here is just a cryptic hive of mechanics.

But what’s this? What’s that shape on the horizon? Why, it’s Náufragos! We’re saved!

Náufragos is another game about castaways that’s coming out this year, and it’s allegedly excellent. I haven’t played it. But I can tell you it’s only semi-cooperative, because in the end, if you do get rescued, the winner is the player who “tells the best story” and gets the 19th century equivalent of a book deal and a chat show.

So, I’m waiting for that. Even though it doesn’t have Crusoe’s components. Its colour. Its dark dream. Because it’s the right thing to do.

Dammit, now I’m doubting myself. I suppose you could visit Crusoe’s Cursed Island if you liked, so long as you and some friends all gained familiarity with it at the same rate. So long as you stuck together. So long as you played safely.

But I won’t be held responsible, you hear me? Good.

Games News! 25/02/13

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:08:00 +0000

Quinns: Welcome to Games News, our new Monday morning feature. It’s now… 4pm, so it’s not morning anymore, but that’s OK, because this isn’t really news. Rather, it’s whatever hot reveals and dank announcements the SU&SD team have been excited by this week.

Don’t know what to be excited by in board gaming? Just follow our lead.

This week we’re blessed with all sorts of preview videos from the inestimably valuable Board Game Geek News Blog, who have been attending all kinds of conventions.

That’s where the image at the top of this post comes from, by the way. It’s their photo of a game called Bora Bora, which is apparently good? And the players build… huts in it? And… in the hut, you put some… fish? Look, it’s Stefan Feld, the mentat behind SU&SD favourite Castles of Burgundy, which was in itself as numerical and inscrutable as a water-damaged calculator. We’re honestly not going to try and decipher Bora Bora until we have the boxed copy right in front of us. Look at this!

Green man taking a poop = Two times man and woman plus bagel equals card of any colour being eaten by a… no, let’s just stop.

Instead, let’s look at something chunky and obvious. Like some cubes!

Cube Quest looks great. You and another player, doing battle by flicking deceptively unruly little cubes at each other, trying to knock your opponent’s King Cube out of their castle. But don’t flick a cube off the map, or it’s gone forever!

Bliss.

I’ve seen some grumbling online that Cube Quest barely evolves the game it’s based on, a self-published title called KingBrick. But since KingBrick looks like something a murderer would want you to play after he drags you back to his house by your hair, I am entirely OK with this.

See what I mean?

I was similarly excited by BGG’s look at Masquerade, the new game from Bruno Faidutti. Remember us looking at Citadels? Remember how we said Mission Red Planet was Citadels, but chunkier? Masquerade looks like Citadels but WAY sharper. Sharp but delicious. Like licking the lid of a tin of beans.

Just listen to that. On your turn, you can claim to be a character and gain their power, allowing other players to call your bluff, OR take someone else’s character card, put both under the table, and give them back either them or yours, but without looking at either. Until nobody knows who anybody is, and you proudly flip your card to show you WEREN’T bluffing, only to realise you were, and you have no idea where or who anyone is anymore.

BLISS.

But so long as we’re talking card games, I spotted something great this week that you can actually buy.

I first played The Big Idea years ago, and have been patiently waiting for its swanky relaunch ever since. Then it came out without me noticing! TWO YEARS AGO! Dammit board gaming.

This is a game where the players all act as inventors, assembling miserable devices from the cards in their hand and pitching them at the other players. I’ve ordered my copy. You should yours. Mostly I just remember my friend trying to sell the rest of the table on his Sports-Utility Machine Shovel.

Back to BGG’s previews, this week they only went and covered the game I’m most excited about. It’s Ladies & Gentlemen!

There aren’t enough team games in board gaming. Re-read that sentence. Feel it’s stony weight. That’s because it’s a FACT.

There also aren’t enough games about dressing up like a nice lady, and Ladies & Gentlemen looks to address both of these pressing issues at once. It’s a game of warring couples where each day the Lady players fight to pick out the best outfit, while the Men do battle at the stockmarket to try, and fail, to afford what their wives find. Then after six days you all attend a ball, and whoever’s wife is the most glamorous wins the game.

If I was any more excited my body would start producing physical globdules of excitement. Oh god. I didn’t mean… no. Let’s move on.

This week also saw the announcement of the official Firefly board game! Which we could all safely assume will be rubbish and go back to de-scaling our kettles, except it’s by Gale Force Nine, the same design team that made the really quite great Spartacus game. So it might not be anything other than good!

No details as yet, but it looks an awful lot like Merchants & Marauders to me. Which could be problematic, since it’s hard to imagine a better game of salty smuggling that that beauty.

AND FINALLY, if anyone was keeping their eyes on the X-Wing Miniatures Game, which we were between hot and lukewarm about, the first wave of expansions has now arrived.

In addition to the TIE Fighters, X-Wings and Y-Wings available at launch, you can now buy the Millenium Falcon expansion, which adds a variety of birds to the game, Slave I, which adds politics and a criminal justice system, and the A-Wing pack, which adds tigers. Oh, and the TIE Interceptor pack! Which contrary to the name, adds a TIE Interceptor miniature.

Who knows? If you drop £100 on each and every one of those, you might end up with something that doesn’t feel like half a game.

Until next time, kids!

Opinion: Why Your Collection Needs Eurogames

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:20:45 +0000

Yes, we’re still working on something. You’d better be patient, it’s still some way away.

In the meantime, Quinns continues his dirty scribbling for the big videogame sites. He’s doing good work, though! Look here! Over on Kotaku he’s written about why big ol’ licensed games aren’t the beginning and end of board gaming. A balanced diet needs Eurogames, for their fibre and slow-release energy. It goes a bit like this:

“You look over at them, and see your friend pushing around a perfect scale model of a Nebula Class science vessel, just like you guys did last week and the week before. With every round the novelty wears off a little more. You see your friends now, moving their fleets like dissatisfied toddlers pushing their food around. They’ve seen all the cards. They know all the exploits. One of them is crying. You try and stand up. You think you have a token up your bum.”

No, I don’t know, either. Go read!

Review: Skull & Roses

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:47:00 +0000

Quinns has written another Eurogamer review to tide you over until we return. If Tzolk’in was a huge, great club for your brain to wield, Skull & Roses is a rusty little shiv.

“Now, I could tell you that Skull & Roses is simple enough to teach to your grandmother or grandchildren. I could tell you that it’s exciting, tense and rich enough to retain even the most hardcore gamer’s attention. But I’d rather tell you this: You should buy Skull & Roses because it makes people scream.”

Shut Up & Sit Down absolutely recommends. Go read!

Review: Tzolk'in

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:24:00 +0000

Here’s something to keep you guys hungry. Quinns has just posted his review of Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar on Eurogamer, and it’s ONLY the most impressive game we’ve played this year.

“Getting worked up about mundane themes is a bit of a theme in itself in contemporary board gaming. Dyspeptic classic Thurn and Taxis is a good example: a game about running a 16th-century Bavarian postal service where failing to finish a route between Pilsen and Budweis brings on a feeling not unlike death. In the case of Tzolk’in, you could not be more emotionally invested in a corn cob unless you sat on one very fast.”

Ooh, it’s a fine game. Go read!

Still working on that returning thing

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:01:00 +0000

“Return already,” cried eager commenter Kebabylon, on that last post, only today!

We’re working on it. Are we ever working on it.

In the meantime, Quinns has been busy writing about board games for other sites! Why not check out his games of 2012, his entirely deranged list of games to watch in 2013, or his review on Eurogamer of the Gears of War board game? Why, indeed.

Shut Up & Sit Down Will Return

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 23:10:00 +0000

A lot of you have been asking “When’s the next video? The next podcast? Why the silence, SU&SD?”

We’re silent because we’re working harder than ever on something very, very big. Something every one of you guys will love.

We recommend you spend this time with your loved ones. Pull them close. Tell them how much you care. Sniff their cards. Run a practised finger along their inlays. And once you’re done, spend some time with your family, too.

The golden age of board gaming is upon us, ladies and gentlemen.

Get ready.

- Quinns & Paul

Review: Fortress America

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 03:04:00 +0000

Quinns: Think to get flickering lasers and evil Empires you’d have to play the X-Wing Miniatures Game? Think again, mister! Or miss. Sorry miss.

Paul: No, it’s me, I am a mist-

Quinns: Say hello to Fortress: America (and imagine it responding to your greeting with an excitable 21 gun salute).The ENTIRE WORLD (made up of three players) is invading near-future America (controlled by one player). I’m talking bombers over Boston. Hovertanks in Houston. APCs in… in, uh…

Paul: In Annapolis! This may well be the ultimate in what we call Ameritrash, big flashy board games with lots of components.

Fortress America is a box pregnant with war and the moment you pull that lid off hundreds of tiny figures are ready to scuttle out. Big, big handfuls of dice are waiting to be rolled. A big, broad map depicting the United States of America is just gagging to be spread across your tabletop. There is a very real danger that, playing this game, you’re about to overdose on plastic.

Look, there are loads of little tanks, lots of wee cities, armoured car things, gigantic laser canno-

Quinns: In other words, this is not the kind of thing we usually recommend. It’s bombastic strategy of the “toy soldiers” variety. A game that comes juddering to a halt every few minutes to give someone a die to roll.

But you know what? The strategy Fortress America does have is really, really interesting. The key word here is Fortress.

Paul: Not “America”?

Quinns: I’ll give you an America in a minute!

Paul: God, I want it so bad.

Quinns: Then you’re clearly going to be one of the INVADERS!

The Invading team in Fortress America have to capture 18 of the many cities around the map. To begin with, that’s easy. You’re rolling over the border with entire toy shops worth of soldiers, breaking apart the American defense like an oatmeal cookie. You’ll snatch up 5 cities, 8, 10, 12, 14, and an hour in, the game will clearly be won.

…and then something interesting happens. Suddenly, you’re looking at a problem. Your troops are spread too thin to probe deeper into America’s disgusting capitalist belly. Worse, you HAVE to be able to trace a line of conquered regions back to your own, personal border with America, or those troops presumably run out of borscht / enchiladas / sweet and sour pork and starve.

DISCLAIMER: Shut Up & Sit Down is written by a team with the deepest respect for cuisine from all peoples and beliefs. I think Paul even ate a curry once.

Paul: WELL, funny you should say that, as the invading armies are never named, though I’m sure we’re supposed to guess where they’re invading from. Those of you who listen to our podcasts might remember me calling this game a kind of survivalist fantasy, because set against these invaders are the valiant defenders of the United States and, as they would be in any and all survivalist fiction, these guys are fiercely stubborn and refuse to back down. They’ll hold on to their cities with their teeth if they have to, and sometimes they will.

Y’see, initially, the US player is beset on all sides by overwhelming armies and the cities nearest the invasion, cities like New York, Las Vegas and Seattle, are doomed to fall. But as the turns go by and as the unconquered territory of the United States shrinks away under this onslaught, those survivalists start to surface. Resistance fighters emerge, uprisings begin and… secret technology is unveiled.

Quinns: Yes. This is the surprising ingenuity hiding in game that’s basically throwing dice at Johnny Foreigner. Fortress America is secretly a game balanced on a knife edge.

Initially, the USA seems doomed. Our America player went as far as to grumpily declare the game over about 45 minutes in. But every turn America also gains a Laser Cannon that can hit (‘SSSHT-BOOOOM’) any unit, anywhere, if you can just hang on to enough territory to deploy them.

More horrific still for those invaders, every city America recaptures gifts them with extra reinforcements. 90 minutes in, the tidal progress of the Invaders first slows… then it stops entirely… and then, with the Moon’s own miserable momentum, they’ll feel themselves being forced back.

There. That’s as far as our invading team got.

But DID YOU HAVE FUN, Paul? Nudging around your Mexican militia? Rolling die after die after DIE ALREADY.

Paul: Oh, we’re onto that question already?

Quinns: I dunno. It seems like the only question that matters.

Paul: Yesyes, okay. Well, I did. This is the lightest of the light wargames, something with really simple mechanics and an awful lot of stuff to constantly handle and finger and fiddle with between your sweaty digits.

The invading players get to do a little bit of negotiation, though their actual teamplay options are limited and you’re supposed to just get on and roll dice. And you do, lots, because everyone has a half-dozen battles a turn.

Then you get to that pivotal moment, that point of balance, and you realise that this is really the neatest thing about Fortress America. At the start, the invaders are a tidal wave, but towards the end of the game, the United States is a sleeping giant that hasn’t so much been awakened as peed on by the neighbours cat. It’s reborn as a nation forged in battle, constantly churning out new units while the invading armies… well, they just don’t get much in terms of reinforcements. They run dry.

So yes, I was really impressed by how the game see-saws like this. Time is of the essence to both sides, but for different reasons.

Quinns: Yeah. Which is cool. It gives the game poise and hooks you in. But what are you hooked into, exactly? You’re dead right when you say that teamplay options are limited. The Invaders are really playing their own three separate games, is a disappointing thing.

This is not a disappointing thing:

Fortress America doesn’t compare well to other 2012 release 1812: The Invasion of Canada (pictured), an even lighter game but one where the two teams have heated discussions and actually get to roll dice together.

I think the most talking that went on in our game of Fortress America was either convincing Tom he hadn’t actually lost, or you guys laughing as Las Vegas repelled my Chinese army for the ENTIRE GAME.

Paul: That was excellent, especially as my troops from [INDETERMINATE NATION OR REGION SOUTH OF THE UNITED STATES] trundled on by and figured you had everything in hand.

But. But. I don’t know if I’d recommend this to our readers. It’s not a light game, there’s a lot for you to keep in your head with seven different miniature types and dozens of regions, even just on your front.

Yet, for all that, it doesn’t have as much substance as so many games out there.

That said, if you’re an Ameritrash fan then this should still be on your radar, and it’s exactly the kind of thing that its publishers, Fantasy Flight, are good at making. It just feels a little too old-fashioned to me.

Quinns: Yeah. It’s an anachronism. Remember when we reviewed Wiz-War, and we said it was a neat idea that made basically no sense? That’s because it was a license that Fantasy Flight bought dating all the way back to 1983. The game design felt bizarre, old, nonsensical, even. Like a gassy elderly relative you were having over for tea.

This is the same story. Fortress America actually first came out in 1986, and while Fantasy Flight have updated it, the core they’re being faithful to is archaic. It was a simpler time, then. I need to check Wikipedia, but I think people believed that plastic soldiers had souls.

Paul: Are you telling me you feel the same way? That this is gorgeous and certainly fun, but that you want something with a little more smarts?

Quinns: Exactly! The same way I feel about the point and click videogames that appear on Kickstarter. We’ve moved on! Let’s support designers that are building the temple of game design onwards and upwards. Nostalgia is important to human nature, but it’s like bleach. It’s something you have to own as an adult, but you shouldn’t play with it.

Paul: Ooo. Controversial. Although perhaps you’re right that this is the retro equivalent of board gaming. It’s dated, but it still has a certain appeal to a certain audience, and I think those people will know, when they read this review, that they’re not two stuffy British men and they’ll take great delight in tossing those dice and nudging those soldiers day in, day out. I like Fortress America, but I can’t imagine replaying it much.

Quinns: Miss you. I’ll be back from America soon. Want me to bring you back anything?

Paul: <pithy response>

Impressions: Neuroshima Hex!

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:51:00 +0000

Quinns: I’m meeting a lot of board gamers here in New York. It’s like Christmas, and I’m Santa, except they gift me with a game and only rarely sit on my lap and you know what this analogy doesn’t work at all

Today I was walked through WONDERFUL post-apocalyptic tactics game Neuroshima Hex!, released in 2006 and since expanded by a untidy bag of army packs. My friend took out this game, taught it to me, and promptly put it away again.

“We’ll play on the iPad,” he said. “It’s better on the iPad.”

My face promptly crumpled up like a plastic bag in a strong breeze. Worst part of it is, he was right.

Aeons ago, Shut Up & Sit Down made the decision to only cover analog games. If it’s on a phone, tablet or TV, it’s a videogame, and as of interest to us as gum disease or pigeons.

All the same, here are my impressions of Neuroshima Hex! A board game that, DESPITE the tactile thrill of playing with tokens, is better on iOS or Android.

I know.

Neuroshima Hex! is an abstracted conflict between 2-4 players in a grubby post-apocalyptic America. From gengeneered man-eating jungles to Dredd-style roving judges, every player gets their own faction, meaning, in this case, a unique army of face-down hexes.

Game’s far from a boyish wargame, though. Neuroshima Hex! plays fast and pointedly, like a NyQuil-slick game of Go. Each turn is just you drawing 3 hexagons and slapping down 2 in a sickeningly tight arena of ADRENALINE, GUNS and a GREAT DEAL OF THOUGHTFULNESS as you try and tunnel through to your opponent’s “HQ” hex.

You’ll be drawing offensive and defensive tiles, but really, every tile is as much a weapon as a means of blocking your opponent. The aim is to lay down a brutal waterfall of guns, knives and teeth.

See the spikes on all those pieces? Those are the directions they will, ultimately, attack. The numbers? From highest to lowest, that’s the order they’ll attack in.

What makes Neuroshima Hex! so gripping (and it GRIPS, like an excited crab) is that you’ve got no idea what spurts, spigots and stones for your waterfall you’ll flip face-up that turn.

Maybe you’ll draw all ranged units, capable of pummeling from a distance, or maybe you’ll get the power to shunt tiles away from you, pancaking your opponents’ carefully laid plans against the walls of the arena. It’s dynamic. Surprising. Fun.

Maybe, though, you’ll drop a Battle hex, letting you start a fight, at which point EVERYTHING on the board flips out. Mutants pour over barricades, carnivorous copses lash out with hungry tentacles, snipers take their meticulous shot.

When the dust settles, you’re facing an entirely new battleground. A new game emerges from the rubble.

Dynamic. Surprising. Fun.

And better on the sodding iPad.

Here’s the problem. A battle in Neuroshima hex means figuring out which tiles leap into action first, where the attack, what they kill, what they damage, taking into account all the tiles that boost other tiles. To do it right takes minutes. The most exciting moment of the match is dumped in your lap like so much kiddy Sudoku.

It’s not just that the iOS or Android version of Neuroshima Hex does all this for you. It does it with a butler’s grace, together with an undo button, SFX, music and helpful tooltips. It’s an unsettling perfect port, right down to a suite of multiplayer options.

…but it’s a videogame. So I’ll just say that Neuroshima Hex is more graceful as a digital game, by far the best direct board game port we’ve ever encountered, and leave it at that (AND ALSO ADD that the designer of Neuroshima Hex! arguably created a videogame instead of a board game but that’s an article I’d rather eat a box of spiders than write).

I do love this game because, like SU&SD favourite Memoir ‘44, it’s intense while being soothing because of the scarce selection of moves each turn. You’re still sweating bullets, but you can shamble out of the spotlight of each turn, loosening your collar, feeling like you did OK. You did good.

And those factions! I approach asymmetry in games like I approach spicy food: With no upper limit and without fear. It’s why I dig Summoner Wars so much, ANOTHER SU&SD favourite.

God. We have too many favourites. Stop making great games, board game makers! Damn! Don’t you have anything better to do?

But yes. How will fortress New York City fare against the ranged bombardment of the Moloch robots? Will the growing Neo Jungle swallow the swarming Borgo mutants? Again, drawing a comparison with Summoner Wars, it’s not just that playing with each different faction is fascinating- each pairing is a different game! And that’s before we’ve gotten into the royal rumbles of 2 vs 2 team games. Magic.

It’s just fun. It’s just clever. It just works.

I’m not confident calling this a review because there are so many factions I’ve yet to try, and a depth to the strategy that I’m still paddling around, but for now?

If you see this box in your game shop and feel the magnetic draw of robots and punks, locked in mortal combat atop shattered cars? And you’re looking for something less cash-chomping and day-devouring than the enormous Earth Reborn? Neuroshima Hex! is you.

And it’s better on the sodding iPad.