Paul’s gotten into hides over the Holiday break, Quinns has a flowchart he wants to show you and Reference Pear’s relatives have gone missing. Anyone expecting anything new from SU&SD in 2014 will be disappointed. Oh, wait! We also reviewed New Amsterdam, a highly-respected game of trading furs and takin’ names, and we have another instalment of Quinns’ supremely valuable Netrunner Tips. Perhaps we have some worth after all!

SHOUTING! It’s one of the best things in life. Imagine! you, some friends, a few drinks and SHOUTING AT EACH OTHER FOR HOURS. iF YOU’RE LIKE– oops, excuse me. If you’re like Paul and didn’t get your fix of shouting from Escape The Curse of the Temple, we’ve got you covered! This mini-special reviews not only the mighty, shouty Space Cadets: Dice Duel, but the still-shoutier Panic on Wall Street!.

It is written, and so it came to pass. The house of Fantasy Flight hath released Eldritch Horror, a sequel to their venerable “gaime” Arkham Horror, and we have… opened the box. And guess what! It’s pretty good! Anyone expecting us to give this a bad review might be pleasantly surprised.

Last year we posted a video of us playing co-op board game Space Cadets, and it was an amazing disaster. But what happens when team SU&SD pretend to go into space… for real? The L.H.S. Bikeshed is a roleplaying game, in a spaceship, in a caravan, built by a team of industrious men working out of the London Hackspace. Naturally, it was our duty to show these guys what their ship could do in the hands of a real crew. As you might guess, the above video contains a lot of swearing, comprehensively beeped.

If you’re driving a car, pull over. If you’re holding a baby, please place it on the nearest flat surface. There’s a new game from our favourite designer, Vlaada Chvátil, and it’s time to put it to the test. Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends looks nothing like anything Vlaada’s made before. No surprise there. But it also looks a bit rubbish. Will SU&SD have to liquidise the Church of Vlaada once and for all?

The sequel to Agricola is here, and it’s the heaviest and most expensive game we’ve ever reviewed. A titan of the table. There’s no question. Caverna: The Cave Farmers is the most fun you’re going to have managing animals, minerals and vegetables. But should you buy it? Paul and Quinns stand… divided.

The more we play it, the more we feel that Living Card Game Android: Netrunner is one of the greatest things happening in table gaming right now. A deadly, tense game that evolves every single month, with players around the world panicking and giggling over new data packs. Following on from Quinns’ review, we thought we’d finish our coverage with a Let’s Play. But not just any Let’s Play. Here, Quinns walks Matt through his very first game, which we hope (together with the hypnotising official tutorial) should give you all the encouragement you need to get started.

Like vinyl records or the world’s most cheerful case of herpes, The Opener is BACK! Once again, Matt wants to guide you through the perfect game + recipe to open either your game night, your friends’ minds or your own board game collection. This time it’s Coup, a teeny little game of being a disgraceful liar.

Arriving like a shimmering meteorite of steely ludic logic, Quantum is landing in shops now! It’s got dice. It’s got spaceships (which are dice). It has scientific research (which is another die). It even models the psychological size of your galactic race as you scream and smash your way around deep space (using, yep, another die). Is Quantum pushing the boundaries of what dice can do? Or is it just like my one gross uncle who has pickles for every meal? It’s time… for the review.

Today’s the beginning of Simplicity Week here at SU&SD! Aren’t games a little too complex? Isn’t life a little too complex, with all these mobly phones and dark webs and human rights? We think so, so from today through next Friday we’ll be turning our simple brains to some simple games, inarguably the most beautiful games of all. Quinns kicks us off with a look at Going, Going, GONE! A bargain-hunting game that could be the savviest and funniest purchase you’ve made this year.

We end Simplicity Week with a bang, and the bang in question comes from you executing your friends, one after another. Skull & Roses is the game Matt’s reviewing here, although throughout the review he calls it Skulls and Roses, and actually, the new, gorgeous edition is just called “Skull”. But never mind our charming incompetence! This isn’t just one of the simplest games we’ve ever played. It’s one of our favourite games, period. And just to make sure your friends come over and get involved, Matt’s also going to teach you the single darkest secret known to SU&SD. How to “make” “pizza”. But what if I were to tell you that for the next Opener, we’re planning something even better? Ah, it’s a good time to be a board gamer. A very good time.

You there! Browsing the internet without a care in the world. Don’t you know there’s a war on?! …It was a Wiz-War, technically, and it took place this week in Quinns’ flat, but still! Show some respect. This venerable old game was originally released in the 1980s, and the new, eighth edition is a cardboard monument to EVERYTHING that was wrong, and right, with game design at the time. It’s complex, yet stupid. Competitive, yet unfair. But with the right people? There’s a very real magic to it, and that’s why we had to film this video. Plus, it was a chance to test the new expansion, Wiz-War: Malefic Curses. WARNING: This is unquestionably the most swearing we’ve ever had in a video. Sensitive viewers? You may want to wear ear muffs.

It’s the end of the world. Survivors huddle together, sheltering in rags and silence. There are bad men outside. And you’re one of them. Arctic Scavengers is a card game for 2-5 players, and this week the updated edition first fell into our laps, then entered our hearts, like cardboard frostbite. Better yet, it’s Quinns’ favourite of all the games we’ve reviewed this year! Oh dear. Wallets at the ready, people.

So many games feature dice, but so few capture the thrill of gambling. Why is that? The answer is, of course, to just buy Machi Koro and shout “WHO CARES!” right in your friend’s face while buying a fourth bakery. Though if you’re looking for a dazzling little economic card game for 2-4 players, we’ve also taken a look at Splendor… and a look back over our shoulder at Mundus Novus. Wow! On reflection, we really do make your lives difficult, don’t we?

What’s the ultimate test of any board game night? No, it’s not your friend getting their arm trapped down the back of a radiator while recovering a lost meeple. That had us scared, but a little olive oil sorted Brendan right out. We’re talking about rules explanations. We get a ton of questions about the best way to teach rules, so we’ve put together the above video. Teaching rules is going to be most people’s first ever exposure to this hobby. And exposing your friends is, of course, serious business.

The Opener is back with another perfect game to start your board game night, your collection, or set your friends down the Cardboard Path. It’s Pandemic and penicillin! Meaning a whiskey cocktail called a penicillin. Going to your friends’ house and eating their mold colonies is not only unpalatable, it’s quite rude. It might sound less attractive than Skull & Roses with fresh pizza, but you haven’t lived until you’ve had a great game of Pandemic. Catching that redeye flight to Seoul, praying you can prevent an outbreak? Driving around Africa, crates of your precious cure rattling around in the back of your jeep? That’s the good stuff, and it gets even better with Pandemic: On the Brink, and even more nightmarish with Pandemic: In the Lab. G’wan! Treat yourself and pick up a copy. No other game is this tense and rich, and yet this accessible.

What’s this? Looks like your donations weren’t enough, everybody. Paul and Quinns are now moonlighting as space marines. No way this could go wrong! Especially not in the spooky space-lanes of Theseus: The Dark Orbit. This was one of the trickiest reviews we’ve done in some time. If we have any designers reading this, do you think you could make your games a little less distinctive, nuanced, rich and basically a bit worse? As critics, we’d really appreciate it.

For literally our entire lives, Paul and I hadn’t played Mice and Mystics. Then we played Mice and Mystics. Then it was out of stock! But this month will see a new printing of the much-discussed game scurrying onto shop shelves the world over. A game of daring-do and wild adventure! A story of tiny heroes with huge hearts. A tale… of cheese. And so it was written that Shut Up & Sit Down would perform “The Review”, and take a quick peek at Mice and Mystics: Heart of Glorm, too.

Are you ready for the most half-arsed impersonation of explorers Lewis & Clark the internet has ever seen? We’ve got you covered. We’ve also got a lengthy review of much-hyped board game Lewis & Clark, on the off chance you come here for the board game reviews. It’s an interesting game, though. In a year when fantastic eurogames are coming thick and fast, like hail in the Great Plains, this one looks pretty enough to make a name for itself. But does it have that frontier spirit? Quinns will let you know. Probably. Assuming he doesn’t get distracted and start talking about sodding Timeline again.

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

It’s not hard to catch SU&SD’s eye. An award on your box will do it. Or a panda! Or the colour pink. Or three-dimensional components. Or an inlay with phallic slots. In offering all five at once, though, Takenoko could have been made for us. Is it a good Opener, though? The perfect game to open a friend’s mind to the wonders of board gaming like you were opening a cheap tin of brain-beans? Tell us, Matt! We have to know.

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

Industriousness! Caution! Precision! Forethought! Patience! All skills vital to construction work that we don’t have. Surely then, an architecture game that we like must have done something wrong? Or maybe not. Blueprints is a clean design, constructed by professionals. Does your collection have space for a small game of building tiny little structures, out of dice? Let’s be honest, now. How could it not?

So Mars is under attack from Reiner Knizia, right, and Team SU&SD are the only ones who can stop him. We also welcome back Susie Pumfsk, and Brendan is an alien! Look, don’t ask questions. Basically we had too much sugar and when we regained our senses we’d filmed this extra-special episode, featuring reviews of Infamy, Time’n’Space AND Rex: Final Days of an Empire, with time to spare for a re-review of Netrunner (original review here). Huge thanks to Rachel Leipacher for her vocal stylings and to Team Covenant for their sexy Netrunner footage. And everybody, beware of Knizia. Even if some of his games are suspiciously good, he’s still out there. Watching. Waiting. Mathsing. Thanks so much, everybody!

We’ve got some continuity to sort out after last week’s sci-fi special, but let’s sort out another bit of continuity first. Almost two years ago Quinns sat down to write this review of the X-Wing Miniatures Game core set. Today, Paul joins him in the stifling cockpit of internet television for a review of the game proper. HUGE thanks to our fans at Industrial Light & Magic for providing that intro sequence. We were skeptical at first when they asked for literally all of our donation money, but the results speak for themselves. Enjoy, everybody!

It’s an Opener! With Quinns! Has the world gone mad? No, but Gravwell definitely has. It’s a racing game set in the ninth dimension with no gravity except that created by your friends. And weirdest of all, it actually works! And finally, two years after we first mentioned it, you guys are receiving the recipe for Quinns’ Wicked Beans. Enjoy, everybody!

Battle Lore! Battle or…? Battle Lore! This week, Paul seems to have found exactly the sort of game that would appeal to his twelve-year-old self, a game of magic and monsters, of hexes and strategy. Battle Lore is Fantasy Flight’s attempt at an easily-digestible miniatures wargame, the kind of thing where you slaughter an army in an afternoon and still have time for biscuits. But is that going to be your sort of thing? The game, we mean, not the biscuits. After all, Battle Lore may have a bigger, bolder relative whose company you might well prefer… Apologies for the lateness of this, everybody! Sometimes the internet is a very slow thing, but we don’t give up easy.

It’s been a weird week. Heck, it’s been a weird few years. Let’s stop for a second, take a breath, and remember what this is all about. Everyone! If you feel like it, post your favourite gaming memory in the comments. Normal service will be resumed next week.

We’ve got a rare trio of reviews for you today! Paul and Quinns pop their collective collars to examine the bright dice and the big cities of Lords of Vegas, Las Vegas and Roll For It!. One of which they’re wholeheartedly recommending, and the other two they’re being very mean to. Phew! The boys’ living room hasn’t seen this much sin since they ordered extra-cheese pizza back in ’09. They couldn’t finish the thing and had to throw half of it away! Ah, to be young again.

Hold on to your wallets! Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is now available. Contained within its box is the pinnacle of puzzle technology, the supreme solo game, an astonishing coup for couples’ gaming! Hmm? What’s that? It actually came out in 1981? But that’s impossible. There must be some mistake.

Sun! Sea! Sand! And the growing threat of murder from an indigenous populace. Before we jetted off for the Lake Geneva Gen Con Convention we snuck in a cheeky game of Archipelago with the War & Peace expansion. If you haven’t heard of this one, definitely think about watching our review, even if it’s just for the reference pineapple. This is a magnificent, strange, colourful game, but not an easy one. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Oh, and we know about the many and varied rules we got wrong. But it wouldn’t be a SU&SD Let’s Play without it, eh? Enjoy, everybody!

Matt’s definitive series on getting your friends and family into gaming, The Opener, has made its delicious return! This week Matt looks at the brand-spanking new edition of Cash ‘n Guns, a game of criminals dividing the “take” after a “heist” by “shooting one another”, before ending the video with a lovely recipe for bangers’n’mash. It’s basically the closet we’ll come to filming Snatch.

In one of our most anticipated reviews of the year, Paul and Quinns have hunkered down in their rubbish-strew hideaway for a spoiler-free analysis of Dead of Winter. Like SU&SD favourite City of Horror, here’s a zombie game that isn’t about zombies. Rather, Dead of Winter wants to tell you a story of a freezing cold colony where men and women are exiled over a lost tin of beans, and the degree to which you trust your friends could save you as easily as get you killed. Did we mention it’s the first board game we’ve reviewed with a sex scene? Oh, yes.

One of the first reviews we ever wrote was of Antoine Bauza’s Ghost Stories, back when SU&SD was little more than a twinkle on our camcorder’s four gig SD card. Clearly we’re getting old. This year will soon see the release of Samurai Spirit, an all-new Bauza game of protecting an all-new village. What will Quinns make of it? More importantly, what will he make of that box? Have you heard about the box? Oh dear. We have some bad news. Are you sitting down?

Ooh, it’s an exciting day. Not only is Five Tribes one of the year’s prettiest and most anticipated boxes, it’s also the most Paul and Quinns have disagreed on anything. EVER. Sit back, relax, and watch the sparks fly. Or just hit play to watch Matt furtively cover his nips. You… you’ll understand in a minute, ok.

Now for a very special “Retro” edition of SU&SD! …because we accidentally filmed it in 640×480! Trust us to make this mistake for one of the loveliest boxes of the year, too. Steam Park is a game about building theme parks for hard-working robots. A game of teeny-tiny three-dimensional information kiosks, roller coasters and haunted houses. That said, it’s also a game where you can build a Tunnel of Love that seats just one, and once you put a robot in there he’ll never leave and begin vomiting uncontrollably. Probably just buy it and figure out for yourself whether this is the nicest or darkest game ever.

Quinns is planning for his future this week, and for some reason two very wet games are involved. The dastardly Black Fleet, together with venerable 1982 release Survive: Escape From Atlantis. Who knew such an old game was still treading water! Rumours that we develop our specials using a random word generator have been MODERATELY EXAGGERATED. Drunken bets are also involved.

The Opener returns with another game to get your friends into board gaming! This time it’s Sheriff of Nottingham. Would you like to see your mum smuggle five barrels of mead past your dad? Or watch your girlfriend get busted with a “cheese cart” full of crossbows? Of course you would. This game’s got a history, actually. Originally a 2006 Brazilian release titled Jogo da Fronteira, it had little tin suitcases with players trying to smuggle cigars, tequila and ancient relics around South America. In 2011 it was rethemed as Robin Hood, before finally receiving yet another overhaul in this year’s Sheriff of Nottingham. The more you know!

Roll over, Zombie Dice. Zombicide? It’s history. Zombie 15′ is our game for Halloween in 2014! A real-time, co-operative 15 minute game of 15 year-olds fighting their way past restless dead across 15 missions. The question isn’t whether Paul and Quinns like it. It’s whether they can succeed at reviewing it in a single 15 minute take. Enjoy, everybody!

Oh my goodness, you’re looking sharp! Yes you, the one reading this! I don’t suppose you came here looking to buy some kind of board game, did you? Well it just so happens we’ve got one for you. It’s called Chinatown, an absolute classic that just got reprinted. A classic, I tell you. A game all about the art of the deal set in 1960s New York. But you probably knew that already, didn’t you? A savvy shopper like you. You’ll take two? Fantastic, fantastic. You’ve made the right choice. Who’s next?

This week’s review must be one of the most colourful games we’ve tried this year. It certainly has more purple wizards than anything else we’ve ever played. The vibrant Lords of Xidit Lords of Xidit is a game of fantasy questing, of bard songs, of wizard towers and of programming your way in front of everyone else. Does that sound like a rather strange mix of ideas? Just wait until you see what Quinns and Paul come up with when they try to put their spin on things. This review is presented with profound apologies to David Bowie.

This week, Paul looks at the notorious Tammany Hall, a game all about the not-entirely-pleasant, not-completely-wholesome New York political machine that was cranking its way through the second half of the 19th Century. Is it a cynical game for cynical times? Perhaps, but the reprint was certainly a terrific Kickstarter success. The much more important question is… just how good is Tammany Hall? Here’s your answer!

At last, we give the video treatment to one of Shut Up & Sit Down’s favourite games, Love Letter! On this Opener, Matt explains why this petite, elegant and excellent game is both an essential and a great way to introduce new people to the hobby. It’s not just an excuse to dress up, not at all, and Matt actually has a very interesting story related to that. It is an excuse to show you how to make gingerbread pears, perfect for any holiday season.