Goodness gracious, we’re starting our 2021 video reviews with a… well, not a bang, exactly. A bang would be gauche. Rococo Deluxe is a swanky new edition of hit 2013 board game Rococo that also plays host to the old game’s Jewellery Box expansion and all sorts of little extras. Seven years later, will we still find Rococo to be elegant and classy? Or will it have become dusty and old-fashioned?

Initially the pitch for this video was 10 reviews overlapping one-another all at the same time, providing a sort of ‘dreamscape’ where the viewer doesn’t know exactly what they just watched; but instead have a strong sense-memory of really enjoying about half the games. Instead, this. It’s probably more confusing, and it put me (Tom) into a slight frenzy. I’m now going to have a very long lie-down. Good luck!

Splish splosh, splish splish splosh. It’s time to get SALTY! This week’s review sees Matt diving into Oceans – sadly not in real life as he lives in central London. Wrong time of year, too – frankly. Enjoy!

Drop everything (unless you’re holding a baby)! My City doesn’t look like much. It also doesn’t sound< like much. But what we’ve got here is master board game designer Reiner Knizia’s take on the genre of legacy games. Remember how The Quest for El Dorado saw Reiner Knizia quietly mastering the genre of deckbuilding games? Well, without wanting to spoil this review entirely, he’s basically done it again. What an absolute legend.

For this hot HOT review, Tom went back in time to 1992 and stole the design documents for a game that he’s sure will one day be a classic. Who did he steal them from? What was the game? One can only dream. In the second of a double-Reiner-february-feature; a review of Modern Art, just for you. It’s an absolute classic in the auction game genre, and maybe one of Tom’s favourite games of all time? Watch him squirm as he grapples with the burden of encompassing that which cannot be encompassed.

What’s historical, great fun, set in medieval Germany and has two thumbs? THIS GUY! Wait, that can’t be right Look, the point is we’ve done a review of a marvellous new edition of perhaps the greatest eurogame ever made. The new Hansa Teutonica Big Box isn’t actually any bigger than the old edition, but it’s not any more expensive, either, which is a truly fantastic thing. We implore you to take a look.

This week on the website Matt discovers that you *can’t* just stuff things inside of a jacket in order to recreate David Byrne’s signature look. We also made two new friends, one of whom is most definitely not alive – the other one? We’ll leave you to decide. Find out why City of the Big Shoulders, this caramel rainbow of brown and beige pieces, has captured a tiny piece of our heart.

In this week’s review, Tom takes a look at Kitchen Rush – a decision that was entirely made by his family. ‘You’ve got to review it, we like it!’ they said. They were… Right, I suppose? I did have fun making the video. And speaking of fun… That’s right folks, in this video you can say hello to the newest month in the Shut Up & Sit Down calendar – fun month! From now on, that’s what March is. We got approval from the man behind the counter at WHSmith, who said he’d get it sorted with the bigwigs as soon as possible. He charged us very reasonably, considering the hassle.

CAVES! FORESTS! MAMMOTHS! What do all of these things have in common? That’s right! You can die inside them. Today Quinns is looking at new co-operative game Paleo, and do you know what? This is one of the better co-op games to land on our desk in recent years. It’s also – you’ll never guess – kind of problematic. Apologies in advance if this video means you can never enjoy Bonk’s Adventure the same way again.

Cubes! Everyone’s favourite three dimensional solid. Tom incorrectly refers to the components in this game as ‘dice’ over and over again, when in reality the game makes it explicitly clear that these are in fact Cubitos; borne of the mother cube, emissaries to the world of… other… shapes… Listen, Cubitos is a game so full of wackiness that it becomes hard to write jokes about, which is why I outsourced all the humour in this video to a tub of green face paint. Watch at your peril, the J-cuts are all wrong and the green still hasn’t quite come out of my beard!

After the year we’ve had, who among us isn’t dreaming of moving to the country? Well, now you can give the rural life a test-drive with Stardew Valley: The Board Game, a board game adapation of the wildly successful videogame. It’s fair to say that SU&SD hasn’t had the easiest time recommending video game adapations, but hey! There’s a first time for everything, right? …right?

In this week’s video review, Tom is blasting off into SPACE to find the spreadsheet of his dreams in a game packed to the gills with iconography. Is one large icon better than two, smaller icons? Find out right here! As dry as Beyond The Sun most certainly is, it is also maybe my true game of last year – a total joy to play every single time. This review most certainly doesn’t do it justice (I even forgot to put the recommends badge!). Give it a spin on Board Game Arena if you’re curious, and grab copies whilst they’re fresh off the press.

This week you’ll find an unusually restrained version of Matt Lees reviewing another small-box stonker from publisher Devir. We enjoyed Silk quite a bit a few years ago, but this crunchy little number, The Red Cathedral, is the real, real deal.

A banquet on a sinking ship can’t last forever, but there’s just enough time to prove yourself the most fabulous rat aboard! Each round you’ll be scavenging for supplies and competing with your honorable host in a most delightful competition of dishes and decorations – all the while forgetting that the ship is sinking beneath you! RATS: High Tea at Sea is a print & play, roll & write boardgame for 2-6 players that’s playable over the internet, in the same room, or a combination of the two! It is preposterously easy to learn and teach, but has sneaky twists and turns that will reveal themselves every time you play – a lovely little treat for whoever fancies climbing aboard.

When was the last time you had a good summon? It’s been too long, hasn’t it? In that case, may we recommend the brand-spanking new edition of Summoner Wars, which is also now playable online? It’s got goblins. It’s got magic spells. It’s got plenty of charming fantasy art. And most importantly, it has a swanky, simple little ruleset that’s easy to learn and hard to master. In fact, we like this game so much we’ve now reviewed it twice. I’m not going to go back and watch our original 2011 review because I would die instantly, but if you want to do so then that is a choice that you can make.

Knock knock, who is there, it is crime – and it has come to take all of your things away from you and use them to buy other, different things. So it goes. In this week’s video review, Tom takes a look at the ‘very large detective’ simulator MicroMacro: Crime City. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it somewhere in-between?! Hopefully this video review will do the detective work for you! Expect ‘at least one joke’, some seriously dry b-roll, and one rare instance of good timekeeping.

“It’s time to GUSH… about your CRUSH!” It’s challenging to imagine a more nauseating line of marketing copy, and yet that’s exactly what Dream Crush expects you to do. I won’t stand for it. Wait, Quinns thinks this game is good? He thinks this game is good? He thinks this game is good? I’m uncertain about all of this, but I’m going to press play all the same.

Oats! The latest, biggest, four-letter-iest board game from Leder Games! It is not to be confused, mind, with Oath. That game SUCKS. In this week’s review, Tom is spending a sweet half of an hour talking you through the ins and outs of this year’s most anticipated, most perplexing title. How good is it? Short answer: very – but click play for a whole bundle of words that are slightly more nuanced than that…

Another much-requested video lands on the site this week – it’s Prophecy of Kings! But can the excitement of this massive box pry Matt away from the beloved, basic version of Twilight Imperium? Only time will tell! Approximately 20 minutes of your time, if you’ve got it.

The person who actually received the review copy for Railroad Ink: Deluxe Edition (Railroad Ink Challenge: Lush Green, Railroad Ink Challenge: Shining Yellow and all the dice expansions) was Quinns. I (Tom) had to persuade Mr Quintin to relinquish his grasp on the box because, of course, I was the bigger, better fan of Railroad Ink – I play it on my own, for goodness sake. Little did I know that the box was a Monkey’s Paw. Little did I know that within a few short months, I would be rattling on about ‘The Rainbow Die’, ‘The Eldritch Expansion’ and drawing up the tier list from (and starring) hell. The words and behaviour of the utterly deranged. Enjoy!

Matt stumbles into outer space, providing you with an exclusive tour of Dune: The Dessert Planet.

This month Quinns was afraid to restart his regular board game nights until he’d been double-vaccinated, so not for the first time this year, he broke out a solo game. Hostage Negotiator by Van Ryder Games. And OH BABY! What a FIND! The base games of Hostage Negotiator and Hostage Negotiator: Crime Wave are plenty of fun, but it’s Hostage Negotiator: Career that inspired this video. Have you ever wanted to star in your own questionable series of airport novels? Then this is the game for you.

Badabing Badacrew! It’s a review of The Crew, 1 and 2! In this video, Tom spends far too long burying the lede before chomping down on what makes The Crew: The Quest For Planet Nine and The Crew: Mission Deep Sea some of the best card games on the market, and maybe even some of the best co-op games of all time. Have fun and stay safe, in the sea and in space!

Everybody in the club gettin’ fuzzled! This week Matt investigates, The Fuzzies, the reality-defying tower of balls that’s surprisingly… relaxing?

Go on then, what’s yer favourite card? I’m partial to a 4 of diamonds myself – but I’m also partial to the hundreds of individual cards featured in this very video. That’s right, we’re once again counting down the very best that cards have to offer right now, covering a dizzying array of games big and small! In this video, you can catch Tom and Quinns reviewing The Crew again, creating a Fantasy Realm in Fantasy Realms, moseying over to a monarch in Royal Visit, and enjoying what sounds like a big french dessert in Oriflamme. We also make time to talk about the crown prince of cards; Regicide – as well as dipping our critical toes into a bunch of different boxes in a not-quite-review-roundup. It’s a big one, and you’re invited!

Quinns and Paolo Mori / Sittin’ in a tree / E-N-J-O-Y-I-N-G-D-E-SI-G-N The man behind Libertalia, Dogs of War, Ethnos and one of the most well-received Pandemic spinoffs is back again with two new releases. Blitzkrieg! and Caesar! are both fabulously quick games, and to do their speediness justice we’ve reviewed them both at the same time. What will we think of next?

The choice of a green morphsuit was a mistake, I know. I’ve thought about this many times during the editing process, and ‘tight green’ is certainly not the look for me. The game however? It’s… probably not for me either. But that’s okay! Let me explain… Today on the site, feast your eyes on a video review of The Adventures of Robin Hood – another review that you have my family to thank for – who swarmed around this box like wasps to a jar. This isn’t a game that’ll receive the oldest-young-brewster seal of approval, but it does get it from every other size of Brewster you can think of. Enjoy!

Descent is BACK, BABY! The game that inspired Shut Up & Sit Down’s second ever episode has returned in an eye-popping new edition with a wallet-clutching pricetag. In the new Descent: Legends of the Dark, gone is the opportunity to play a callous and maleficent (and frequently out-gunned) dungeon master. This time around, every player at the table will control a hero, and you’ll all be steered through the campaign using an app. It’s a bracing innovation, but what will Quinns make of it? Click play, and find out.

In my head, I can’t help but call this game ‘Burger Bros’, and then have a little fantasy about a co-operative game where you play as two incredibly buff burger chefs as they blaze across a post-apocalyptic world, making absolutely ripping burgers for the survivors. I don’t know how it’d work, I just have the box art crystal-clear in my head. Anyway, here’s a review of Burgle Bros 2 – a game that actually exists, and is fantastic. Enjoy!

This week’s review was assembled so rapidly that I thought I’d burned my fingers from yanking out that hot hot SD card straight from the camera mere seconds after stopping the record. Mmmm… the smell of burned data. Speaking of hot things – Kabuto Sumo is piquing everyone’s interest now as a real corker of a dexterity game. Is it good? Is it great? Find out here in this Shut Up & Sit Down Video Review™.

CRIMES! Where do they come from? What are they made of? Scientists still don’t know, but one thing’s for sure. If you like solving crimes, Detective: City of Angels might find refuge in your board game collection. In this video review Quinns says the difference between Detective and games like Consulting Detective and Watson & Holmes is that Detective is “actually fun”. He can’t mean that, can he? Click play, and find out.

One of the hottest games of the year, Matt digs his teeth into Furnace. Just how much game have they packed into this box? Click Play, and find out!

This video is surely proof of SU&SD’s dedication to board game review technology. In the above video we’ve managed to compress no less than three reviewers and three reviews of Flatout Games’ Calico, Cascadia and Verdant. But that’s not all! You’ve heard her on the pod, you’ve partaken of her written words, but this video represents the team’s own Ava Foxfort’s very first video review. Everybody, please join me in wishing her a the warmest of SU&SD welcomes. Ava, if you’re reading this? You’re a gem. A gem we’ve socketed into our crown, and you know what? We don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about it.