Shut Up & Sit Down: The Podcast!

Matt, Paul and Quinns have met once again to create a board gaming Voltron! Albeit one with three hearts and no brain.Games discussed in this prestigious 40th episode include And Then We Held Hands, Ra, Through the Ages, FUSE and A Fake Artist Goes to New York. If you're looking for the Tuesday Knight Games podcast featuring Matt, you'll find it right here.We also chat about board game boxes and sustainability and end with a lovely interview with Plaid Hat's lead designer and lead art director Isaac Vega, who wants to tell us all about the new standalone expansion for Dead of Winter: The Long Night. In case you missed our review of Dead of Winter, you'll find that here!

Paul, Matt and guest star Jonathan Ying come to us LIVE from GDC 2016 discuss the hottest new board games! And by "hottest" we mean "weirdest" (and by "new" we mean "old").Designer Tim Fowers stopped by our lounge to demo his games to us, the sneaktacular co-op Burgle Bros and deck-building word-builder Paperback. Fantasy Flight designer and friend of the show Mr. Ying showed us Brawl, a real-time card game that just this month enjoyed a reprint. There's also Dancing Eggs, which we inflicted on GDC like a horrible rubber virus.

Welcome back to the podcastle! Not to be outdone after listener Alex Cannon contributed a jingle for last episode, Matt's made yet another jingle. Ready your body! Lube up your ears. It's got a harmony. You've been warned.As for games, we chat about Liar’s Dice, Arboretum, the new editions of Archaeology and Elevenses: The Card Game of Morning Tea AND new releases 504 and Power Grid: The Stock Companies. Plus our folk game of the month, of course. It's not just Friedemann Friese who can pack a whole lot of nonsense into a small package.

Matt, Quinns and Paul return for 2016! New games discussed include Billionaire Banshee, Flick 'em Up and Marrying Mr. Darcy. Old games discussed include Tikal and Pictomania. Million year-old games discussed include The Fun Stick Game.Most importantly of all, our jingle roster has grown! Huge thanks to SU&SD fan Alex Cannon for sending in a folksy sting for Folk Game of the Month.Perhaps we should make a quick round of Billionaire Banshee a regular feature too... ?

Hey kids! It's the SU&SD podcast, the perfect background noise when polishing, sharpening or simply admiring a knife.Paul's back from BoardGameGeek Con with stories to tell! Quinns joins him for a discussion of the pleasing heft of The Gallerist, the 2nd edition of Stronghold, the mixed-up genres of Above and Below, and the gentle joy of Porta Nigra. There's also Walk the Dogs, which sounds rubbish.Finally, the two discuss an email they received all about classic knife games. Is there anything cooler than a knife trick? You decide!This podcast brought to you by the United Kingdom Knife Lobby.

Oh god. Sit down. The new podcast is out, and we've peaked. We'll never have a lineup like this again.Last week we enjoyed exclusive access to scalding-hot 2016 Fantasy Flight epic Star Wars: Rebellion, and on this podcast we want to tell you all about the fun we had with it. But that's not all! We also discuss our time with the wonderful new edition of Fury of Dracula, return to Star Wars: Armada and Quinns has sat down with Jeff Cannata of the DLC Podcast for a (well signposted) spoiler-ridden chat about Pandemic Legacy.That's more amazing board games than is wholly decent. But you deserve it.

In what could be our most exciting reader mail ever, Quinns has helped a marine biologist pick some board games to take to the above Antarctic research station for 18 months. Tune in next year to hear how those games fared against penguins, boredom and the deadliest winters on planet Earth.But that's not all! Join Paul and Quinns as they walk the tightrope of talking about Pandemic Legacy without spoiling a darn thing. Listen as they discuss other Game of the Year candidates Codenames and Mysterium. Laugh as they chat about the most dangerous games they played as kids, and moan with delight as they describe yet another perversely erotic folk game.

Market research tells us that the median SU&SD reader is, at a given moment, most likely to be thatching their mead hall. How boring! You'd best pop our 33rd ever podcast on in the background.Matt and Quinns are desperate to talk about their crippling Infinity habit, while Paul's been playing the beloved game of Battlecon. We've got a quick interview with Fantasy Flight CEO Christian Petersen where he answers such lovely questions as "What happens to board games that don't sell" and "What is the most stressful thing about your job". And we receive an email from Brooklyn-based SU&SD fan Nate Kushner titled The Sad Room.The fun never stops! The thatching shouldn't either, though. Chop chop.

My god! 32 podcasts in and we're finally approaching "professional".Paul, Matt and Quinns discuss the bold new Game of Thrones card game and think back on classic lie-athon Battlestar Galactica, before clearing the floor for an interview with veteran designer Eric Lang (Quarriors, XCOM: The Board Game, Chaos in the Old World). We close with a quick trip to the SU&SD mailbag and an impromptu game show(!).We've done it, ladies and gents. It's all downhill from here.

(This podcast is also available as a video.)Last year team SU&SD hustled 300 people into a dingy Gen Con annex to record a live podcast. It was incredible. So this year we did it again!After a shaky start where Matt, Quinns and Pip realise their audience is only there to hear about their hotel, the board game chat begins in earnest. We discuss the croquet mallets of T.I.M.E. Stories, the wandering chicken nuggets of Evolution and waste disposal in The Bloody Inn. Then it's time for QUESTION STACK 'N FALL! Which is different from Question Jenga by about £8.

You ever eat Nerd Rope? Just an endlessly long, glutinous tongue, speckled with sour little gobbets?That's basically the 30th ever SU&SD podcast. On this lengthy journey of no less than one hour and one minute, we discuss the absence of bitterness in the magnificent Forbidden Stars. We chat about the sheer joy of Funemployed (alas, we're still waiting on the European release), and the sweet coloured pebbles of Trajan. The Saturday morning cartoon-looking reimagining of Catacombs has reached us, too, complete with a wooden jelly cube! And of course, Spyfall snuck into the mix.WARNING: Your RDA of SU&SD podcasts is 0.2 a day.

Now Quinns is back from the UK Games Expo, we slid a microphone under the door of the con-tamination chamber to record a new podcast!Paul's got questions about the sublime Welcome to the Dungeon, the prototype of Vlaada's Codenames and Quinns' performance at the UK Netrunner Nationals. But that's not all! Quinns is starved for company and wants to know about the games Paul's been playing: For the Crown and 7 Ronin, which both sound great. There's also some discussion of Knightmare Chess, mostly along the lines of "Why haven't we reviewed it yet?"For curious international listeners, here's a clip of the UK's Knightmare game show. Enjoy that one.Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to burn the mic.

Sometimes Team SU&SD can be compared to a marching band, except instead of playing musical instruments we make awful mistakes, and instead of moving forward we stay in the same place forever.Not today, though! Today, in podcast #28, we prove our competence. Paul discusses overcoming Panamax's awful manual to discover the fabulous game within, while Matt and Quinns discuss the great time they had leading civilizations in both Nations and Imperial Settlers. Finally, we discuss Paul's new, potent sex power in the game of Apocalypse World.Don't worry. This can't last... can it?

STOP! This is the police. You're under arrest for being in possession of 27th Shut up & Sit Down podcast. I'm afraid it's very illegal indeed.First there was that scaremongering at the beginning about ghosts in Mysterium. Then they openly discussed how they were underqualified for their work as politicians in the recent Megagame, detectives in Consulting Detective and alchemists in Alchemists.Then there was Quinns' segment on the most morally questionable games in all of the board game geek database, and they finished the whole affair with a folk game about pre-teen nudity!Oi! Come back! Don't make me run!

Matt, Quinns and Paul re-unite in a stuffy room to discuss all the marvellous games they've seen on their travels around North America, the forgotten continent.We get off to a civilized start with Bring Your Own Book and the delicate negotiation of Dragon's Gold, followed by total regression into childhood and the beautiful miniatures and deadly turbolasers of Imperial Assault.Finally, Matt's heard rumours of a folk game that's all about ruining things. But that's all they are... rumours...

In a special feature on this ancient pastime, Brendan discovers everything he was taught about chess to be wrong and goes on a quest to learn it properly.A written transcript is available here.

Paul: Here's the story of how I bunked off school to play a board game and how that board game changed my life.Saying that immediately makes me excited to tell it.A written transcript, with pictures, is available here.

First things first, huge thanks to Vitaliy Zavadskyy for gifting our podcast with some magical intro and outro themes. The UK finally has a second radio show to be proud of after the BBC World Service.In this episode Paul's been hard at work testing Spyfall, Panamax and The Witcher Adventure Game as well as continuing to plumb the depths of the new edition of D&D.Meanwhile, Matt and Quinns do their best to get in his way. Quinns wants everybody to play his new on-air banana game and Matt needs to talk about corpses, churches and bushes.This episode's folk game is Pretty Darn Quick. If you'd like to feel bad about yourself, a video of some laughably talented people playing it can be found here.

Oho! What's this? Board gaming's most excitable hour of chatter is back, as Matt and Quinns discuss everything they played and saw over the New Year, including a visit to London's first board game cafe. After that, this one's all about crap houses.The boys discuss the terrible property investments they made in Last Will and the Getting Sacked expansion, Matt makes fun of Quintin's horrible estate in Castles of Mad King Ludwig, before finally the boys discuss how being tall makes it harder to build pagodas in Pagoda.Finally the boys talk about Dead Body, a game sent in by reader Joe Faustine that would work best in a real-life spooky house.Do you have a folk game you'd like us to discuss on the next podcast? Please, drop it to the email address at the bottom of the site!

Quinns spent his youth as a "Keeper of Drinking Games". Whenever him and his friends were boozing as kids, in those empty kitchens or under trees, he'd lay the games out. He wants to share a few with the world now, before he dies.A written transcript is available here, and Brendan's essay on craic is here.

For our 23rd podcast Paul and Quinns discuss board games past, present and future.That sounds more hifalutin than it probably is. We begin by discussing the consenting tentacle sex of Consentacle, and how our next live podcast will be an excuse to review Cat on Yer Head. We fret about Prophecy, chat about Tammany Hall, ponder Istanbul and gossip about Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, a game of war, war and more war. And don't forget Shadows in the Woods! It almost slipped us by.Post-podcast we played Iron & Ale, by the way, and had a fantastic time. There are just 6 days left on that Kickstarter, so look sharp!

Last month Grant Howitt Kickstarted a silly RPG called Goblin Quest. A game where players take the role of a steady stream of goblins trying to compete banal tasks, but mostly just dying along the way.This week Grant sent us a preview of one of the variants in the back of the book, titled "Sean Bean Quest". The less you know about this the better. Just hit play and enjoy Matt, Paul and Quinns approaching never-before-seen levels of silliness.Goblin Quest can be pre-ordered here.

Halloween is upon us! That wonderful time of the year where bumps are forcibly inserted into the night, and we can bookend our podcast with creaky door sound effects.In this horrifying installment we discuss the gore-flecked teenagers of Zombie 15', the forbidden pouches of Sheriff of Nottingham, the... uh... terrifying suburbs and sidewalks of Subdivision, before finally giving up and chatting about the new edition of D&D, indie RPG Dog Eat Dog and Paul's trip to FiraxiCon.Listen... IF YOU DARE.

Our very 21st podcast is a magical journey into the realm of card games. We start in our Lifeboat, fall into Bruno Cathala's undersea Abyss, and wash up in the exotic Eastern home of Samurai Spirit, Panda Poker and Seiji Kanai's Say Bye to the Villains.Matt, Quinns and Paul have played all of these games, but that's not the best part. It turns out we can't agree about a single one of them.

At Gen Con 2014 we hosted a special, live podcast for 300 of our closest fans. It was unbelievable. If you were there, thank you.If you weren't there, contained within is us yammering about the new XCOM board game, Ca$h 'n Guns and one huge game of Two Rooms and a Boom, before running two games of our own! True (or False) Dungeon and Question Jenga. It's more madness than you can shake a sedative at.

Yes, we're still playing the Star Wars: Edge of Empire roleplaying game! No, our intrepid gang of sob stories and space-wastrels hasn't been arrested yet.In session #3 the gang stretch their luck to the very limits by attempting a heist at the height of a terrible electric storm. And... oh, no. Are they really pretending to be musicians as a cover story? With no knowledge of music, and no musical paraphernalia at all?

In June, Paul, Leigh and Quinns took part in a month-long, city-wide, entirely ludicrous watergun assassination game. In podcast #19 they cast off their disguises, holster their leaky weapons and assemble for the official SU&SD review.A downloadable .pdf of Killer by Steve Jackson is available right here, the official Streetwars site is here and Leigh's AMAZING story of her time as a murderess is just over here.

For the month of June 2014, Leigh played a deadly femme fatale in a month long watergun assassination game. This is her story of stalking her prey, shivering in bushes and battling the most dangerous enemy of all. GUILT.A companion podcast where Leigh, Paul and Quinns review the game itself is just over here, and a written transcript is available here.

It's part 2 of our entirely amazing Star Wars adventures! In this session our team of heroes arrive at a space station, kill an orc (kind of), succeed at crime (mostly) and (almost) begin working as a team. I'm calling it now. There is no way this ends well.If you missed part 1 we should stress that we haven't retreated into a child-like fantasy world and are in fact playing the new Star Wars RPG. Newcomers will definitely want to check out part 1 where our story begins.The dramatic caper of the Crap Plastic Artifact will conclude next week!

Podcast #18, "The Turbocast", has been sighted in the Earth's atmosphere!Not to be confused with podcast #17, the Megacast, the Turbocast sees Team SU&SD compressing 60 minutes of board game chatter into a super-dense 30 minutes. We recommended you pop your ears before listening so the change in pressure doesn't cause your head to collapse like an egg.The games that underwent this revolutionary treatment were Trains and Stations, Lords of Vegas, Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective and Valley of the Kings. Finally, we provide the world's fastest, worst and most decisive Agony Aunt service. Enjoy, everybody!

Have you ever considered the humble scratchcard? Brendan would like you to. There's a ceremony involved, you see. Like a papery King Canute, you must take joy in coaxing a tide of wealth forward, and agonise in watching it retreat. Within the scratchcard, perhaps, is all of life.A written transcript is available here.

And now for something a little different.We want to provide an exhaustive review of the new Star Wars: Edge of Empire Roleplaying Game, which means we're going to have to spend lots of evenings being crap in space. So why not let you guys in on it? Presenting... SU&SD's Amazing Star Wars Adventures!Starring Leigh Alexander as Beetle, wannabe bounty hunter! Quinns as ZB-33, her jury-rigged protocol droid! And Matt Lees as Fuse, a grumpy fish with lots of bombs. Our first session was mostly character creation and puzzling over rules so we're calling this instalment a "prologue", but it features a very dramatic moment where we successfully open a door. Enjoy, everybody!

Hopefully by now you've all enjoyed the majestic clusterbump that is our video report of Watch the Skies. This was a "Megagame" that featured dozens of players posing as world leaders, scientists and dastardly aliens, in something like a model U.N. turned up to 11 until the tables start exploding.While videos of Matt accidentally declaring war on outer space are all well and good, we also promised a podcast where we'd discuss the design of the thing. And here it is! More than an hour of anecdotes, observations and creative disagreements, and one enormous shout out to Anne, who kept the nation of Japan supplied with tea and sandwiches for fifteen years, which is quite a feat. Enjoy, everybody!

Fwssh-pop! A new Shut Up & Sit Down podcast has dropped out of hyperspace, its hull slick with enthusiasm, and its bulbous cargo bays heaving with games. In this episode Paul and Quinns are joined by Mike, Reference Pear's personal assistant, to discuss the ludicrous architecture of Ugg-Tect, shapely card game Pairs, the somewhat astonishing Monikers, as well as a sneak preview of this week's Lewis & Clark review.From there, the podcast slingshots along the Kessel run to arrive at a lengthy discussion of Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars RPG, answers a few of your questions, and leaves as quickly as it came, accompanied by the musical stylings of Mr. Jesse James.But your memories... they'll last a lifetime. They'll also need to be disinfected, so please mail them to us in a self-addressed envelope.

Oh my goodness it's a PODCAST! Rarest of all the pods. Gather round and hear Quinns and Paul talk of the giggly Jamaica, the confusing Rivals for Catan, the tricksy Great Fire of London 1666, the long-awaited Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts and lots more.But that's not all! Paul's back from GDC and is full of tales of daring-do, like the time he chased Warren Spector into a toilet and made him buy a copy of Quantum. And of course, we answer your choicest questions. Enjoy, everybody! Oh, and thanks muchly to SU&SD fan Jesse James for providing us with a lovely musical sting.

The Shut Up & Sit Down podcast has been sighted again! Quickly, catch it before it disappears back into the Thames in search of tasty nutrients.Ah, it's a fine specimen this time! Paul and Quinns discuss Richard Garfield classic RoboRally, they're playing Rex again, they've found time for Time 'n' Space, given a blood test to Blood Bound and were briefly riveted by Rivet Wars.Ah, look! Between the gills! It's also got a lengthy segment where Paul and Quinns discuss the books of board gaming, including The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky, Playing at the World by Jon Peterson and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.Enjoy, everybody!

It's the very first ever podcast of 2014, and we're celebrating with never before seen audio quality! Not that you can see sound. Unless you're a bat! Do any bats listen to the podcast? We just don't know.If they WERE listening, they'd hear Paul and Quinns are talking about new year's resolutions, and all the games they played over the holiday season! Games like the deeply hyped Yedo, the deeply excellent Timeline, the deeply deep Power Grid, the deeply creepy One Night Werewolf, and the deeply recent New Amsterdam. Finally, we descend to the deepest pits of nerdery, because our Game of the Month is none other than Dungeons & Dragons. Enjoy, everybody!

Our very TWELFTH podcast has arrived! Twelfth doesn't look like a proper word, does it? Twelfth. What are all those consonants doing? It sounds like a Lovecraft monster.So: Quinns is back from Board Game Geek con, and he's fit to BURST with news of Nordic LARP, sinister physical games and a board game designer who's inexplicably gorgeous in person. Following this vital draining, the boys spend far too much time on the best question you guys have ever sent in, discuss venerable releases One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Coup and Dungeon Fighter, preview the distant Dead of Winter and get in a terrible fight regarding the mad mansions of Mansions of Madness. Enjoy, everyone!

That's right, babies! You asked for more regular podcasts on your subscriber questionnaires, and we're doing exactly that. The system works! Ignore that clattering and keening coming from our servers. Right now, in this moment, the system works.Packed into podcast #11 are discussions of Freedom: The Underground Railroad, Keyflower, Space Cadets , Rattus and Cosmic Encounter. We discuss whether Trains has made Dominion redundant, answer a bushel of questions on the subject of imbalance in games, AND devote an entire, loving segment to the board game we've played more than any other- Descent: Journeys into the Dark.What's your favourite broken monster, readers?

What's this? A scant three weeks since the last SU&SD podcast, a new one has slipped into the world like a newborn babe: Dirty, noisy, desperate for attention and a little bit intimidating.We've got so, so much chatter in this one. We've got new releases like Dread Curse, Cube Quest and Legends of Andor. We confirm whether Seasons has displaced 7 Wonders. We even discuss games so new you can't even BUY them yet, which is a first for us: Space Cadets: Dice Duel, Nothing Personal and Two Rooms and a Boom. All of this discourse clocks in at a marathon 90 minutes. Fitting, because we talk about the Olympics, too.Oh, and finally: Regular listeners might detect an attempt to make our podcast marginally less shambolic. And they're be right.

The NINTH EVER Shut Up & Sit Down podcast has arrived like a beautiful steam train! It's impressive, quite long and harnesses only rudimentary technology.Several days after recording it, we've arbitrarily decided that this one has the theme of reigning! We've got detailed impressions of new, absurdly tricky card game Reignaissance Man, we discuss the problem with ruling imaginary nations, and we discuss the games we'd banish from our kingdoms if we could. We're so classy that we've even managed to coax the fabulous Leigh Alexander back as a special guest! It's as if she never left.

The SU&SD podcast has once again arrived like a great big board gaming burrito: Fiery, fresh and surprisingly dense*.In our eighth instalment Paul and Quinns are joined by Matt Lees as they thoroughly deconstruct Egypt simulator Kemet, senile dementia simulator Mascarade, and Police Precinct! Which simulates literally no policemen or women who have ever existed.They also find the time to quiz Paul about Risk Legacy, bully Quinns about Cube Quest and take on the tricky subject of wargaming, before diving headfirst into this month's mailbag.*Rejected adjectives for this analogy: Lukewarm, creamy, gassy.

Paul: Yes, yes, we have a seventh podcast for you, for all of you, even you there, at the back. Please form an orderly queue here and pick up your free copy.In this podcast we bounce from topic to topic like kangaroos on trampolines in an earthquake, touching on the glorious Galaxy Trucker, the wicked Revolver 2, the svelte Netrunner and the august Augustus. We also slip a slimy tentacle into our mailbag and see which of your questions adhere best to our mucus-coated membranes, answering queries on topics from Cosmic Encounter to Mice & Mystics.*We also invite special guest Leigh Alexander on, to talk about why indie RPGs are so interesting and how we ended up roleplaying an inappropriate, awkward and surprisingly supernatural sexual encounter.** Is there any other podcast like this anywhere out there? You already know the answer to that.*NB: Our answer to the Mice & Mystics question is really disappointing. Sorry about that. Sorry.**Apologies in advance to Sting.

Oh, no. Having survived month one of the new site, the boys are trying to make their podcast more professional. The result? A regular feature they can't decide on, musical stings they're wielding like cattle prods, and a special guest! Of Brendan.On the plus side, we're serving up HOT CHATTER about so many new titles! Lords of Waterdeep, Tokaido, City of Remnants, The New Science, Police Precinct, Kingdoms, Netrunner (again), Relic (again), and A La Carte! Which is a cooking game for children from 20 years ago. Sorry.

In this VERY SERIOUS podcastery from renowned "Men of letters" Paul and Quinns, we answer the questions that some people, somewhere, might want answered. Are board games cool? When is it about American-style boardgames? We also wonder if there's a The Matrix board game but there isn't.On the way we discuss all sorts of hot releases, including Relic, Talisman, Netrunner, Labyrinth, Last Night on Earth and even PERUDO! Because reasons.

Quinns: The technology behind podcasts is beyond us, as stars are beyond the humble antelope. I’ll tell you what, though! Paul and I can totally put a mic on a table and shout at it for 60 minutes. Poor mic. Hit play!That is, if you’d like to hear us talk about The Resistance: Avalon, Libertalia, the X-Wing Miniatures Game and so much more! So many games! You couldn’t even carry them all at once!

Paul: As well as bouncing between topics like a pinball between flippers, this is an important podcast for us for two reasons. First, we’re announcing an exciting thing and second, we’re also asking you, our audience, an important question about a decision we’re thinking of making. But we won’t make it without consulting you first.Does that sound dramatic? Hopefully it’s whetted your appetite and stimulated your curiosity gland, but BE WARNED- mostly we just talk about games again.

Paul: Yep, that’s right, your eyes do not deceive you and nor do your ears. Shut Up & Sit Down is back and tightly, trimly encoded into a 64kbps podcast, streamlined for your pleasure. Just like your lunch break, it’s almost but not quite an hour long, far too fattening and ultimately nothing more than the briefest respite from the black and tentacled horrors of reality.In this second podcast, between sips of tea, we talk about two particularly wicked games that we hold nothing but hatred for. That’s right, hatred! Can you guess which they are?

Paul: What is this?! Why, it’s the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast! At last, you can enjoy SU&SD while shelling crabs, or during an exceptionally banal bout of lovemaking.As our chat bubbles (and meanders) like a mountain stream, we touch on some of our viewer responses, beautiful hexagons, a dream about plants, some of our recent experiences with birds and so many games! Topics of discussion include Mage Knight, Race for the Galaxy and the deliciously devious Shadow Hunters.