Paul: I can’t count the number of chips I have. There are too many.

The croupier has smeared them across the felt toward me and I’m hurriedly scooping up these coloured disks as if they were spilled bonbons. I’m trying to arrange them in piles of five so that I have some idea how much I have, how many I have, except I’ve forgotten to return my cards and now the croupier is reminding me that he needs them before he can deal out the next hand. So I’m now trying to collect my chips, arrange my chips, return my cards and also put in my blind bet. If I was an octopus I could pull this off. Instead, I’m more of a puppy, flailing at my winnings. I must look so clumsy and everybody can see.

The noise was the first thing that got me. Forty-seven people entered this tournament, spread across five tables of ten or nine players. Before the first hand came out there was nothing but the sound of chips clacking. So many chips clacking as dozens of players flipped and fingered and meshed them together like mantis mandibles. I was pretty sure the young man in a black hoodie to my right was good, but I couldn’t quite explain why. Opposite me sat someone who could have just slithered off a Harley Davidson. His face was the greying crags of a cliff. His rings would mangle anybody he swung at. His top was as ragged as his features. His clothes were worn. His cap was worn. His face was worn. His indifference was underlined by a mustache that never, ever moved. He looked like Danny Trejo.

Hello, Danny Trejo, I am English, what what. I weigh less than 130lbs and yesterday I was so tired during my fencing class that I couldn’t hold my sword up.

Read More

Paul: So I’ve been looking at the Games News Style Guide don’t like the idea of Games News “coming at you” because that gives me the impression of some sort of oncoming, impending, unstoppable, inevitable, colossus of a thing that rolls through your front door. You know, sort of like…

Quinns: A monster? A disaster?

Paul: Right. And I don’t want people to associate us with disasters.

Quinns: No, I want Games News to be the opposite of a disaster. What’s the opposite of a disaster? A… a balm. I want Games News to be a sort of gentle, soothing, relaxing experience. I want Games News to be something you can rub all over your body to make your day infinitely better. Yeah, that’s right. So, with that in mind, let’s give our readers things they would just love to smear all over themselves. Like these Mage Wars tiles.

Read More

Oh snap! Welcome to the Dungeon is the best Japanese game since Love Letter, the best bluffing game since Skull, Iello's new edition is gorgeous and it's on shop shelves right now!

Nobody's saying you have to buy this. We wouldn't dream of it. Just don't come tweetin' to us when it's sold out in a month's time.

Now Quinns is back from the UK Games Expo, we slid a microphone under the door of the con-tamination chamber to record the 29th ever SU&SD 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.

Quinns: Hello everybody! I’m coming to you live from SU&SD’s sealed Con-Tamination Chamber, where I’ll be sitting until any convention germs I’m carrying are long gone. It’s nice in here! It looks a lot like Matt’s bathroom, actually. Matt might have just locked me in his bathroom. I’m not sure. He pushes a slice of toast under the door twice a day.

I was at the UK Games Expo this weekend, while I heartily recommend to anyone who’d consider going. It’s grown considerably in recent years, and it was a lovely space to buy games, try games, and attend all sorts of special events.

Today I want to tell you about the best unreleased games I got to see there, including a new Vlaada Chvátil party game! Oh, yes.

Read More

Who doesn't enjoy a little bit of empire-building now and then? Paul certainly does, which is why he was excited to look at Deus this week, something he did entirely of his own choosing and under no sort of godly compulsion.

With a modular board, lots of little wooden pieces to arrange and a huge deck of cards representing everything from legions to laboratories, could this be a new favourite game of centurions and conquest?

(Our huge apologies for this missing Friday after a mind-bursting five attempts, it uploaded! Have a lovely weekend!)

Matt: Initially, I didn’t spot the mistake. Enthusiastically firing out a message that proposed a date for a day of Star Wars: Imperial Assault, I was met with five excited replies. I looked at the box. "2-5 players". Bums.

Telling one soul that Christmas was cancelled while their sisters unwrapped a BMX mountain felt too cruel to be any kind of option - I had to make six players work.

Read More

Quinns: Paul, I’ve got great news!

Paul: Russia’s pulling out of Ukraine?

Quinns: No, I... we got an email from a reader called Timothy Meyer. He says-

Paul: The Western Black Rhino is no longer extinct?

Quinns: STOP IT he heard from Ystari customer service that the legendary Consulting Detective expansions, previously available only in French, will be arriving in English in January 2016!

New cases are coming! Don’t bury your copies of the phenomenal Sherlock Holmes game just yet.

Paul: I have taken a lot of medicine in a huge overreaction for what might be a very mild cold so let’s do this how could this news possibly go wrong there was caffeine in those painkillers I am so up for this let’s-

Read More