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.

Quinns: Readers with their finger on the pulse (of strategic wine-making board games) might be aware of this Kickstarter for Tuscany: Expand the World of Viticulture. Totaling $277,258 at the time of writing, it offers a copy of the much hyped Viticulture, unavailable since the first Kickstarter in 2012, as well as a new, massive Tuscany expansion.

In other words I finally have a reason to review the ludicrously heavy copy of Viticulture which Stonemaier Games sent me a year ago, before triumphantly flinging it out of my window, killing a passerby in my desperation to get it out of my life.

OR WILL I? As you'd imagine from Viticulture's continued bobbing atop the public consciousness like chunks of cork in a bottle, this game’s really very good.

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Quinns: Sound the competence klaxon! Matt and myself have a quick announcement. We've joined forces with a few other UK games writer luminaries to create DAFT SOULS, a new weekly podcast about video games! And much like SU&SD, it has the single, lofty goal of not being shit.

So if you like SU&SD and you do play video games, give the first episode a listen. Underneath your seat you'll find the iTunes page, SoundCloud, RSS feed, and even Youtube. Oh, and you can follow Daft Souls on Twitter here.

It's kind of amazing how good a job Matt and I do of seeming like we're not hurtling towards 30 when we're talking about cool games like Luftrausers, Dark Souls 2 and Heroes of the Storm. And no, this doesn't mean we'll be spending any less time on this site or the SU&SD podcast. We'll be revealing a similar refurbishment of our own podcast in just a couple of weeks.

Quinns: A lot of you guys said you were really excited about Rampage, and it's easy to see why. A game of destroying a real-life three dimensional city? AND enjoy misadventures with real-life spit? Sold!

I just gave my review to the mighty Eurogamer. It starts like this...

In Rampage, everybody plays a big, stompy kaiju monster, and the game ends when you've all levelled a town. Like a board game from the '80s (think of the merciless TV advertising, the photogenic kids shouting and high-fiving), a game of Rampage starts by offering you an immaculate, three-dimensional city, and wants you to delight in knocking it over. At the end of the game, the player who caused the most destruction to the city, its inhabitants and the other monsters is the winner.

And then, like the lashing of a great monster tail, the review goes on to have not one, but TWO separate twists. Go have a read, people! And definitely don't write this one off as too silly for you. It has a lizard brain to it, full of animal cunning.

Quinns: Guys. GUYS. Before I went to bed last night I said a little prayer to the Gods of Gaming. I asked for a very special game to be announced.

I wanted a game from Bruno Cathala, the designer of Shadows Over Camelot and Cyclades, where the players all control wizened undersea lords. A game of politicking and pushing your luck, where you can ally with crabs, control the algae trade and stockpile pearls. A game with beautiful art that's at once ridiculous, otherworldly and beautiful.

YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED.

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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.

Brendan: It’s simplicity week here on Shut Up & Sit Down and I am celebrating with margherita pizza, simplest of the foods. But also with a board game. Concept is a new party game from the French publisher behind Mascarade and City of Horror. But it is about as far removed from those games as you can get.

This is a game all about guesswork, language and stifled communication, about creating brilliant new ways to express old ideas – oh, I forgot the game. Hang on, I’ll go get it. Quinns, don’t eat my pizza while I’m gone.

Quinns: Of course not!

Brendan: Okay, I’ve got the ... You’ve eaten my pizza.

Quinns: ...

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[And now, a special treat for Simplicity Week. We're very lucky today to be joined by Eric Zimmerman, games academic and designer of Quantum, a great new release that simplifies the space warfare genre into a few riotous handfuls of candy-coloured dice. In the first of a series of new developer post-mortems, we talked to Eric about exactly how simple the process was.]

Quinns: So, Quantum's out, but board games don't enjoy the immediacy of communication and online play you'd get with the video games you worked on before. How does it feel knowing this labour of love is being purchased and played in secret, the world over? HI, by the way.

Zimmerman: Glad to be here!

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