FULL STREAM AHEAD! SU&SD Newsletter #44

Matt: Hello there! I hope you’re all faring well  in the second month of these unexpected New Times. After a bumpy initial  ride of recalibrating and decontaminating, most of team SU&SD have  adapted to current circumstances - and we’re doing what we can to  continue to provide little pockets of interesting joy!

First up in our barrage of news - I’ve now got to grips with the  technology required, and for the foreseeable we’ll be live on Twitch  twice a week. On Thursdays I’ll be joined by other people from the team -  tune in on the 23rd for some Roll & Write play-along fun with  myself, Quinns, and Tom. We’ll be posting all the print & play  details for that in the news on Monday, and excitingly on Tuesday’s  stream we’ve managed to rope in none other than the turbo-busy Isaac  Childres to play some Frosthaven with me on Tabletop Simulator. We may  well make this play-a-game-with-its-designer into a mini series of  sorts, and you can expect to see edited-down versions appearing on  YouTube not too much longer afterwards.

Matt: Excitingly, on Wednesday, you’ll also see  newcomer Tom’s first foray into making and hosting a solo video! I think  it’s really rather lovely, so please do pop along, have a look, and if  you enjoy it? Share your support. I think back to when I first appeared  on Shut Up & Sit Down - an appearance that wasn’t especially well  received! - and I can’t help but think that it’s a tougher time than  ever to truly step out alone onto The Internet. Personally I’m really  impressed by how rapidly Tom has absorbed knowledge and skills, and look  forward to me asking him to employ me roughly ten years from now.

Tom: Just popping in here to say a.) Matt u r 2  sweet - and b.) thank you in advance, people of the internet, for being  kind to my wobbly efforts at video content. The generosity and lovely  words of the SUSD community have given me heaps of confidence in getting  stuff out into the endless expanse of the internet, and done a lot to  gently smush the overwhelming fear of looking like the dingus I well and  truly am. The change has been summed up perfectly by my partner, who  just yesterday said; ‘you used to be someone who nervously sweats at the  idea of talking to staff at the supermarket! Now you’re someone that  nervously sweats when talking to people on the internet, as well!’.  Supportive as ever!

Matt: Still, the morale of the team is higher than  last month - even if we’ve had our wobbles, it feels like we’re finally  getting back on some sort of track, playing board games online with  friends not being a legitimate replacement, but definitely scratching a  part of the itch. Tabletop simulator is surprisingly entertaining,  Tabletopia isn’t quite as malleable but makes us feel warmer inside  because it’s totally legit, as is the surprisingly excellent Board Game  Arena - a lo-fi but surprisingly sturdy option that’s been really  tickling my unexpected Terra Mystica needs.

Quinns: Same as I prefer paper money to cardboard  money, I prefer the feel of Tabletopia to Tabletop Simulator. I guess  some of us are just born perverts.

I never would have expected it, but Covid-19 was a welcome shove in  the right direction in terms of getting our team to play board games  online. No, there’s no substitute for at-the-table play, I don’t care  how many drinks you spill or how sharp your elbows are. But playing  games online has allowed me to play more board games with the team up in  London, and with the team over in Canada. It’s nice!

Online services have also allowed me to try Kickstarter games that  I’d otherwise have to wait nine months to play. Here’s a little tip for  you - Calico by Kevin Russ and illustrated by Beth Sobel is a total sleeper hit.  Expect plenty of chat about it on the next podcast, but for now, oh my  goodness! This game might look soft and sleepy, but the puzzle is one of  the most straightforwardly cruel and incorruptible punishments I’ve  experienced in ages. I can’t remember the last time I played a game that  saw every player groaning aloud when they had to take their turn,  because they just weren’t ready.

What are we watching? 📺

Matt: Television is great! Did you know that? I ploughed  through Alex Garland’s latest thing DEVS on the weekend - it’s a  fascinating and often abrasively strange sci-fi thriller that really  stuck with me, definitely worth watching. I’m still endlessly reeling at  how good Better Call Saul is as it starts to wrap itself up though,  mainly. Easily the best show I’ve ever seen. I know I write that in this  bit of the newsletter roughly 40% of the time, but COR.

What are we music!  🎵

Tom: Crikey, the new Fiona Apple album is really  something, right? Fetch The Bolt Cutters has mainly been placed slap  bang in the middle of my radar because Pitchfork gave it their first  10/10 in as many years, but, honestly, it might be the right album for  that accolade. There’s not much I can say about it that hasn’t already  been echoed by seemingly every major music publication, but crikey. What  a record. Aside from having that on repeat, I’ve been back on the  post-punk train, with a heavy heaping of the new FACS record, Void  Moments, and dipping my toes into Molchat Doma’s debut record after an  unhealthy obsession with 2018’s Этажи. There’s something about nice  weather that always gets me listening to the gloomiest music possible.  My housemates have not been best pleased.

Ava: These times are so weird. I keep forgetting  how to look after myself, and a key part of this is that I keep  forgetting to put music on. Being locked down away from my home has  broken both good and bad habits, but I really need to remember to swim  in the rivers of sound more often. That said, the other day I got Jump  and Shout by Basement Jaxx stuck in my head and I ended up starting a  trawl through their entire back catalogue. Those first two records are  bursting at the seams with pounding, joyful music, and I can’t recommend  them enough. The later records aren’t that bad either. Definitely shook  the cobwebs out of my booty. Wait. Don’t think too carefully about that  last sentence..

Matt: Absolutely, you’ll only upset the spiders.  I’ve been obsessively listening to the latest album by Dan Deacon, which  I can only describe as being like “The Smurfs going to war inside of  your head, but in a good way?” It’s fabulous if a little  anxiety-inducing if listened to while not doing all that much - I  currently tend to save it for jogging. That’s right, JOGGING. 2020 is  weird.

What are we video games!  🎮

Quinns:  I’ve  been wedging myself deep into the tactical conundrums of Creeper World  3: Arc Eternal. This real-time strategy game is familiar in every way  (get resources, build units, make daring pushes to capture more  territory), except your opponent is always an endless spigot of deadly  goo.

Ultimately, it’s a game about taking control and losing control.  The joy you get from setting up an economical defense that holds the  tide back is perfectly mirrored by the panic you feel when the slime  oozes through a gap, destroys one of the nodes in your network and your  entire defense goes dark. Creeper World is both familiar and innovative  at the same time. It’s familinovative. And that’s a fact.

Matt: Oh gosh I’ve lost so many hours to that game. It’s deeply comforting in a way that’s hard to put a finger on.

Ava: I’ve been diving into my Switch for comfort a lot  of the last few weeks. Slay the Spire takes deck-building in all the  directions it can only be taken with a digital game by allowing  impossibly faffy combos and abilities and just making it all work. I’m  almost entirely sold on the game by one card: ‘Anger’ is a weak attack  that is free to use, but every time you do it creates a duplicate of it  in your discard pile, promising a future where you will only ever draw  anger cards. Will you give in to your own rage? That kind of mechanical  storytelling is my favourite thing in games, and I’m very much here for  it.

View in browser