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Life MGMT: SU&SD Newsletter #57
🕑 Added 2022-06-22 18:49:47 +0000 UTCQuinns: Welcome to the Shut Up & Sit Down behind-the-scenes newsletter, everybody. Once again, we cannot thank you enough for donating. Shut Up & Sit Down is always growing, changing and trying new things, but one constant for the last 10 years is that you folks, our audience, have made it all possible.
You’re the best. And you specifically, the human being reading this right now? You might be the best of all.
Matt: We simply don’t have the scientific equipment to disprove it.
Quinns: It's so expensive.
Quinns: Here’s my personal tidbit on what to expect on the site in the next month: A goofy, juicy video review of the hidden movement game Mind MGMT, based on the comic of the same name.
I’m not yet ready to say precisely how good this game is, but I am definitely ready to call what this game calls its “SHIFT system” absolutely brilliant. It’s like a scientific breakthrough in the field of Making Sure You Play the Board Game You Just Bought More Than Twice Before Losing Interest.
In a nutshell, the SHIFT system is a pleasingly-packaged array of little sealed expansions that each help one of the two sides in Mind MGMT, and whoever loses each game immediately gets to crack open one of these boxes and be presented with a dramatic new tool that they get to deploy in the next game.
But these expansions aren’t simply additive. Rather, they’re a selection of modules that each side gets to choose from, with sides the keep losing getting to bring more and more toys to the next game, OR electing to bring fewer toys so that their opponent has to bring less. So you can additionally make the game more or less complex based on how you feel that night.
If you’re not convinced, just wait for my video review to see how it works in practice. It’s just terrific.
Tom: Mind MGMT has been a joy to take a bite out of recently because it’s brought a hell of a lot of joy into a genre I thought previously just… wasn’t into? I’ve always found hidden movement games a bit too stressful or a bit too long or a bit too boring and Mind MGMT is none of those things. It’s sharp, it’s tense, it’s elastic. I can’t wait to play more.
Outside of that, I know that I’m working on a big review that should come out the week after you see this newsletter. It’s been stewing in a weird, bubbly notes document for a long, long time and I don’t know if that fermentation process will yield good results! We’ll have to see - but I’m feeling more confident in my video production abilities than ever these days, so I think I’m in good shape to tackle it. Wish me luck!
In actual life terms - I’ve moved to Brighton! Even though my flat is falling apart in various ways, I’m having a lovely time emerging from the pandemic into a place that’s endlessly friendly and welcoming. And I’ve played so many board games with my HANDS! It’s weird adapting to the idea that this is the default way of doing the job, after most of my time so far being spent playing games digitally. I must say, I do prefer it like this.
Matt: I personally don’t think hands will ever catch on? It’s been lovely to start easing my way back into doing things in the before-times manner, but it feels like rebuilding has a long way to go! All of the people I used to love to play games with have left the city or created new, tiny humans that currently require frankly excessive levels of oversight and care. It’s definitely time to start finding a new flavour of normal, but still a bit unclear at this point what Normal for me might even look like! Everyone has a different pace and flow, and solidarity with anyone who just straight-up isn’t ready for that next step. We continue to live within strange times!
I’d like to take a moment here though to thank all of the community who came to hang out with us over the three AwSHUX events we ran across the last two years - it was lovely to be able to try and make something new in the middle of a crowd that emanated such love and patience: I think as with everything from the last few years, we now likely need a break from it to recoup and recover, but it’s been such a big part of my life throughout the pandemic and it’s been lovely to hear that it brought so many people a bit of warmth and joy.
In terms of New Things though, it turns out that two of the games I’m reviewing at the moment and broadly enjoy are both auction games - which I usually really don’t like that much? Who knows what the future my hold, or what may have been done in secret to my brain.
Ava: Quinns sent me a big, big box of games a few weeks back, and it has been very enjoyable to get back into the swing of pulling things out of shrink, punching them out, getting confused by rule books and then introducing things to people. It never really stopped, but it used to be so slow, and now it’s starting to happen with some rhythm. I’m having to recalibrate a little to account for my excitement at putting a weird range of games in front of people. I’ve shown a lot of people Cascadia as a solid safe bet. I’ve had to remember just how stressful some people find games like The Crew and The Mind. I’ve had to train my teaching mode back, after playing too much with ‘the team’ who all grok games pretty handily for obvious reasons. And I’ve played games that have had me baking magical cakes, going on lovely walks and helping the dead reunite with their family.
In short. Board games! Aren’t they nice!
Elsewhere I’ve been learning a lot of video editing. I helped out with some of the previews for the convention, and even put together a practice segment for a review that I’m genuinely proud of? Video is weird. There’s quite a lot of nudging things around pedantically and stressfully and then eventually something magic happens and suddenly it’s delightful. Filming is the opposite though. You work really, really hard and don’t really know how well it’s gone until much later in the process. That’s likely a skill that just needs more work. I’m really hoping you’ll get to see some results soon, but with it being pretty daunting having your first piece of work going out to a big audience, I’m glad that we’re finding the perfect time and giving me plenty of practice. But Ava-fans (Avanatics?) should keep an eye out, I reckon.
I was also pretty proud of my ‘consummate goblin: chaos professional’ approach to AwSHUX presenting. It’s a weird and hard and lovely thing to do, and it’s strange watching myself get good at it? I still worry a lot, but I think I’m building reserves of confidence that I never knew I had. It’s exciting. It was also a good con for genuinely weird and interesting games. I’m excited to see more!
What are we video games! 🎮
Matt: It’s SINGLE-CELL-ENTITY MONTH for what Matt’s been looking at and doing - I’ve just finished Metroid Dread and was impressed with the extent that they made boss fights fun, while also deeply unimpressed with the stealth sections and the ridiculously OTT story. Wouldn’t really recommend it. Nintendo? See me after class.
Tom: I’ve been playing two games this month that I can barely talk about without spoilers! I started off playing the DLC to Outer Wilds - ‘Echoes of the Eye’ - and it made me fall in love with that game all over again. The shivers that the menu music of that game gives me are indescribable. The DLC? Just as creative and engrossing as the base game - a joyous excursion into a new, weird place that hit every single emotional receptor in my brain. Incredible stuff. BUT I got pretty sidetracked from that when I took a dive into Inscryption - a game that I might try and talk about on a podcast, if Quinns will let me! It’s a deckbuilder by way of an escape room, but it evolves and changes so much from there in ways I will not spoil! Get it if you’re curious and you won’t be disappointed.
What are we reading? 📖
Matt: After really enjoying Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, I hopped straight into the sequel - Children of Ruin, and found it even more fascinating and gloopy than the original? I can’t remember the last time I was so gently dipped into increasingly deep conceptual puddles: they’re the kind of sci-fi books that never feel challenging, but still leave you somehow feeling smarter for having read them. Some lovely entities in this one, well done.
Quinns: Halloween isn’t over until I say it is, gosh darn it, and I’m keeping the fear alive by reading the scariest book I’ve found in years- Things We Say in the Dark by Scottish author Kirsty Logan.
Generally, I haven’t had a lot of luck with horror books. I want to be scared, but maybe it’s because my wife and I devour horror movies like trick-or-treaters gobble sweets, but whenever I try one I find myself slogging through a hundred pages of buildup to get to the next properly scary scene (and yes, this is an open call for recommendations, please do write in to quinns@shutupandsitdown.com with books that scared the crap out of you).
Anyway, this has not been the case with Things We Say in the Dark! This book gets right under my skin every time I pick it up. That’s partially because Logan has a clear talent for horror, but I think it’s more because most of the stories in the book are barely longer than 8 pages. It’s perfect- you get 7 pages of frightening buildup, something absolutely horrible happens, and then you start reading the next story because Logan is so damn good at beginnings and endings, and then suddenly it’s midnight and you’ve just read eight stories in a row and now you’re scared to go to the toilet.
Ava: Oh. My. Word. I was recommended Sarah Gailey’s River of Teeth (which thankfully I found an omnibus with the sequel called American Hippo, so could roll straight through to the follow up), and it was delightful in ways I didn’t expect. A bit queer story about cowboys only the cows are hippos and the horses are hippos and hippos are amazing. Solid, dramatic adventure fair, with a lot of kindness but also a lot of surprising tilts into violence. And it’s all based (loosely) on a real discussion in American politics about solving a food supply crisis by starting to farm hippos. Alternate history fans will have concerns that the whole thing is shifted back a century or so for the sake of adding cowboy hats, but cowboy hat fans will be absolutely delighted.
Significantly harder work, but also very good, was Pretending by Holly Bourne. A book that is kind of the opposite of a romcom, exploring sexual violence, misogyny and patriarchy in a way that is accessible, gripping and heart-breakingly real. A difficult but worthwhile read.
What are we music! 🎵
Tom: I got into a jazzy mood earlier in the month and was utterly delighted by Space 1.8 by Nala Sinephro - which darts between moods, modes and instrumentation in ways that are as playful as they are… wise? My vocabulary fails me when it comes to records like this. On the other side of things, I was almost expecting to be delighted by Talk Memory by BADBADNOTGOOD and, predictably, was! It’s fantastic, and well worth a listen even if you’re not expecting to like it in its stark departure from their previous body of work. I’ve also been enjoying L’etreinte Imaginaire by Auscultation and Blue Dream by D.Tiffany as gently shuffling house tracks to work to, and Big Room by Ulla Straus for its mesmeric, relaxing properties before bed.
Matt: I continue to be delighted and bemused by reading what Tom has written about music. Meanwhile, I’ve basically just been mentally reclining into a warm pool for the last few weeks, repeatedly listening to Pale Horse Rider by Corey Hanson. Just an absurdly gorgeous album, beautiful stuff.
Tom: Oh! I forgot! Whilst playing some games with 'The Dads', Matt mentioned he'd been listening to Deafheaven's latest and it's put me on a huge nostalgia spiral of their music. Goodness, isn't Sunbather just a masterpiece. All their music is wonderful and even their new record, with its departure from their caustic screeching, still manages to toe that line between punch-packing and glitter...ing... glittering. It's good, basically. Glad that Matt got into it even if he's too much of a wuss for the good stuff ;)
What are we watching? 📺
Matt: Purely for the sake of continuing my streak of Entity-Based Content, last night I watched sci-fi film Life and really enjoyed it - the thumbnail made it look like something contemplative and gentle, but in reality it’s a delightfully gloopy little romp. Top trash, enjoyed a lot. Hugely late to the party here, but I also just discovered Nathan For You, and it might be the best thing I’ve seen in such a long time? Delightfully wild, very funny.
What are we role-playing? 🧙
Ava: Look. I’m squeezing in a new header. It probably won’t be permanent. But I had a chance to playtest Kieron Gillen’s DIE rpg with Kieron himself GMing, and it was such a wonderful experience that I do want to share it with you. It’s not a game that’s going to be for everyone, but I also suspect it will adapt pretty well to different folks. Exceptionally meta, this is a playable take on Gillen and Stephanie Hans’ comic about people getting sucked into the world of their role-playing game. I keep on describing it as ‘being Jumanjied’ which is perhaps unhelpful. Players play the players of a game, who then become characters in a fantasy world, in our case it was a reunion of an unlikely closeted LGBTQAI+ high school group who had had a terrible time after leaving school and needed to work through some of that. It had some of the most dramatic and absurd pieces of violence and wonder I’ve ever role-played, and we all put so much heart into it that it was a genuinely cathartic experience about discovering the importance of a found family you’d forgotten about. Lovely, hard, beautiful stuff. I’ve absolutely no idea if that was the game design or the GM or the group (almost certainly all three, realistically), so I’m not really in a position to review it, but I thought I’d like to tell some of you folks! Honestly, I was an Amazement Knight, and I took on an army of angels with the power of love, to the tune of Lay all your Love on me by Abba. Magical and weird.
