Shut Up & Sit Down

Listen, usually I edit the SU&SD podcast with a spring in my step and glee in my heart. But this week, I’m textbook “Lurgied”. Merriam Webster “Grotty”. The very definition of a “Nasty Wee Man”. I’m not bothering with a proper description this week.
See, this pod was not edited with a step of spring and heart of glee, no no. It was edited with ducts of snot and larynx of mucus. A head full of plague. Listen to these words and imagine my shuddering form snipping away at them; slowly saturating my ‘Logitech G840 Gaming Mouse Pad™’...

On this pocket-sized episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast, Tom and Matt have been shrunk down to miniscule versions of themselves, and are crawling around inside the box for Hansa Teutonica. They’re having the time of their lives in there. But there’s still work to be done, and games to be reviewed! This episode tackles a clutch of tiny titles and small-scale surprises.
Otter is a shedding game about piling up sea creatures on the bellies of the nation's favourite semi-weasel, and Zombie Princess is a trick-taker jam-packed with the freshly undead. There’s also t...

On this morally bankrupt episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast, Tom and Matt are once again doing what they do best; playing at board games and going “:-)”

First up is Emberheart! It’s got dragons, it’s got bidding, it’s got scales and wings and another attribute that we can’t quite recall. And it’s goooooood! Following that, our podboys sit at the cardstock conveyor belt that is Sushi Go Party: Chef’s Special! Listen as they they pluck onigiri, california rolls, and strawberry deserts directly from the waiting palm of the chef - cramming...

On this mildly cooked episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast, Tom and Matt are fresh out the “BGD Mines”! Wiping the sweat from their collective brow, they pop a gnarly squat and spin a cardboard tale…

Both have been playing a spot of The Queen’s Dilemma - the long-awaited follow-up to the King’s Dilemma that somehow contains even more dilemmas. As well as that particular hot scoop, Tom’s been playing some Railway Porters - another ‘20s themed Saashi Special where you try your utmost not to drop a suitcase on top of the waiting st...

Tom walks us through Rattlesnake, Yonder, Bomb Busters, Herd, and No Loose Ends. Is spotify video a thing? Find out this week on SU&SD!

Support the Show: https://bit.ly/SupportSUSD / http://ko-fi.com/shutupandsitdown / https://www.patreon.com/shutupandsitdown

On this glittering and golden episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Matt and Tom are sitting atop a dragon’s hoard of card board! Wahey! That’s what we in the business like to call “Rhyme Style”, and you can find many examples of it in the youthmusic of today :)
Right atop the pile is the latest from frivolity enjoyers Weast Coast - Loners! It’s a card game that has an entire clown car of variably ripped dudes. Proceed with caution! Hachi Machi!!! We follow that up with the latest game from the Reiner Knizia Cardboard...

On this delicately preserved episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Matt and Tom are venturing through a rolling landscape of cardboard and canned fish.

Moytura and Azure are the latest double-bill of mythological titles from Bitewing Games, and have gotten Tom and Matt all excited about abstraction. We follow these beasties with the briny offerings of Conservas - a solo game about making sure you’ve got juuust enough fish to turn into canned delicacies to be consumed en masse by TikTokers (we presume). And finally, Matt enters his happy place: putting numbers into boxes. Da...

On this starchy episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt have been playing a clutch of GREAT LIL’ GAMES!

First up is Yotei - a tableau builder centered around everyone’s favourite not-quite-a-vegetable: “The Potato”. We’re following that up with a double dip of Operation Barclay and Evenfall - a podcasting first! Never before have military officials and covens of witches been so closely intertwined. Finally, we’re locking, stocking, and smoking all of our various barrels in Rattlesnake - a contender for one of our very favourite card games this year.

Have a...

On this constantly revolving episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are perusing a gargantuan grocery store of games. This one stocks four whole games! Can you believe it?
First up is Market Fresh - a Kramer and Kiesling reimplementation that Matt’s played, and Tom is chomping to. We follow that with a quick spritz of Echoes of Emperors - a game that crunches the computer strategy genre into cardboard form, and close out the podcast with a double bill of flippers; Fliptoons and Flip Pick Towers.
Have a great week, everybody!

On this adjective-riddled* episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are sorting through approximately one standard carry-on worth of cardboard luggage!

Matt brings The Great Sea to the table - the latest Garphill excursion into ancient history. What’s in this bit of history? Mostly water, it seems. With boats on it! They’re like houses that float? You’ll get the hang of it.

Dark Pact is our second game, and feels like a deckbuilder broke free of containment, and has been growing all manner of new limbs whilst we’re not l...

On this VIOLENT episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Matt and Tom engage in gladiatorial combat to finally decide who is the ULTIMATE BOARD-BOY!

We begin our gauntlet with a bout of ‘Neko Syndicate’ - a BLOODY game of cats making sushi deliveries in a sort of tableau-building pyramid! It’s nasty stuff.

Round 2 threatens an EXPLOSIVE END in ‘Bombusters’ - a co-operative family game where various anthropomorphised rabbits deal with increasingly complicated explosives. Red wire? Yellow wire? Either way? Prepare for an absolutely brutal listening experience.

Then, the knockout punch! ‘Off With The...

On this Edenic episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Matt and Tom strip down to their bare cheeks to chat about games wot are all about “Outside, like birds and that”.

First up is Nature; a game that takes 2014’s Evolution and 2020’s Oceans, and hydraulically compacts them into one biodegradable box. Not just one box, mind, but a whole ecosystem of modules and traits that’ll get your neighbourhood zoologist all hot under the collar.

That’s then followed by a slice of Perch - a surprisingly lethal “pigeon control game” in which you stack...

On this absolutely soaked episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are getting drenched in two positively sopping releases.First up, our intrepid explorers plunge into the depths of Thesauros! It’s got scubas, it’s got sharks, it’s got sunken treasures! All wrapped up in a slate-grey layer of project management and fund allocation.

And following the adventurous land of ‘The Ocean(s)’, our lads point at a few seagulls, bins, and plant pots in the cosy Welsh town and game: Tenby! Who will have the most porches?! Who will find the most r...

On this slippy ol’ episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are chatting about Emberleaf; a game of woodland creatures amassing honey and battering bandits! “Like Pooh gone all vigilante on them asses”.

Our dynamic duo then seek to area control eachother in a WORTH WRESTLE! Whose critical opinion on this luminous box will come out on top? Neither, really. They’re both pretty chill about the whole thing. Everyone’s allowed opinions - even YOU!

Have a great week, everybody!

Timestamps:

01:19 - Emberleaf

16:20 - Wroth

On this post-apocalyptic episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast, we’ve got the last remaining swigs of game in this here canteen - don’t gulp it all to yourself, now! Share nicely…

First up is Phoenix New Horizon, a game of building post-apocalyptic power networks and trying to get a promotion. That’s followed by a slightly spoilery chat about Regicide Legacy - a game that asks the bold question; “What If Regicide, But Legacy?”. The pod’s rounded off with a quick chat about Zenith’s standard two-player mode, and spicy four player variant! Just li...

On this gloopy episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are donning their Memory Marigolds and getting elbow-deep in the past; recalling titles played all the way back in November 2025 (imagine!).

Expect rambling thoughts about a whole cluster of games played at PAXU 2025, and a few other sneaky additions to the lineup last-minute.

Have a great week, everybody!

Timestamps:

01:14 - Epona

10:19 - Joyride: Full Throttle

13:42 - Petiquette

17:32 - Wiggle Roulette

20:34 - Pick ‘n Packers

28:31 - This Is No...

On this ticked-off episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are rambling about the box-ticking bonanza ‘Tend’ as well as the chronologically questionable ‘Take Time’!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Timestamps:

01:19 - Tend

23:31 - Take Time

Website Copy: On this free-flowing episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are chatting about competitive marble-pilfering simulator 12 Rivers, as well as a double-bill of absurd racing games in Hot Streak and Magical Athlete!

You may be expecting that this podcast thumbnail would show the promised board of 12 Rivers (which you can find here) and instead shows a picture of Hurley - the not-a-hotdog from Hot Streak. This is intentional, and important.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Timestamps:

01:14 - 12 Rivers

12:43 - Hot Streak

26:41...

On this subsequent episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Matt and Tom are returning to a couple of the games they were excited about in the Essen Special, as well as covering one that was missed from the billing!

Excuse the occasional odd buzzing on this one - we tried to scrub it as much as possible but there's only so much you can do to heal a dodgy microphone before you start making Matt sound like a blender.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

<...

On this FULL CAPS CHUNKY episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are talking about all of the games they played at Essen 2025!

This is an audio-only reupload of the video we just put out on the main channel - so if you’d like to enjoy a physical tier list alongside these wobbly words? Then that’s where it is, and will be, forever and ever.

Excuse the mildly iffy audio on this one!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

On this flexibly numerical episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are, you guessed it, talking once again about games with CARDS, BOARDS, and DICE! In exactly that order - each game picking up a new component like a hungry Katamari.

First up is Duel for Cardia - a perplexing little two-player dueller that lets you hop back in time to un-win your opponent - swiftly followed by 20 Strong, a solo-only game of clobbering a wolf. Or escaping a dream! Or becoming an alien. It’s a modular game system, you see.

...

Usually the moniker of ‘Cosy Game’ is a snug portent of mild-mannered fun - a thoroughly whelming box that’s pleasant enough, but doesn’t tickle us for more than a couple plays. But this week on the podcast? Matt and Tom are chatting about a whole bunch of cosy games that surprised them, with a bit more pep than might have been expected…

We’re talking Frogs and Rabbits and Crows in ‘A Wild Venture’, Trains and Cars and Passengers in ‘Railroad Tiles’, and Lakes and Lakes and Lakes and LAKES in Cascadia…. Alpine Lakes!

Have a great weekend...

This week on the Shut Up & Sit Down podcast, we’re talking two players! Tag Team is a head-to-head brawler, and Suna Valo is exactly the same, but for farms! Finally, Matt waxes lyrical about General Orders’ Samurai Sequel: ‘Sengoku Jidai’ - and, within it, has perhaps found a game that’s too small for even our perma-shrunk noggins.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Timestamps: 

02:44 - Tag Team

15:09 - Suna Valo

23:54 - General Orders: Sengoku Jidai

It’s just little old Tom this week on the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, and he’s taking you through a bunch of odds and ends that might otherwise slip through the metaphorical cracks of the metaphorical floorboards. They wouldn’t fit through the real floorboards. That’d be silly. And we don’t do silly, here.

Let us know what you think of these episodes! They’re a little unusual, but quite fun to make in a pinch!

Timestamps: 

02:21 - Joraku

07:33 - Calimala

12:35 - Tofu Shifu

Three kinds of wood, all alike in dignity. Except one of them is on fire, and one of them has a lot of toothy rodents in it. I’m really straining to find some way of making a kind of beaver ratatouille joke, but it’s not coming naturally. ‘Beavertouille, he only does Dams this time?’. I don’t know. Get out of my restaurant.

Timestamps:

01:52 - Hutan: Life in the Rainforest
12:50 - Flash Point: Legacy of Flame
32:27 - Timber Town

PAX East! Truly the highlight of everyone’s July!

For whatever reason, it’s taken us absolutely ages to get round to covering the board games that we played at PAX East - but better late than never! This is especially true in this pod right here, where we’ve got three hot servings of board game to ladle directly into the laps of our ravenous listenership. We’ve got a starter and dessert made of space - with Galileo Galilei and Moon Colony Bloodbath protecting a gooey fantasy center all made of Lord of the Rings: Fate of...

Come come, hungry diners - take a seat at the big table and have a little gander at this spread of delectable games!

Oops, all good games on this one! This podcast features chat about a space tourism simulator (Galactic Cruise), a light-and-breezy turtle-based engine builder (Australis), and TWO entire TWO PLAYER games about being Greek and In Trouble (Iliad and Ichor).

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Timestamps: 

01:46 Galactic Cruise 

22:12 Australis

31:04 Illiad

40:41 Ichor

On this scenic detour, Tom and Matt are chatting about RULES! What are they? Who made them?! And what do they want with my PIN number?!?

This is a companion podcast to the most recent video on the YouTube channel - ‘The Board Game With No Rules’ - and is a more loose and daft excursion into the wild world of rulesless games.

Timestamps: 

None, it’s just RULES!

On this advanced episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are once again settling into the pod-thrones to yap about “some games wot they have played”.

Nova Era challenges players to develop a healthy civilisation, 3 Chapters is a set collection AND trick taking AND drafting game all squished into one box, and Creature Caravan is a gentle ride through a terrifyingly large deck of cards.

There’s lots to like! Three whole games to like, in fact. Board games! Who knew?!

Thanks for listening, everyone!

Timestamps: 

01:38...

On this floriferous episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are yappin’ about Barcelona, Bluebells, and Board Games!

Cities is first up on the docket - a city-building game that’s real dinky and designed by two of our favourite small-and-simple designers. Following that, Matt continues his recommendation of Floristry from our video review into the podcast world, and Tom talks about his mixed feelings towards ‘The Morrison Game Factory’...

Thanks for listening, everyone!

Timestamps: 

02:32 - Cities

13:12 - Floristry

24:43 - The Morrison Game Factory

On this microscopic episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are yammering on about a few of the rather interesting games they’ve played over the past few weeks! Expeditions: Around the World is like if Ticket to Ride had only one train going spare, and Penguin Party has got Matt all excited. Diatoms is an algae-based puzzler with nifty pattern-based-scoring, and Crafting the Cosmos has you making LIFE ITSELF?!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Timestamps:

02:34 - Expeditions: Around The World

09:19...

On this long overdue episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are hosting an intervention for one particular publisher… and also talking about some board games!

First up is a chat about Daitoshi, the latest ambitious and busy design from site favourites Devir, followed by some nattering about the “area-control-deck-builder-mutation” Altay and “tic-tac-toe-em-up” Architects of Amytis!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Timestamps:

01:59 - Daitoshi

17:40 - Altay

33:17 - Architects of Amytis

On this refreshing burst of Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt have a bouquet of nifty games to natter about!

First up is a chunky chat about Pagan: Fate of Roanoke - a two player head-to-head witch hunt with flecks of Netrunnner. Is it any good? Yes! Should you buy it? Maybe…

Then, a double-bill of yapping about Shuffle & Swing; a mice-based eurogame of making human instruments - followed by a sneak peek of our upcoming video review for Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Sorry! Tom forgot to upload this episode of the podcast because he was on a plane. A plane! In the sky! How do you expect us to podcast under these conditions?!

On this dromedary episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt natter about a collection of - YOU GUESSED IT - boardgames.

Resafa! It’s a game about camels and irrigation and cards and POINTS! PlayProp! It’s a game of trying to get corks into a cup and screaming! Elfenroads! It’s a game about gently meandering down winding fantasy paths...

On this far-flung episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are getting eaten by minotaurs in Corps of Discovery: A Game Set In The World of Manifest Destiny, as well as bending metals in Mistborn: A Game Set In The World of ‘Mistborn’. They also talk about Fromage: A Game Set In The World of Brie, and Triqueta: A Game Set In The World of ‘Three Goats and a Wolf or Two’.

Thanks for listening everyone! Have a great weekend!

Timestamps:

02:00 - Corps of Discovery: A Game Set...

On this powerfully allied episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are negotiating poorly in Tonga Bonga, getting all sandy (again!) in Dune Imperium: Bloodlines, and meandering through a bucolic farm or two in Black Forest.

Thanks for listening everyone! Have a great weekend!

Timestamps:

01:36 - Tonga Bonga

12:17 - Dune Imperium: Bloodlines

24:24 - Black Forest

On this galloping episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are chatting about the wonders of nature in Spectacular, engaging in frivolous spending with Winner’s Circle, and taking Bilbo for a spin in The Fellowship of the Ring: The Tricktaking Game. There’s even time to get Stuck In A Lift for just a little while…

Thanks for listening everyone! Have a great weekend!

Timestamps:

01:41 - The Fellowship of the Ring: The Tricktaking Game

12:40 - Spectacular

24:30 - I’m Stuck In The Lift...

On this uphill episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom is rambling to Matt about a couple bits and bobs he’s played recently! First up is Flamme Rouge’s ‘Grand Tour’ expansion, that turns a simple session of Flamme Rouge into a month long tour! Is it as good as it was when Matt played it just seven short years ago? Find out here!

That’s then followed by a little recommendation for a recent Oink title - Moving Wild - before capping the podcast off with a bit of retrospective chat regarding SETI: Search for...

On this machiavellian episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt have a chatter about even more curiosities picked up from Essen! First up is Power Vacuum - a diplomatic trick-taker where you play as fascist toasters - followed by Beyond The Horizon, a reimagining of 2020’s Beyond The Sun. Finally, a little beachfront chat about Seaside - a game that’s got Matt’s favourite component of all: “A Bag”

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Timestamps:

2:18 - Power Vacuum

18:49 - Beyond the Horizo...

It's a chunky extra special feature from Matt and Tom, sat FACE TO FACE on the very same table! Let us drag you through a rolling discussion about the games we've enjoyed most in 2024. This is also available as a VIDEO - so just choose your poison and dive in!

Timestamps:

2:59 - Earthborne Rangers

10:35 - Daybreak

18:25 - Arcs

24:22 - COMPILE

28:47 - Tichu

33:51 - Spectral

36:59 - Leviathan Wilds

43:36 - Eternal Decks

49:46 - SPECIAL MENTIONS<...