The Month of Worms is Over! SU&SD Newsletter #49

Quinns: Worm month has drawn to a close, and I think it’s fair to say that our team is... semi-refreshed? Refreshedish?

First things first, we’d like to thank to everybody who  participated in this year’s virtual SU&SD convention, AwSHUX,  whether that meant watching our star-spangled Twitch streams, browsing our board game preview videos, buying merch, games or just meeting strangers online to play a board game on the internet.

Second things second, we must instruct you to brace yourself for a  VERY sexy run of SU&SD reviews between now and Christmas. Going  outdoors might be cold and dark (and rife with disease and potentially  illegal), but we can guarantee that on our YouTube channel, things are  going to be as bright and exciting as we can possibly manage.

I mean, one of the games I’ve chosen to review is Rococo Deluxe-  I’m not sure a brighter and more striking box has been released this  year.

At this point, I’m used to Kickstarter campaigns that offer board  games which are more expensive and luxurious than the industry has ever  seen. I’m not used to these expensive offerings being new editions of  classic games. And yet last week I found myself finally sitting down to  play Rococo, a eurogame I’ve wanted to try for more than four years,  while simultaneously gawping at the most beautiful box I’ve seen all  year.

Best of all, I’m thrilled to say that Rococo has hardly aged at all. Tom  and I had fantastic fun with our first game of it. It plays a bit like  the eurogame equivalent of racing your friends to get the most out of  sales at a clothing store- there’s so much exciting stuff for you to  acquire, but it’s all tinged with the gentle anxiety that your friends  are going to snatch up something you desperately want if you don’t go  and get it right now.

Tom: I've been similarly smitten with Renature - a  lovely game that gets everything right, in my book, and as such is  getting the video treatment real soon. I've been sitting on a script for  this one for a while, and after a fun battle with the 'ol imposter  syndrome, it's one I'm quite happy with. Now, at the time of writing,  all I have to do is film it in good weather. Wish me luck!

Generally, though, I've been playing rather a lot of Roll and  Writes, which is great because we haven't done a video for those in  recent memory, so it's a perfect time to make another one

*sigh*

Quinns and I played  Troyes Dice and Fleet: The Dice Game recently - one a precise and  punishing puzzle that's super tight and visually nifty… and the other a  boardgame equivalent of ordering the entire menu at McDonalds. Thing is,  more than either of those, I've really been enjoying some Roll and  Writes...solo! Welcome To New Las Vegas (better than the original in my  book!) and Floor Plan have both been lovely things to sit with in bed to  rest my eyes after screen-based days. The latter of those is a lovely  display of the physical, written tactility of a roll and write -  continuing Deep Water's understanding that the '& Write' is the most  important part of the equation.

I've played some other  bits and bobs, here and there - but I'm continually bumping into the  difficulties of playing a game once and then not again for a long while,  or not at all. My stack of stuff to get through is growing, people to  play those games with are dwindling, and Tabletop Simulator continues to  sap my joy for boardgames. Nevertheless I'm subjecting my family to an  evening of family games for an upcoming, horrifying podcast segment.  Stay tuned.

Matt: I’ve  been toying with a selection of games that we saw at AwSHUX - mainly  Under Falling Skies and Curious Cargo, which I’ll be brewing up some  thoughts on in the very near future! For now though I’ll be diving back  into the admin of tidying up the wires and files that came out of the  back of our first digital convention: don’t be alarmed if you see less  of me this month, I’m a busy busy bee!

Ava: I'm  doing okay, just incredibly tired. AwSHUX was a really affirming  experience for me, and this year's tribulations have been running  alongside a lot of important evolutions for me personally. I keep  telling people my plan is to cocoon until March, and then emerge a new  being, but it's a bit like how we said worm month was us doing nothing  when in fact we were actually working incredibly hard. It's going to be a  hard winter, but I think we can make the world and ourselves better for  it. I'm trying.

That wasn't really  about boardgames, was it. I've got a whole lot of boxes I'm hoping to  dig into, but it's a struggle at the moment. I'll keep you posted.  Versailles 1919 looks very far up my street, and I think Hallertau is on  its way. I'll let you know as soon as I have useful opinions!

What are we reading? 📙

Quinns: Late last year I was completely gripped by The Earlie King & the Kid in Yellow,  a grim bit of literature/sci-fi/magical realism about larger-than-life  lowlifes in an Ireland where it hasn’t stopped raining for decades. I’ve  definitely never felt more wet reading a book.

Well, this month I’m completely gripped by The Gallows Pole,  a grim historical novel about a gang of larger-than-life coin clippers  in the North of England. And again, it’s just a book that feels very  wet. I’m not sure how to describe this genre that I apparently adore-  drip punk? Moisture stories?

I’d recommend The Gallows Pole to anybody. It’s absolutely  beautiful. It’s also got something that I’ve always loved in the work of  Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy- a mythologising of hardscrabble  existence that’s beautiful and frightening all at once, leaving you in  awe of humanity.

Ava: Quinns! That’s not set in ‘the North of England’.  It’s set in my ruddy (and wet) valley! I haven’t actually read it, but a  few years back I watched the author Benjamin Myers do a talk in a tiny  local museum. He also did a book about a very specific rock nearby, in a  woozy and very physically located piece of hyper-local history,  alongside a look at Ted Hughes. So if you want a more factual dip into a  very, very specific place, try out ‘Under the Rock’. It’s like hanging  out in my back garden.

Ava: I did actually do some reading this month though,  diving back into the discworld after a couple of decades. I was a bit  bewildered by the opening of Night Watch, but once it became clear I was  supposed to it opened up into something pretty sharp and wonderful. I'm  still vaguely concerned it seemed to offer an anti gun control argument  at one point, but it was otherwise deeply humane. Also Pratchett's  prose is ten times more perfect than I remembered, just unbelievably  sharp and efficient and clever.Quinns: I can’t believe I didn’t know this. Amazing.

What are we watching? 📺

Matt: I’ve seen The Queen’s Gambit described by  many as “the best anime series of 2020”, and now having seen that  comparison it can’t be unseen. A phenomenally fun story that made we  *want to play chess*, which in itself is an incredible achievement.  Other than that I’ve been watching copious quantities of Come Dine With  Me on Netflix - an unbelievably trashy and manufactured reality TV show  which seems to be tickling the atrophied people-watching part of my  brain. The more the year goes on, the more I find myself thinking of  Aniara: a fab sci-fi bleakathon for those who have the fortitude.

What are we music!  🎵

Tom: Oh my oh my it feels like it’s been forever  since I’ve rattled off a million musical words into this newsletter  space. First off, I've been jamming to Febueder's latest, 'Tomalin Has  Etched In' - an album I've been waiting for since I caught them live,  accidentally, about four years ago. It's more subdued and 'found' than  some of the more bombastically experimental (or even straightforward!)  EPs they dropped over that period, but I'm finding lots to love in the  subtleties of its textures and arrangements. Everything swirls together  in a breathy, backwards instrumentation, with alternating details  hopping out each time. Sometimes you'll be hooked on the peculiarity of  its percussion, others on the echo-speckled vocals - and sometimes  caught off-guard by a pulsing, yawning cello; lurking in the depths  without you even noticing. It's great stuff.

Anna Von Hauswolff's 'All Thoughts Fly' was also a highlight of the  past few months, taking the composer's trademark organ sound and  stretching it into a purely instrumental recording based around the  Sacro Bosco gardens. It's haunting, huge and dizzying - taking the  repetitive circular strains of a Colin Stetson-type and bending them  into colossal new forms - but seeking to inspire and intrigue as opposed  to her previous record's goal of: Haunt.

In perhaps lighter fare, I've been enjoying a bunch of compilation  records - 'A Decade Deeper's retrofetishist approach to sound contains  possibly my favourite Ariel Pink song to date, and the soundtrack to  'Paradise Killer' is providing much needed yacht-rock goodness in months  filled with winter. I've also been ecstatic about 'Blue Note  Re:Imagined - a phenomenal collection of reworked tracks from the  titular, legendary jazz label. The breadth of talent and interpretation  is just inspiring.

Finally, I'm completely enamoured with the latest form of Jefre  Cantu-Ledesma's 'Love's Refrain' - initially a longer piece that's now  been compressed and blessed with vocals from Julie Byrne. I still prefer  the mix and length of the original, as it sprawls out into a static  mess towards the song's close, but the vocal performance given by Byrne  makes it a more straightforward 'song' - and hell, it's still gorgeous.

Ava: I stumbled across Mid-Air Thief this month,  and my word is it up my street. Like someone trying to dismantle a  guitar and turn it into a motorbike while someone is still trying to  play it and maybe there's a Beach Boy nearby. A playful, gleeful,  weirdful mess of electronic ebullience with a whole lot of heart.

What are we video games!  🎮

Tom: I've played a fair bit of Teardown - a game  that looks like a tech demo, but hides a really solid puzzle behind  those lovely voxels. If you don't mind a lot of quicksaving and doing  all the optional objectives, it's the perfect combo of 'chaos' and  'think'. I've also been playing through Ori and the Will Of The Wisps - a  fab metroidvania that's scratching a very particular itch until  Silksong comes out. Also Spelunky 2 and Hades are: very good. Not going  to use any more words than that because I'll ramble for years.

Ava: I think it’s my turn to rave about Hades,  which I came to later than everyone else. I was initially disappointed  that it wasn’t quite as horny as everyone on the internet had led me to  believe, but it has a gripping feedback loop and a ludicrously rich set  of interlocking systems. I’m really bad at it, but am really enjoying  finding the elaborate ways you can combine super powers, weapon  modifications and other buffs so that you end up raining destruction in  hugely inventive ways. It’s fun.

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