The Staying In Podcast - four pals talk video games, board games, and movies

00:00 - We talk skin care regime and why it’s important for us fellas. 07:45 - Ready Brek: it’s good. 09:41 - The latest Dr Strange movie is out, we’ve seen it and, generally, we like it - it’s a solid entry in Marvel’s cinematic universe and expands on some of the concepts that have been developed over the last few films. Plus horror. 33:01 - Merchants & Marauders is Z-Man Games’ highly thematic...

00:00 - The foundations of a hot tub. 03:03 - Coiledspring Games’ Photosynthesis sets a new standard for gateway games and feels like it might genuinely be a good option for getting people into the hobby. Plus we get talking about how challenging that actually is. 21:57 - A sauna. The Red Zone. Fika. 34:11 - Hot Lap League reminds us, very deliberately, of TrackMania Turbo which we covered back on...

00:00 - Hot dogs: awkward sandwiches? 03:08 - Is it Cake? Well? Is it? 08:09 - Cryptid: Urban Legends from Osprey Games shakes things up and presents a very different two player experience to the original. It’s tense, mechanically tight, and encourages repeat play. 21:52 - The worldwide shortage of Lorne Sausage. 24:14 - Darby DNA. 27:51 - Our review of Sobek: 2 Players from Hachette and Catch Up...

00:00 - The great debate, aka “do you eat or drink soup?” 02:49 - The Batman , a spoiler-free review. 25:50 - AireCon: origins. 37:04 - AireCon: the bring and buy sale. 42:09 - AireCon: meeting up with Hachette, and playing Sobek 2 Players (Catch Up Games) and Ganymede (Sorry we are French). 44:25 - AireCon: our thoughts on Switch & Signal (Kosmos). 58:00 - The Batman, more thoughts, but with load...

00:00 - Happy. Birthday. To. You. 07:49 - Kris and Sam’s adventure in a broken car. 15:37 - Forget the discourse: FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is filled with Lovecraftian-ish creatures, rune gathering, wonderful exploration, and becoming increasingly okay with the idea of losing a lot of progress. Also it reminds us of the OSR. ALSO also: there’s a guy called Angry Pumpkin Head, apparently? 37:17 - W...

00:00 - “I’ll allow a Magnum”. 08:34 - It’s been in development Hell, but Uncharted ’s tale of stealing a lost treasure is fun. It stumbles here and there, but the thrill of seeing the series on the screen, and some fleeting moments of excellence, means we’re excited for the inevitable sequel. 19:00 - The Blustery Day. 27:09 - Being back in the world of Aloy is lovely, as long as you’ve played the...

00:00 - The Mallen Streak. 03:56 - Hype for Horizon Forbidden West from Guerrilla Games, and the slight weirdness of it being from the same team behind Killzone. 10:05 - As always, we answer the important question of the day, chiefly: is Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village everything she’s cracked up to be? 25:57 - Archive 81 is watching people watching people, and we can’t stop watching. S...

00:00 - The Secret Life of Peter Willington. 06:46 - Sam’s Swanky New Tablet. 11:24 - Paper Girls is a superb, and occasionally very surprising story from the team of Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, and Matt Wilson, and published by Image Comics. 19:23 - Something Secret, Private, and Lovely. 23:31 - Reading M. R. James short stories for the first time, specifically Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to Y...

00:00 - Nap strats and sleep hacks. 06:48 - With Unpacking from Witch Beam Games there’s, well, a lot to unpack. What’s truly brilliant here is the way the storytelling fully integrates with the gameplay, without feeling clunky, and explores a life experience in a delicate way, without being cloying. 21:06 - Above? Below? Why not have both? Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games have made a truly lovely...

00:00 - A coward’s New Year’s Resolutions. 05:22 - Spoiler-free Spider-Man: No Way Home chat. We talk about how relatable a hero Spider-Man is, and how much Parker’s world has changed, plus why this is Peter’s film, not Spidey’s. 24:22 - Kris’ New Year’s Resolutions. 27:57 - Super-Skill Pinball: Ramp It Up! brings in four new tables to this glorious roll-and-write, and we think they might just be...

00:00 - A festive crop top and a weekend at Willington’s. 13:40 - Secret Santa, Part 1. 19:06 - Exit: The Mystery of the Ice Cave is an absolute treat: it has great puzzles and an excellent, slow burn narrative. It’s sold out this year, but fingers crossed for another one from Kosmos in 2022. 30:18 - Secret Santa, Part 2. 35:09 - Hawkeye often plays a supporting role in the MCU but in his new seri...

00:00 - Leaving the pub with invincibility. 08:20 - Dire Wolf Digital’s Dune: Imperium is a highly thematic worker placement game that successfully captures the political intrigue the franchise is known for. Better yet, it avoids a lot of the pitfalls of similar games, by always offering you something truly beneficial to do, so you never feel like a turn is “wasted”. 15:23 - Magic darts. 17:20 - A...

00:00 - Buying an apartment is boring. And very very expensive. 08:28 - The Call of Cthulhu Starter Set is one of the neatest pieces of introductory design; a great way to get into Chaosium’s legendary roleplaying game, which gets across the writings of Lovecraft really well, in an all-round excellent package. 29:32 - Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeon Scrawlers: Heroes of Undermountain is another great...

00:00 - What to do with an extra hour. 07:27 - We went to watch Dune at the IMAX and realised that, for a film with the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster, it’s a surprisingly cerebral and mature adaptation of the novels, where the little things are what stand out most. This generation’s Lord of the Rings? Quite possibly... 29:17 - No Time to Die is the 25th Bond movie, and an appropriate send off...

00:00 - Willington Day, our favourite seasons, and the number five. 03:46 - "You couldn't read it". 07:04 - Super Arcade Football is from OutOfTheBit - of Super Arcade Racing (as heard on Ep77) fame - and it’s a delightful “jumpers for goal posts” game that feels like a spin on Sensible Soccer, but given a modern fit and finish. 28:57 - WizKids’s latest is Greece Lightning , which is somewhat of a...

00:00 - Butter spreading dangers. 02:07 - We hop on the Deathloop bandwagon and talk about why this cyclical murder sim from the folks at Arkane Studios is inspired by old school roleplaying games. 23:55 - Sam’s wild claims of popularising Pogs at his school, plus talk of Squid Game , which is a deadly version of Taskmaster directed by Lady Gaga. 36:51 - After aggressively competitive games with n...

00:00 - Lightbulb moments. 03:20 - Dining out at the cinema and why Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is a fantastic kung fu movie, with a more-grounded physicality in a universe where everyone has laser beams shooting out their eyes. 21:49 - What’s bigger than Kris's lunchbox? Being a VIP. 25:42 - We’ve been spending lunch breaks playing Mazescape Labyrinthos from Devir. The premise is ve...

00:00 - Play it slow or play it fast, SUPERHOT VR might just be the best way to experience the stylish first person shooter where times only moves when you do. 05:44 - A spice challenge at Seitan’s Corner . 09:13 - Anno 1800 is from Martin Wallace, via Kosmos Games and Ubisoft. It’s got a heck of a large footprint on the table and at first glance appears off-puttingly dense, but this board game ad...

00:00 - Using Lara Croft-esque flares for romantic photography. 03:30 - No matadors whatsoever. 05:04 - We had a fantastic time at the UK Games Expo this year, and the organisers did a brilliant job of making it feel as welcoming and safe as possible. Last year’s digital version - which we did a… unique? … video for was all well and dandy, but it’s wonderful to meet up in person and get hyped agai...

00:00 - The Calippo Shots generation. 04:38 - A bit of a saga. 07:21 - Black Widow is an action thriller in the MCU that explores some pretty dark and deep themes surrounding the character. It’s a good movie, with extremely visceral action scenes, but it doesn’t feel like a “phase 4” film. 19:40 - The solitaire Call of Cthulhu adventure Alone Against the Tide sits somewhere between Alone Against t...

00:00 - Sleeping with Stephen Fry. 05:56 - It’s coming home. We’re going out . 09:00 - Marvel’s latest TV series - Loki - has aesthetics that are very reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange but, secretly, it’s the best Doctor Who series yet. 24:43 - The Willington Variants. 26:52 - We get into meditation with Mondo’s A Gentle Rain , an unbearably simple-sounding game, from Kevin Wilson, a person who we...

00:00 - UEFA Euro 2020 (actually taking place in 2021), plus: it all kicks off. 03:37 - We attempt to get away with murder with the keeping-your-story-straight simulator Overboard! , which appears to have come out of nowhere from inkle - the team behind Sorcery! and Heaven’s Vault . It’s glorious, with superb writing and a unique approach to “open world” game design. 18:00 - Surprise: we’ve joined...

00:00 - A couple of rounds of toast before bed. 04:51 - Kris’s Special Place, aka Board Beans Cafe. 12:07 - Helvetiq and Coiledspring Games’s GoTown reminds us of Silk and Fluxx, but it has a sense of internal logic that calms the crazy and makes it all make sense in the end. Another “throw it in the bag” game, if ever we saw one. 19:31 - First there was Scrabble, then there was Bananagrams, and n...

00:00 - An alternative to exercise? 04:23 - A trip to Yorkshire and an unusual use of steam trains. 09:37 - Master Word is a cross between legacy game, word game, and deduction game, from Scorpion Masque and Coiledspring Games. You’re going to absolutely love it, just like we did. 14:42 - Muffin Time is by the people behind the popular web series asdfmovie and Big Potato Games. We talk about why t...

00:00 - Golf on a farm and penny pushers. 08:08 - Our first round of Kepler Games’ Forks in the Timeline . 16:44 - When you don’t quite see eye-to-eye with the rest of the family. Plus the excellent The Mitchells vs The Machines , which comes from the same team behind The Lego Movie and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. 31:31 - Forks in the Timeline 2: Giraffe Neck Foodaloo! 34:27 - Unmatched: Ba...