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

00:00 - How you might know if you’re Unbreakable. 04:38 - Burgle Bros 2: The Casino Capers from Tim Fowers, is the sequel to a board game we first talked about on Episode 1 way back in 2016. Playing as a team of criminals on a caper, sneaking about and trying not to cause a commotion, this impressive follow up to the first game has been well worth the wait. 15:42 - Games you'll put in a bag (worki...

00:00 - The great fountain pen hack of the 1990s. 03:02 - MicroMacro: Crime City from Pegasus Spiele is a curious mix of Agatha Christie , Where’s Wally?, and the EXiT series , that just keeps on giving. 15:25 - Joining the PlayStation 5 club, the most exclusive club of them all right now, surely? Also: how (and why) the PS5 tries its best to keep you playing. 34:39 - Control: Ultimate Edition is...

00:00 - Deus ex macbina. 06:54 - The complicated backstory of Bananaman . 10:46 - A bit more on Polis, which we talked about back on Ep122 . 15:00 - Seastead ’s “altruistic competition”, flexibility in ruleset, and focus on inclusivity is a wonderful special event for two players, from WizKids. 33:28 - Holidaying in virtual worlds, and going for a relaxing wander with Eastshade , where the side qu...

00:00 - The magpie. 08:18 - A birthday and a dirge. 20:54 - Relaxed yet competitive, chilled yet tense, Celtic is a set collection game for the family from The Plastic Soldier Company and Pegasus Spiele that, on paper, shouldn’t work, but it really does. And why there’s a lot of value in going back to old board game mechanics. 35:03 - Most manga is rubbish. Finding good manga for grown ups is diff...

00:00 - Dan’s birthday, Rudy’s Pizza , and Many More. 06:49 - Kris's "Consumption to Creation Ratio". Freaking ourselves out with Chris Bissette’s The Wretched , making memories with Thousand Year Old Vampire from Tim Hutchings, and writing poetry with Allison Arth’s Gentleman Bandit . 26:26 - Kosmos Games throw down the gauntlet with Polis , from Fran Diaz and Enrique Corominas - the art for whic...

00:00 - We like to eat eat eat Apples and Bananas. We lake to ate, ate, ate ay-ples and ba-nay-nays. 07:14 - Daylife in Japan is a cheap and very cheerful jigsaw puzzle game we’ve played on Switch, by Minimol Games and QUByte Interactive. Want a meditative game to play while listening to audiobooks? This might just be it. 20:43 - Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling’s Renature is a wonderfully rel...

00:00 - A jigsaw of the Moon. 06:54 - How to play Lost Cities wrong. Very wrong. And incorporating baby-friendly player aids into board games. 12:35 - Reiner Knizia’s Schotten Totten 2 is more thematic, more focused, and easier to get others into it than its previous iteration. 23:08 - A true centrepiece for any happening party. 26:32 - Disney’s new WandaVision TV series is shaping up to be a uniq...

00:00 - Sam's mug. 04:54 - Kris's mattress. 09:02 - Christopher Nolan’s Tenet , a high concept spy thriller that’s “the first time travel movie”, but perhaps it doesn’t explain itself enough? 27:12 - Knights and Bikes is from Double Fine and Foam Sword, and it’s a completely riotous co-op craftpunk adventure with a great sense of humour. 44:00 - HeidelBÄR’s Coyote and Spicy are brilliant bluffing...

00:00 - New Year's Resolutions Part 1, plus a hot take on Final Fantasy XII. 05:22 - Star Wars: Squadrons is an enjoyably arcade-y VR flight sim that really surprised us. 16:46 - New Year's Resolutions Part 2, cracking eggs, smashing glutes, and Hobbits with trundle wheels. 23:37 - The Mandalorian , and why you don’t have to know anything about Star Wars to enjoy it. 37:22 - What if you could time...

00:00 - Top tips for job interview success. 04:14 - Secret Santa, part 1 - powered by Mr Lister's Quiz Shootout from Big Potato Games (plus a little bit on Thousand Year Old Vampire too). 12:45 - Looking at ladders on the loo. 15:21 - Secret Santa, part 2 - with thoughts on Fungi/Morels . 24:16 - Abandon All Artichokes from Gamewright is a light and breezy deck building game that everyone who like...

00:00 - Crunchy Nut Peanut Butter and very thick milk. 06: 42 - A cartoon-like, one page RPG that is tremendous fun: we’ve played Honey Heist by Grant Howitt and had a great time with some bears in hats. 18:57 - Squirty cream “as a vehicle”. 23:30 - Taking early steps into FIFA 20’s Ultimate Team (and its similarities to Pro Evo’s Master League mode), playing with friends with Uncharted: The Natha...

00:00 - What’s that banging? What day is it? How old is Sam? 05:32 - And for that matter, what’s your favourite era of time? 11:40 - TRAINS! We talk Ticket to Ride and the digital adaptation of it that we’ve been thoroughly enjoying. 16:20 - Cóatl is crammed full of bright and lovely plastic , has a very pleasing Aztec art style, and is a super elegant bit of game design that’s one of the best in...

00:00 - An intensely heated debate: is a Twix a biscuit or a chocolate bar? 07:53 - Tapestry: Plans and Ploys continues to build upon the foundations of the lean(ish) civilization-creating original, and also continues Stonemaier Games’ tradition of featuring beautiful components. 21:07 - Some grumps bang on about how they don’t like Halloween, and an alternative is discussed: Falloween. 31:08 - Th...

00:00 - Forgetting names and confusing idioms. 03:10 - A graduation, but whose graduation? 06:10 - Making rum, plus the sweetly thematic Fort from Leder Games , in which you pretend to be kids building bases, using pizza and toys to curry favour with Icky and Sticky. 17:44 - Al's FINEST wine and socially distanced martial arts. 21:52 - From humble packaging comes something we had a ton of fun with...

00:00 - The Home Alone Meal Deal, and first movies. 09:13 - Hotshot Racing looks and sounds great, the racing model is spot on, but you’ll want to put most of your time into the time trial mode, and we’ll tell you why. Also, go watch Get Indie Gaming . 20:57 - Every Breath You Take. Every Slice You Make. 27:45 - Pendulum from Stonemaier Games (them what did Viticulture ) is a “rollercoaster” of a...

00:00 - The Egg Saga. 09:40 - A trip to Vale Street in Bristol , and leaving the house for a curry. 12:28 - Ghost of Tsushima , Akira Kurosawa , and the satisfaction of feeling powerful when playing as a samurai. 22:37 - An amazing quad biking adventure in Greece. Top tip: check your headlights before setting out. 28:23 - Set dressing the house and tackling the play-it-at-home escape room Art Heis...

00:00 - Fridge biscuits and a shocking revelation about eggs. 08:59 - Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout , why it’s Fortnite crossed with Takeshi's Castle, and its obvious similarities with The Last of Us Part II. 26:59 - With UK Games Expo going digital this year - calling it Virtually Expo - we were asked by our pals at Kosmos if we wanted to be part of their booth. We did! And we talk about how our v...

00:00 - An update on some PlayStation IAP problems. 07:24 - SOMEONE has become a Certified Beer Server with the Cicerone program. Can you guess who ? 15:08 - We play a spot of the phenomenal party game Herd Mentality from Big Potato , which are the same folks behind Don’t Get Got , which we talked about back in Episode 95 . 26:52 - A desire to get into woodworking, and a love of astronomy? ... or...

00:00 - 15,000 who-gives-a-toss credits. 11:21 - Skater XL is an entirely skill-driven skating simulation and it's been fascinating seeing it progress from Early Access to full release. Plus the year extreme sports games started coming back, and our history with the best in the genre - y'know, stuff like Skate, Thrasher: Skate and Destroy, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. 29:13 - A smashing yurting hol...

00:00 - Exciting adventures with caffeine. 07:33 - "The Enid Blyton and George R. R. Martin crossover you didn't know you needed"... we finally get to play asymmetrical strategy game Root from Leder Games, via the wonderful Board Beans board game cafe. 18:47 - Hypnospace Outlaw , whether or not Zane rocks (he doesn't), the Space Jam website , and an explanation of what Yahoo! GeoCities was. 29:47...

00:00 - When is a broom not a broom? 07:00 - A spoiler-free discussion about The Last of Us Part II . 27:12 - Kentucky Route Zero: TV Edition  is deeply profound, philosophical, and beautiful. 36:49 - Redesigning the teasmade for the 21st century. 41:27 - Beyond Burgers : The Best. 46:46 - Treachery in Beatdown City shattered expectations in the most fascinating of ways. All that, and some very sw...

00:00 - Slipmington. Patent pending. 09:03 - What little we know about wine, and what we love about Stonemaier Games' Viticulture Essential Edition , a relaxing worker placement in which you run a vineyard. 23:30 - Escape room games at home, including Sherlock Holmes from The Panic Room , and Exit: The Game - Theft on the Mississippi . 32:31 - Recreating the PC point and click adventure in a table...

00:00 - Sam's 'superpower' and Kris's least favourite theme park. 07:20 - Gorogoa is gorogorgeous, how different mediums handle pacing a story, and the definition of a visual novel. 19:35 - The natural, chilled beauty of Lonely Mountains: Downhill , and why its ability to get you into a state of flow is perfect for listening to audiobooks to. 30:58 - In a great way, Pentago reminds us of games wit...

00:00 - The Peter-Minute-Ton. 03:23 - Lockdown hair cuts. 08:03 - Break the Code is a fantastic deductive puzzle experience, but what's not fantastic is losing a bit of it under some decking . 28:23 - We're divided on Devs . Is it some of the best television of the year? Or is it boring and, at times, a bit clichéd? 39:59 - Ion Fury is highly evocative of days-gone-by playing Duke Nukem 3D and Blo...

00:00 - Dancercise with Ryan Heffington , and line dancing up to the oche. 06:31 - Oh sure, Ring Fit Adventure is an indoor exercise masterpiece of games design. But does that mean Ring can say what he likes about our shiny muscles? 17:24 - Well, we're finally here: discussing beer subscriptions. 19:34 - Like a Belgian Quad, Brew Crafters from Greater Than Games is initially foreboding, has lots o...