#shutupandsitdown

I’ve been going through all my Netrunner junk lately and just came across this old pamphlet. It’s a Shut Up & Sit Down donation reward from many years back, from when Quinns was obsessed with the game. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at these (or anything regarding SU&SD to be honest), but this little book is really charming. And with decks by Chris and Eady from the late, lamented Run Last Click podcast, too!

I’ve been playing in the Green Level Clearance Discord’s Retrunner tournament, using only decks made with 3x original core sets. I finished up 5-3 over four rounds; not bad but still pretty rusty. Three Runner splits, one sweep, not surprising — agenda flood hosed me in at least two of those games. Anyway, in a week, we start up again with 3x original cores and the first half of the Genesis Cycle (What Lies Ahead, Trace Amount, Cyber Exodus). If you’re a new or a lapsed player, you should join the Discord and play with us!

Okay, so it's been a while since we gave you some broad news, so let's do a big catch-up and hit you with some updates from a bunch of different areas that involve no hospitalisations! Yaaaay! (Amy is doing fine, by the way, and is still on the mend. Thank you all for all your messages, good thoughts, and support. It really does make a great difference.)

Blood on the Clocktower continues to shine at conventions and events. Some super awesome Storytellers across the U.S., and one in the U.K., continue to run games of Clocktower for people wanting to play:

January saw Storytellers Ted and Brittany with Clocktower at OrcaCon in Seattle WA and PAX South in San Antonio TX.

In February, it's already been played by Young MENSA North in the U.K. with Ben as Storyteller; had an enormous non-stop long weekend at DeceptaCon in Atlanta GA with Ted, Brittany, and David; and made an appearance at Strategicon in Los Angeles CA with Megan as Storyteller (fun fact - Megan was in that first ever game of Clocktower, way back in 2014).

This weekend it's at Hoop & Stick Con at Columbus OH's Ravenwood Castle, with Ted, David, and Silvana as Storytellers. Ravenswood Bluff goes to Ravenwood Castle. Whoa. And the photos we’re getting from Ted and David are already incredible. (I’ll put a few in at the end of this post.)

March will see BOTC at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle WA with Brittany as Storyteller; at Con Con in Sydney with most of the Sydney crew there (this city's very first social deduction gaming convention); at CT Gamer Con in Uncasville CT with the indomitable and ceaselessly excellent Ted, and with Eden heading over from Sydney to join him; and then Eden will stick around for freakin' PAX East in Boston MA and a tonne of Boston Storytellers. (Just quickly – Boston has been playing A LOT of Clocktower this past year, so PAX East is going to be massive.)

I’ll put a few photos up at the end of the post, and please follow our Instagram @Bloodontheclocktower if you want to see some of the highlights when these events are on.

Shut Up & Sit Down received their review copy! (And seem to be enjoying it too!) Steven, Brittany, and Meg had such a great time at SHUX Show 2018 that we are 100% planning to be there again in October 2019 (it may be the first thing to get me out of Australia this year), so we're thrilled that they get to be having fun with it in the meantime.

We have a rulebook editor! Joshua Yearsley, who worked on the rulebooks for the asymmetric forest-fight instant-hit Root, is working hard with Steven Medway (designer of BOTC) to get these rulebooks up to snuff and as bulletproof as possible in time for the Kickstarter.

Brisbane and Melbourne have their very own grimoires! After spending so much time travelling in the U.S. last year, it's great to finally get pre-release copies to some other Australian cities. If you're in these cities and want to play, you can join the Facebook groups here:

Melbourne BOTC on Facebook

Brisbane BOTC on Facebook

Melbourne already ran two sessions last weekend and Brisbane is going to get started up soon.

The wiki is on its way. When I first drafted this section I was like “Yeah this bit of the wiki is done,” and then realised that we haven't gone into the wiki in much detail before. So: We've got a wiki! Clocktower is a big, crazy, fun game and we want to get a bunch of the tips, tricks, philosophies, and stories down in one place for anyone who wants to get advice on a particular role or aspect, or just dive deeper overall. This is a fun project that Steven and Amy have been working on behind the scenes for a long time and the first big piece of it is now in place.

A sample from the wiki (and yes I chose the Undertaker because the Undertaker is boss).

The 'Characters' section of the Blood on the Clocktower wiki is finished for all roles in the base editions, being Trouble Brewing, Sects & Violets, and Bad Moon Rising. With the character sections finished, you'll be able to look up any role and get some insights on the next level of strategic options when playing as, bluffing as, or fighting against that character.

One thing in particular that I love about it is that for many pieces of advice it gives, there's often a counter-point showing the strategic merits of the exact opposite option. For example, the section on the Investigator goes into the merits of both revealing your info straight away or keeping it secret for a few days. How you do it is really up to you and there’s no wrong answer. It shows the flexibility of the game, and that there's never just one way to play or one way to win. The wiki, in whatever form it's up to, will be out in time for the Kickstarter.

The advanced roles are taking over the world. Storytellers in Boston, Los Angeles, and Derby (U.K.) are starting to get some of the 'advanced' roles that we've been play-testing in Sydney for quite a while now, so that they can have a crack at them too. Some of them may find their way into the Kickstarter as stretch goals, so we're getting them into more and more games now to see how they do. So far, they've proved a massive hit.

Among them are:

The Lycanthrope – a Townsfolk who means well but has the unfortunate habit of turning rather wolflike at night and tearing people apart. But here’s the catch: they’ll only kill a player they choose if they're on the Good Team too. Sorry, friend! (But for real, werewolves aren't inherently bad. For every Fenrir Greyback out there causing havoc, there's a Remus Lupin trying their best.)

The Lleech – a Demon that cannot be executed, but who has infected and poisoned an unsuspecting member of the town. You defeat the Lleech by killing the one they are leeching off. This one was an instant hit when it first came into play in Sydney, and leads to an amusingly high number of players campaigning for their own executions. “Kill me, I'm pretty sure I'm poisoned – if we kill me, we'll win.”

The General – a Townsfolk that gains one of the greatest insights of all: An insight into the Storyteller's mind. Each night, the Storyteller tells the General who The Storyteller thinks is winning. So if you've just executed that Undertaker because of bad info, prepare to get a big thumbs down from that Storyteller, mwahahahaha. But, maybe you've just killed that pesky minion: Prepare for a big thumbs up and a toothy grin from that Storyteller. (Unless, of course, you’re a Drunk General...)

Legion – A demon where most players are the demon – but players are only executed when a Good player votes. The Legion must work together to make it look like a regular game where everything is normal, whilst working to turn the few unsuspecting Good players against each other. We are Legion.

The Poppy Grower – Can I just say how much I love the Poppy Grower? I friggin' love the Poppy Grower. When the Poppy Grower is around, Evil players don't learn who each other are at the start of the game (presumably because they be gettin' hiiiiiigh). They'll find out if the Poppy Grower dies, but until then it's just chaos – beautiful, beautiful chaos.

Finally, we've been flexing our Kickstarter account and backing some projects. Here are some fun ones:

Black 3.0. The Blackest Black. So, when we started a Kickstarter account to eventually run our campaign through, I said to the team “Okay we've got this Kickstarter account, let's take it for a spin. We can back cool games we find, friends' projects, or anything that'll be good times for the Salisbury Festival of Board Games,” and then last week Steven was like “Hey check this thing out, it's THE BLACKEST BLACK.” It's not a game but I asked “Hey if we back this will you use it?” and then there was some very serious nodding from all around the table. We backed it that night. Prepare for total darkness, motherfuckers.

Parks. Not only is this a fun-looking game with gorgeous art, it's basically the board-game version of the real lives of 'Driving Curiosity', friends of Blood on the Clocktower. They're a couple of great science nerds who spent 2018 driving around North America and going to as many national parks as possible (literally the premise of the game 'Parks') and have a book coming out early in 2020. It'll be the guide to science for the National Parks, as told through the story of two friends having a rad road trip. I think you can still back 'Parks' through the pledge manager, and you can follow the journey of Driving Curiosity, from parks to book, through their Instagram @DrivingCuriosity.

City of the Big Shoulders. When I was living in Ohio last year and trucking Blood on the Clocktower to as many conventions as possible, I ended up making friends with Emily Dearring, who runs Central Ohio Social Deception. Then she surprised the heck out of us by coming out of left field with this project that she’s creative art director on - this heavy Euro-style game about the industrial and commercial history of Chicago, called 'City of the Big Shoulders'. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into this when it arrives and showing it off at the Salisbury Festival of Board Games. Again, the campaign has finished but you can still grab it through the pledge manager.

And before we go, here are just a couple of the coolest photos from the past few months.

An imposing figure at PAX South.

Literally this guy was the Slayer in this game at PAX South, and then after this photo was taken he immediately went on to slay the demon and win the game.

Guess who executed the Saint on the very first day of this game at DeceptaCon. These guys!

A 5am game at DeceptaCon ends in victory for the Good Team.

And of course I can’t resist posting a disproportionate share of these great photos from Ravenwood Castle that Ted and David have been taking:

Every photo from this place is straight fire.

That’s it from us for now. Our next post will delve into a few more details for our plans for the Kickstarter. Hope you’re having a good 2019 and are playing some tops games.

Sincerely,

Some Changes at BOTC HQ

Hi Everyone! This is Andy here on this blog post (I’ve been the one running the Blood on the Clocktower Instagram). Things are changing here at Blood On The Clocktower, and its all because of (drum roll please...) our Kickstarter campaign!

We're shifting from promoting our game at conventions, to knuckling down to create the most awesome campaign we can, with the best possible outcomes for you guys, i.e. lots of Blood on the Clocktower!!!!

With Evin spearheading the campaign creation, others within the team will be helping out by taking some of his usual workload. For starters, I will be taking  Clocktower's Facebook and Twitter under my wing, as well as this blog. Along with Instagram, this means I’ll be Blood On The Clocktower's true Digital Marketing Minion. I'll also be working on some of the art for the rule book.

Amy (our Technical Demon) has been working hard on keeping the website up to date, is always improving on the Script Tool for custom games, and has been working with Steven on putting together a detailed Blood on the Clocktower wiki, with advice and tips for every character in the game. Expect to her from her on some of these areas in upcoming posts in this blog.

Steven (our game designer) will be focusing solely on design work now and therefore unfortunately won’t have much opportunity for a lot of online communication, like spitballing about new character ideas, rules clarifications, etc. The rest of us will be picking up the slack in these areas so please keep reaching out, but we’re keeping Steven firmly locked away in a cage in a remote cabin on top of a distant and icy mountain so he can keep his nose to the grindstone in order to finish refining the rulebooks, get those same rulebooks ready for the graphic designer for formatting, and directing the game’s final art. (Don’t worry, we’ll bring him a daily hot chocolate if he’s very good.) The dimensions for the Grimoire also need to be finalised so we can get accurate quotes from manufacturers (he recently built a smaller version of the grimoire than any before - very sleek and, dare I say, chic). All of this is vitally important for the game’s Kickstarter and it’s a lot to handle.

Eden, our Business Manager, who has just finished up at our last convention for the year (Pax Unplugged in Philadelphia), will be working together with Evin on sorting out the nuts and bolts of actually manufacturing and fulfilling Blood on the Clocktower, as well as having a hand in the further marketing of the game and overseeing our potential presence at future conventions between now and the Kickstarter campaign.

All up, it's all hands on deck for the foreseeable future for the team at The Pandemonium Institute, so we can bring to you the genre breaking game that is Blood on the Clocktower.

- Andy

Shut Up & Sit Down Reviewed Blood on the Clocktower! Plus a Brief Conventions Update From Evin!

Hello! Evin here again! We’ve been busy since our last update. Blood on the Clocktower spent the waning months of 2018 getting to...

The 10th Salisbury Festival of Board Games in Sydney, Australia (and you can find details of the 11th one here - 11-13 April 2019)

Gee Con in Darwin, Australia

Shut Up & Sit Down Expo (SHUX) in Vancouver, Canada

Internationale Spieltage in Essen, Germany

PAX Australia in Melbourne, Australia

PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, USA

In addition to past events, that makes twenty-one festivals and conventions that Blood on the Clocktower got to in 2018! Amazing!

Each one is beginning to follow a happy pattern - lots of new players eager to try out Blood on the Clocktower, many staying for multiple games; some enthusiastic repeat players from previous festivals and events; and us having a fantastic time meeting and having fun with loads of awesome people and sharing this game with them.

There are a few photo highlights below, but we’d be absolutely remiss if we didn’t make a big song and dance about absolutely one of the coolest things to ever happen to Blood on the Clocktower: Matt & Quinns from the absolutely brilliant Shut Up & Sit Down played the game at their SHUX show in Canada - and they thought it was “brilliant”! See what they have to say here:

This video dropped when it was late at night in Australia. At the time I was hanging out with my friend Sarah, a perennial traveller and one of the first people to ever play Blood on the Clocktower way back in 2014. She got a message from a friend in Edinburgh (one that she’d run games of BOTC for in 2017) to let her know Shut Up & Sit Down had just put out a video on it. We immediately put it on the big screen in the living room and spent fifteen minutes being happily flabbergasted - not only did they love the game, they had a really good handle on the things that make it fun. The next day our site traffic blew up, we got hundreds of new email sign-ups, and we haven’t had a convention since then where there hasn’t been a bunch of people telling us some variation of “I heard about you on Shut Up & Sit Down and I’m super keen to play.” It’s just been the coolest thing. :)

Photo Time, Yay!

GeeCon 2018! Steven may not get the most photos when he does a convention, but heck does he make them count when he remembers. This baby crocodile was actually the demon twice in a row and won both times. Amazing!

SHUX 2018! Including the now-infamous game where every single player left the circle to have a ‘private’ conversation with every other player...

Internationale Spieltage 2018! I hear this guy was the Monk...?

PAX Australia 2018!

PAX Unplugged 2018!

This last photo of the clocktower in Philadelphia was taken one night after PAX Unplugged, by Boston Storyteller Jon G. It’s spectacular.

Looking forward to seeing you at more conventions and festivals in 2019!