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

00:00 - Pogs are back, maybe? 05:20 - Ready at Dawn’s The Order: 1886 was an early title on the PlayStation 4 that lots of people seem to have slept on… but they shouldn’t have, as gorgeous-looking steampunk shooty bang bangs are the order of the day. 20:08 - Having a hair cut in the same way a cake is iced. 21:44 - War Boys VI: The Road to Valhalla; it’s that time of the year again, when we play a whole bunch of wargames. We got a little bit of time with the gigantic Hogs of War: The...

00:00 - A letter to DEFRA. 03:56 - Thor: Love and Thunder is Taika Waititi second go with the Asgardian and while it’s lost a bit of the danger felt in Ragnarok it’s still distinctive and well worth watching. 23:32 - FUT! We dip our football-booted toe into the wonderful world of perfect chemistry, aka FIFA Ultimate Team, thanks to Mr. Jones. 43:45 - Eating biscuits the right way… or was it the wrong way? 49:32 - We get on board with, er, Get on Board: New York & London; a roll and write...

00:00 – It’s time to investigate. 05:06 – Ms. Marvel is wonderful. It’s a celebration of cultural identity, with nuance, laughter, wisdom, community… we love it. 28:30 – Lifting the curse with shuffleboard at the Bristol Craft Beer Festival. 32:36 – Disney Villainous from Prospero Hall and Ravensburger is genuinely kind of incredible. The art and component quality is staggering, the asymmetrical play works really nicely, and it’s easy to teach to new players. 49:16 – Crescent Moon is...

00:00 - What crisp are you? 03:36 - Top Gun: Maverick is really good. Really REALLY good. And it’s not just a simple nostalgia trip, it’s a well-told story with incredible action scenes, that everyone needs to watch. 26:03 - We’ve loved them since we first saw them, and now the Jackass folks are back with Jackass Forever. And again, while nostalgia plays a big factor, it’s really the bond between the people on screen that keeps us watching. 36:56 - We confirm that in There Is No Game:...

00:00 - The worst place to stage a stag do. 02:49 - Everything but the act of reading. 05:25 - Gran Turismo 7 is the sequel to… Gran Turismo 2? It’s an expectedly gorgeous simulation racer that goes back to one of its earliest entries for its inspirations. Is this the perfect audiobook game? 21:20 - “Do you think anybody will notice?” 26:00 - Everything Everywhere All at Once is the greatest multiverse movie, one where you just should not even try to comprehend what’s going on that, no...

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 title all about pirates and privateers (and a little bit of “cronch”). It’s a big sandbox of...

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 Ep4. This slick racer brings time trial-based high precision competitiveness to Android and...

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 Games. It’s a set collection game that breezes by in about 20 minutes, with bright and...

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 loads and loads of spoilers. All that, and semantic enigmas, with Dan (@ThisDanFrost), Kris...

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 - What are our thoughts about black holes? What about rainbows? More importantly, after that...

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 first game… and we have, so we’re really enjoying Horizon Forbidden West. And gosh it looks...

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. Spooky, mysterious, and a lovely addition to your TV watching watchlist. 33:21 - The Great...

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 You, My Lad, plus Casting the Runes from The Design Mechanism, which takes its name from an...

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 and pleasantly light Euro game with Above and Below, merging worker placement with a...

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 the best tables yet. We also talk about just how lovely it is to play solo. 41:01 - Dan’s...

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 series - which is Planes, Trains and Automobiles by way of The Avengers - he’s put centre stage....

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 reimplementation of Biblios, For the King (and Me) is from Coiledspring Games and Iello and...

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 introduction to RPGs, but in this instance, to the world of Dungeons & Dragons itself, rather...

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 for Daniel Craig’s take on James. A good movie, then, but who is the best Bond, and why is it...

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 racing board game simulation of Wacky Races in that it requires deviousness, cunning, and a...