I know im randomly asking but does someone know a way to log back into an Instagram account? I somehow lost my account password. I would appreciate any assistance you can offer me!
As a professional archaeologist, I appreciate the portion of this review that went into the archaeological/historical background and demonstrated the issues of having white-only depictions of Palaeolithic individuals. That was my immediate groan when I saw the cards and it was such a nice surprise to hear commentary about that issue. Obviously, games like this have to generalize a little bit and have some anachronistic qualities but skin colour is one that perhaps doesn't have to be compromised on. It is nice, however, that the character cards showed some amount of gender-balance in relation to the activities they depict (i.e. men aren't the only ones holding and spear and women are just picking berries and holding children). And, it is nice that this adds some somewhat more complex nuance into Palaeolithic life and not just focus on stereotypes.
I also noticed the lack of gender stereotypes, which was cool. The lack of color is certainly disappointing though, mostly because it's such an obvious (and easily solved) oversight. I'm always excited to see games that pertain to my field, I just wish they weren't typically so inaccurate in meaningful ways.
@@Mike91975 An interesting point. The term "neanderthal" is in common usage derogatory. However we now know that we are in fact mostly all neanderthals at least in part as our DNA includes neanderthal genes. We are also all "black" and we are also all "apes" and eventually all jellyfish. The bottom line for me is that reality rarely boils down to black vs white but rather various shades of grey. The obvious thing for the designers to do in this case would be to have produced a whole smorgasbord of character options, Variety is as they say the spice of life and this would just make the game not only more accurate but fun as well.
My personal favorite was always "no depiction of humans at all", because when painting cavemen - especially when you go for a cartoonish look - it is very easy to fall into the Fred Flintstone trap.
Thanks for the review also for the information about humanity and how wild it is to think about the Paleolithic era. Thanks for doing that extra work and caring about it. It's all too common to see board game people just ignore stuff like that.
"Paleo's rules have a lot in common with the psyche of your average British man - smiling and simple on the outside, close to implosion on the inside" Class, just pure class Quinns.
Thanks for the really good and professional review. As for the rules: The publisher already re-worked and published new german rules. With a second EN print, that will adapt as well. As for the represetnation of just "whites". The publisher also sees that and sees that as a true mistake. There will be a mini-expansion changing that in a few weeks and a real different humans-stack late in 2021.
That's great news! I love it when a publisher responds to constructive criticism. I really like the aesthetics of this game and the gameplay looks like something that would be a big hit at my table. Knowing the publisher is also willing to course correct to provide a better game just makes the decision to buy the game that much easier.
@@threepoint14159265 The rules are on the website of the publisher (guess that could be a good point to look for? ;)) www.hans-im-glueck.de/en/news/carcassonne-20-die-box-1.html Though only german and do not ask me why the link raltes to Carcassonne... I expect Zman to also work on that, but I can`t find anything about that there. As for the thematic approach of the tribe, there is a statement at BGG. boardgamegeek.com/thread/2618671/susds-criticism-about-ahistorical-skin-color-depic
Bought the German edition two months ago and it is now completely diversified on the card and box art, which I like. Unfortunately, it also now completely embraces the recent german stupidity of gendered speech. Me and two female friends found that completely distracting to always read "SpielerInnen" in the manual.
So, this is embarassing... I just found out, thanks to this review, that me and my girlfriend played Paleo completely wrong from start to finish. We actually looked at the 3 cards instead of choosing them by their backs. Now we have to play it all over again in the correct way. So thanks, Quinns. (No, seriously, thanks, I love this game and I'll take any excuse to play it again)
I love Paleo solo. In fact, it's one of my favorite to play solo. The box does not indicated that you can play 1-player, but there are solo rules included. A very interesting, puzzley game. And I love the art (though more historically accurate would be a welcomed change).
Games that allow solo but don't list it kinda peeve me off, all you need to do is change your player count on the box from X to Y players to 1 to Y players
I am surprised that with Kitchen Rush that they didn't mention the changes from the older edition. The second edition eases you in teaching the game, but as I understand it, it also has less flexibility and longevity due to less modifiers (or something like that) being available in the base box.
My favorite Werner Herzog quote (in reference to the jungle): "The trees are in misery. The birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain."
I always applaud our courageous ancestors: "Well, Grungk, I found these different fruits and now I'm going to eat them." Drop dead "Poor, Ogh. But now we know that these are bad. What about those others?"
You'd actually be surprised, most cultures developed strategies for testing new substances. Like touch it, wait a bit. Touch it to your lips/tongue, wait a bit. Take a small bite, wait a bit. And so on. Also, lots of stuff was done on obersavtion. If animals ate it and didn't die, they knew that (for the most part) they could eat it as well.
I love how SUSD can stay true to the review and try to explain everything in and out for the game itself. Those who are having issues with the last part of the video about being historically correct, I think this is something SUSD will always do. They did the same in Undaunted Normandy's review too and I have nothing but respect for bringing out these points.
Not to mention also with the lack of women in Istanbul, that part was very interesting and it didn't make the game look bad, it was just a mistake they did and I will love to see a second edition of that game with more female representation.
Agreed. I think Shut Up Sit Down is a unique blend of entertainment and thoughtfulness that makes the channel what it is. If they ever lost the latter, I'd be sad. This review was terrific.
The point is this game is not about History, so it can't be historically correct or incorrect. The last part of the video is based mainly on conjectures because we know almost nothing about that large period of time, not to mention what would have happened in that large territory that goes from what we know now as Spain to what we know now as Siberia and beyond. So I think projecting issues of our time to a time we don't know almost nothing, it is at bit risky. I prefer to play this interesting game and have fun.
@@perezoso9206 I agree to an extent, but there is no reason games can't represent their players by including diverse and inclusive elements. I get that isn't what you're making a point of here, but I think that is part of the point SUSD is making.
Just for the information, there is an error on the english rules: you choose one card and return the other two in tha same order they were before, not the order you choose.
As an Update for 2024: Regarding the Last Part 11:13, I recently bought a copy of Paleo in 2024 and it appears that the Developers have made a silent update to the game since the review and there are now indeed multiple copies of each People card depicting different ethnicities. So the devs actually listened and fixed the issue, which I think deserves a mention.
I'll find it funny if Quinns and Matt start some little feud or continued subplot in their following videos, and Tom just continues doing his own thing completely oblivious to all of this lol.
Honestly, watching the review the art didn't even stand out to me as odd. I really appreciate the break down at the end and might have exposed some of my own latent thought patterns on the issue.
The reason I became fan of SU&SD was the smart way stereotypes were addressed in Istanbul's review. I'm glad that this world is slowly changing. Thanks a lot!
Dear Quinns, you criticise Paleo for having too white characters, which is inappropriate for that era. Fair enough. However, you adore Rococo for having "diverse" characters, which is also inappropriate for that era. That is hypocrisy, right?
Man. Quinns. How you keep SUSD videos fresh and funny, fair and informative after all these years I don't know. It blows me away. Long live the Kings (and Fiddle Queens)!
Are they Humans or Neanderthals? I might be wrong but I think Neanderthals were white, lived in the middle paleolithic and depended on hunting mammoths.
I find the inclusion of the dodo in the game a touch peculiar. While it seems to have existed in the Paleolithic, it would not survive in an environment that also features wolves, as it eventually went extinct because humans introduced predators to its habitat. Is our association of extinct=prehistoric really this strong?
The Dodo is just a joke. I needed some super-easy to kill, stupid animal, and the Dodo was the first thing that came to my mind. And somehow every prototype player loved to extinct the Dodo, so we kept him in.
Was thinking they'd be neanderthals, but they look a bit dainty. I think it's pretty mixed about what people think their skin color and hair colors were, so who knows. Considering they lived quite a bit from the equator, they may have been on the paler side I suppose, maybe they had red hair as well... it's a different species and all, so most likely not too similar gene expression.
This feels like it wants a second edition. A bit of tuning of the manual is exactly the sort of thing a second edition is for, and getting a bit more accuracy in the art would be reasonably affordable.
Really appreciate your reviews and respect your commitment to talk about important issues of representation. Thank you for the great work and making your fans proud!
Randomly ended up watching the Undaunted Normandy review after this one. I just gotta say that I am very grateful for the social criticisms that you're bringing to these reviews. Board games are becoming a significant part of current social identity and culture and as such should move beyond colonial settler fantasies to theme concepts that have at least a modicum of social awareness. Thank you for doing what you can to push this hobby in a positive direction!!
According to the multiverse theory, there is a universe in which we are all sock puppets. And another in which we are all all evil sock puppets with goatees.
14:00 What is going on with the weather in this shot??? Did you guys anger the gods? Did the weather machine break? Is the apocalypse happening? I'm concerned!
I got this for Christmas and played it a few times. The first time was with 3 players and it went fairly well. We got a bit cocky and added a 4th player for the 2nd and 3rd games. We were unable to even get CLOSE the second game. We got closer the 3rd game, but were still a LONG way off of winning. I would suggest staying with 3 players, as there just aren't enough turns to gather the resources you need to both meet the goals AND to feed your people (each play has a minimum of 2 people and all require 1 food to survive).
I'd like to share a story that illustrates a small point. Here's the thesis: there have been a lot of older books and films that depict non-white people as "savages," so it could be that the illustrators for this game tried to avoid such depictions and ended up inadvertently with an all-white cast of characters. It's definitely possible that this will come across as wrong, but please know that I only wish to be a messenger or a chronicler here...when I was in college, a ladies' a cappella group decided to theme one of their concerts off of the Stone Age. To advertise this concert, the girls made posters, each showing one of the group members dressed in furs and skins, holding stone-based tools and snarling at the camera, mostly for comedic effect. They got a lot of flak for some of these posters, especially those which featured the minority members of the group. Most of the reasoning was that the posters were depicting the minority members of the group as "dumb," "simple," "barbarous," etc. What was confusing was that other posters featured white members of the group which didn't catch much flak, even when two girls wore the same costume and made similar expressions. Keep in mind that the costumes and props were historic trash, just mostly outfits that the members had cobbled together out of animal print clothes, faux fur, store-bought bodypaint, and the like. All in all, they mostly represented what the Romans described how the Franks, Gauls, and Germans looked, but they were made in fun, and certainly did not bring to mind the styles and dress of Amerindians, Aborigines, or other first peoples. In the end, the a cappella group apologized, removed all of their posters, and changed their concert theme. I say all of this because this story seems indicative of a current mindset, one that was started more than a hundred years ago: depicting people of color as cavemen can inadvertently push white supremacy and show the PoC as "savages." Yeah, a bit of a stretch, but people have noticed bad representation in older books and films. I mean, look at Tintin "sharing civilized behavior" with the "obviously primitive" people he meets in the Congo! I think there can be a legitimate fear that someone drawing dark-skinned stone-age people might be called racist for it, so it's possible that to avoid continuing the "tradition" of depicting PoC as lesser human beings, the illustrators of this game went with an all-white cast. I think this fear is mitigated when illustrating a mixed-race group, so I would agree with you that there should probably have been a mix of skin colors on the cards. Just something to keep in mind. I hope I haven't offended anyone.
The issue with picturing the characters as Black, everyone would say that they are depicted as savages so no win for the designer. I do think a mix, of all darker tones would suit the game and the theme When anyone says cave man, i tend to think of dark skinned rather than bright white
The easiest solution does seem to be to just include a wide range of skin tones. That said, I wouldn't be bothered if all the humans were dark skinned either as that would be more scientifically accurate.
Yeah, I think a variety of shades would’ve helped in order to avoid 1) the “depicted as savages” issue you underscored, and 2) all of them not being neon white lol
Sounds like the 2nd edition would benefit from more variation of the people you play as, and maybe a second discovery deck that only gets added in once you reach the later days or something?
@@ZoidbergForPresident When you play the english version, the official rule is different to the original/german official rule. Not wrong, just different. The difference isn't too important, though. It's a bit easier when you get to change the order, but most often, it doesn't really matter.
I actually think it doesn't matter at all. Since you're always drawing 3 the next turn the ordering of the 2 you put back on top don't matter because you will always draw those 2. I can't figure any sequence of turns where the decision on which card to put back can change anything. They probably changed the rule because since it doesn't matter, not having to keep track is easier.
Man this game got much praise in Germany, but Quinns is absolutely right with his third critic about the skin tone. I hope also that there will be a second edition.
Small correction: The other two cards which you haven't picked must go back in the same order on top of the deck, which is stated in the rules. Completely agree with the critique points, publisher and designer have already apoligized and stated that future expansions will have a wider variety of people!
That Tea Drinking music is from Kevin Macleod! They use it as the intro music on the Androids and Aliens podcast! Sorry. Just had a Captain America "I understood that" moment.
6:14 I said the joker is a wanted man He makes his way all across the land I see him sifting through the sand So I'll tell you all the story About the joker and the thief in the night
I wonder if Paleo would be better served by having many more cards of each general type, but before playing you cut each set down to the current counts. This would maintain at least some of the mystery across multiple games both because it would take multiple games to encounter every card and because you'd never know what cards are available in your current game until you encounter them. You could also potentially spice up later days by randomly swapping out a few cards at the end of each day. This would also be a relatively easy "fix" for the publisher; they'd simply need to release "expansion" decks and add the rule to reduce each deck to X cards of each type before play.
I get the point about "Black erasure" but it's not really "Black erasure" if it's literally all of our ancestors. The characters on the cards look too modern even to be Neanderthals, who were kind of late-comers to the paleolithic anyway. This seems to me like an oversight brought about by referencing Hollywood depictions of "the stone age". However, depicting everyone as dark-skinned as they probably would have been, along with appropriately smaller craniums, could also be misconstrued as portraying Black people as primitive. Can we get off the ride please, Daddy? I want it to stop.
There's a BGG thread about this review where someone mentions a more accurate, ape-like features, and people went "wow, that's saying black people look like apes!". Someone else also wishes for more "inclusivity" in the shape of people with disabilities, though they acknowledge that wheelchairs in the Paleolithic might be a tad too much. I do wish to get off this train.
@@swedishviking287 I don't see how? Board game reviews can't exist ONLY to drive hype and encourage purchases. I'm always glad to see information about a game that steers me away from a purchase I'd end up regretting.
