Who ‘are’ SU&SD (and who were former SU&SD staff)

<I just copied this topic from the old SU&SD forum, maybe it’s helpful to new members or old members to kind of get a feeling of the ‘history’ of SU&SD>

I thought it would be fun to create an overview of all currently “regular” staff for SU&SD and those who have gone. This overview emerged more out of my own curiosity then anything else. And it has been in “draft” for several days, until it evolved into this beast. So, sorry for that :grimacing:

I understand that SU&SD are pretty freeform with mostly Matt and Quinns at the helm… but… many, many, more people have contributed to the show. Somewhere along the way I lost track of who is or was actually part of SU&SD. Quite often new contributors are not “introduced” and those who have left don’t officially say goodbye. I understand it is the nature of a community such as this one. Obviously some contributors just moved on to other things, or rotate out by chance, i.e. they have moved somewhere else or are busy doing other things.

Current (recurring) contributers
The remaining permanent staff of this community and definitely not going anywhere (and if they do, only to boardgaming conventions) are Quinns and Matt. Quinns is also one of the two founders of SU&SD, together with Paul, who has since left the site (see the part below). The duo became a trio again with the addition of Tom Brewster, who started out as part of the intern programme.

On Twitch we have the “behind the scenes” staff consisting out of: Anni and Chris. Chris might have met Matt through a former job at videogamer tv a site they both worked on, see his adorable introduction video here, it also features a quite entertaining rebuke from Chris to a very nasty comment.

Then there is Quinns’ wife, Leigh Alexander who is sometimes seen in a review or offering some much needed support in a let’s play. She also wrote for the SU&SD site and starred in some podcast, like this one and this one.

This year, SU&SD even employed some interns. They were recruited through video applications. We do not really know how many applicants there were, but some friendly applicants did share their contributions here, I believe none of them made the final cut.

Interns that did make it are: Kylie who got first introduced in the review for Blood on the Clocktower. She had a somewhat more proper introduction in The Estate let’s play.

Recently out of nowhere (because that’s what they do, don’t they, these interns) Tom popped up in the Pipeline review. Maybe there will be other interns in the future, Tom’s internship seemed to be rather short and I don’t believe he got an official introduction at all. I do hope we are going to see more of both of them because they are/were great additions to the team. <update: Tom is now very much part of the team!>

On the site itself there is forum member @AvaFoxfort (Ava btw, did get a somewhat proper introduction here) currently in charge of all news games related (and does a great job at that too!). Ava was also part of the Concordia playthrough.

Somewhat (recurring) contributers
Well this is actually hard. I would say: Efka and Elaine from NPI seem to be somewhat part of the crew. Efka has sometimes moderated their Twitch Streams and was part of the longest playthrough yet when he took on Twilight Imperium together with Elaine.

Another person we’ve seen a couple of times is Clarke (he was once introduced as Quinns’ lawyer friend on one of the SHUX panels I believe). He made an appearance in the Seal Team Flix Twitch playthrough which for some odd reasons never got a “release” on youtube and it has since disappeared from Twitch, meaning that if Quinns and Matt didn’t record it somewhere it is now lost for all eternity. Luckily, Clarke also made an appearance in one of the “Cardgames that don’t suck”: Ricochet Poker

Also there was Rob introduced as friend of the show on the Twitch playthrough of The Estates and later on Space Alert. Is he the same Rob who featured in earlier episodes? Like the Memoir '44 playthrough? No he is not, apparently…

Recent One time appearances
Jon Purkis made a cameo once, together with Elaine and Efka on the Meeple Circus he ‘runs’ Actualol.

More recently two Massive Assembly employees (producers of Total War franchise amongst others) played 878 vikings in a let’s play. They were Kube Whelan (Wheels) and Matt (Maddis).

Contributers that are no longer appearing?
So let’s start with one person whom we know for certain that he is no longer part of the crew. Paul officially left.There was a nice parting post from him.

I would have thought that Pip might make an appearance sometime on the Twitch Playthroughs, especially since she seems to be a forum favourite and earned 1st place in a poll I once put up for who whe would like to see most on the Twitch stream. but I haven’t seen her in all of 2019 on the site? She sometimes wrote for the site, but her last contribution is actually quite old, published in 2017. However, she remains active for the team however, as she is a confirmed guest for SHUX 2019. She featured in many earlier episodes most notably the D&D playthrough. You can still hear her as part of the Crate and Crowbar podcast.

Then there was a recurring regular in the earlier reviewes, Brendan of course. He even had his very own segment: “Board gaming with Brendan”. I believe I haven’t seen him on this site or in any videos again? Brendan is currently working as editor on some gaming site you may have heard of. :wink: Brendan was last ‘mentioned’ in the review of Enter the Dungeon. He apparently lives in the padlocked basement of Quinns Matt Lees… soooo nothing to worry about there :astonished:.

Also Cynthia Hornbeck who was once writing articles on RPG’s, like this one, and this one and appeared on SHUX in some panels, like the one where they actually played a D&D adventure.

Matt (Thrower) has also left the building, or so it seems. He wrote quite a few articles for the site on war games.

Then we have Eric Tonjes (no social media found) who once wrote about miniature games for SU&SD has gone MIA.

But if you thought that was it… there is actually a whole list of people who never appear again. Like what happened to: Maen (she was present in some videos like Memoir '44 and also in The Resistance: Avalon, both of those also featured Tom who has also not appeared on SU&SD for quite some time?

Joe Skrebels appeared in a Cosmic Encounter let’s play, for only a few seconds playing a - how appropriate - cosmic encounter addict.

Then there were F.D (no other name known) and Jessi who once made an appearance in the Mysterium playthrough.

Appearing in the older episodes is Julie Hough. She can be found in the Resistance review.

It is, or rather was, raining Matt’s on SU&SD it seems, because @deanlove pointed me towards another Matt (I believe this is his twitter page!) who wrote precisely two contributions.

So what do you think, did I miss anyone (quite probably)? Any information on what former SU&SD’ers are doing now? Did they truly leave SU&SD, like Paul or do they help in other ways?

And if you made it till here and are still reading: thanks for sticking with me!

UPDATE: Thanks @RossM, @deanlove, @bruitist and @COMaestro for your helpful contributions! It is appreciated.

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I wonder if I count as a SU&SD contributor, seeing as something I created made an appearance in a video :thinking:

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I believe Tom was officially hired and is no longer an intern.

And I think Pip has been a casualty of moves - I believe she lives in Bath currently, whereas Matt and Tom are (iirc) London and Quinns is in Brighton.

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Pip was in a twitch game of wavelength this week. Ava is scheduled to be in one next week. Looking forward to seeing them again.

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Ah thank you that’s a lovely overview especially for someone like me who only discovered this beautiful community half a year ago. I don’t even remember how I went about looking for games before that :wink:

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There was also Intern Ben, famous for playing God in their Eleusis video.
,“Are you ready God?”
bored “always.”

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How cool! I believe this makes you kind of part of the SU&SD show somehow… maybe in a future update I can include: “Prop Designers”… :slight_smile:

True and True. I should update Pip’s segment, then. The hiring of Tom has already been adressed.

Good one, I shall include him in the next update as well.

So are Matt and Quinns ever going to be in the same review or podcast again? As much as I love Ava and Tom as new addition to the team. I miss the special chemistry between the duo that originally lured me to SU&SD in the first place.

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Considering that it took a while to have Tom and Quinns together in a video… and that virus going around… who knows?

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It sounded to me like the SU&SD team is currently residing in four completely separate parts of England and so being in the same physical place is logistically tricky even if there weren’t a pandemic on.

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Correct me if I am wrong, is it Quinns in Brighton, Ava Yorkshire, Matt somewhere by London and Tom in Reading??

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I understand the pandemic and physical distance has had it’s effect. But then again they did not do any live streams or podcasts together neither, which doesn’t require them to be physically together…

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I agree, that would great to seem them together.
As for why it’s been that way I think it’s a deliberate strategy they’ve been doing to try to make sure Tom and Ava are accepted by their community. Putting an old guard with a newbie so the fans don’t just skip that one and can get past the “who is this new person” reaction. But now I think they’re graduating out of training wheels, Tom has been killing it, and Tom and Ava have been doing podcasts with just them. So Matt and Quinn’s should be a thing that happens again sometime soon.
Also I can see Matt and Quinn’s being more involved with SUSD as a company too, like doing a lot of work on stuff that’s not public facing, so it might just be a time thing. I can absolutely see those two giving themselves the lion’s share of the workload.

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Tom has been killing it, and bringing back some of that youthful energy and optimistic naivety that I remember Quinns had back in the early years of SUSD.

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He’s kind of reminding me of early Matt Lee’s stuff. (Not to say that Matt has been making bad reviews, or that Tom is derivative in some fashion.) That ‘youthful energy’ is probably a really good way of describing it.

Could be worth updating Ava’s role, slightly? They’re on the podcast every week (almost?). I think I hear her voice more than anybody else’s at this point, alongside Tom.

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Ava has become my favourite podcast contributer, she’s great!

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I really enjoy Ava’s appearances on the live streams. The ones with Matt and Tom are great, but when Ava is on it really kicks it up a notch.

Tom has firmly cemented himself into the “my favourite reviewer spot”, which was previously occupied by Paul.

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