Cheapass Games
Cheapass Games is a game company founded and run by former Wizards of the Coast game designer James Ernest.
Cheapass Games operates on the philosophy that most game owners have plenty of dice, counters, play money, etc., so there is no need to bundle all of these components with every game that requires them. Cheapass Games thus come with the absolute minumum components necessary to play the game - a typical Cheapass board game may include a rules sheet and a printed playing board. This allows the company to produce games for prices well below the market average.
Cheapass's low-cost philosophy also applies to the games themselves - some are little more a set of instructions and a game board printed on card stock with playing cards banded by magazine-cutout "sleeves" and packaged in a white envelope. Recently, Cheapass has started offering some higher-quality, full color games under the "James Ernest Games" brand.
Cheapass Games and James Ernest have won several awards for game design including the 2002 Origins Award for best play-by-mail game (Buttonmen Web Game), the 2002 Origins Vanguard Award (Diceland), the 1997 Origins Award for best abstract board game (Kill Doctor Lucky), the 1997 Origins Award for best traditional card game (Give Me the Brain), and the coveted 2003 Spud des Jahres award for most over priced game (Pennywise).
List of Cheapass Games
Several of the older games are out of print but are offered for free by Cheapass as what they term "orderware": the cards, rules, or other game materials may be downloaded for free, and Cheapass requests that if the recipient likes the game he order ten dollars worth of other game materials from the company.
- Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond (reissued in 2004 as James Ernest's Totally Renamed Spy Game)
- Ben Hurt (An out of print game involving betting and chariot races)
- The Big Idea (A game involving venture capitalism and marketing)
- Biting Off Hedz (A simple game of dinosaurs and rocks)
- Bleeding Sherwood (An out of print game with a Robin Hood theme. Available for download)
- BRAWL (A real-time card game)
- Button Men (A collectable button-and-dice game, sold in sets of two buttons)
- Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition (A game of faking travels)
- The Chief Herman games:
- Deadwood (A game of bad actors)
- The Devil Bunny games:
- Devil Bunny Needs a Ham (A game of buildings and Devil Bunny)
- Devil Bunny Hates the Earth (A game of squirrels, taffy machines, and Devil Bunny)
- Diceland (A collectable cardboard dice game. Multiple sets)
- The Doctor Lucky games:
- Kill Doctor Lucky (A game of killing and not being seen)
- Kill Doctor Lucky—Craigdarroch (Another place to kill)
- Save Doctor Lucky (A game of saving and being seen)
- Save Doctor Lucky on Moon Base Copernicus (Another place to save)
- Escape from Elba (An out of print game of many d6 and spelling weapons)
- Falling( An out of print real time game about falling to your death)
- Fightball (A real-time card game about a futuristic sport) designed with Mike Selinker.
- Fight City (A trading card game of gangs and cards)
- Freeloader (A game about borrowing all that you can)
- The Friedey's games:
- Give Me the Brain (A game of zombies and their jobs)
- Dej Sem Mozek (A game of zombies and their jobs-- IN CZECH!)
- Lord of the Fries (A game of zombies and fast food orders)
- Change! (A game of zombies and money)
- The Great Brain Robbery (A game of zombies and train robbery)
- Get Out (A game of finding work)
- Girl Genius (A game of Phil Foglio's Girl Genius comic)
- The Grave Robber games:
- Parts Unknown (An out of print game of mad scientists and economics)
- Renfield (An out of print game that plays like a combination of Poker and Hearts. Available for download)
- The Hip Pocket games:
- Agora (A game of market stalls)
- The Big Cheese (A small bidding game featuring mice and dice)
- Cube Farm (A game of cubicle layout)
- Light Speed (A real-time card game about mining spaceships)
- Nexus (A game of nodes)
- Safari Jack (A game of tracking animals)
- Steam Tunnel (A game of tunnel control)
- Timeline (A game of time travel)
- The Very Clever Pipe Game (A game of connecting pipes)
- Huzzah! (A game of Renaissance Fairs. Available for download)
- Jacob Marley (A game of loans)
- James Ernest's Totally Renamed Spy Game (Formerly "Before I Kill You, Mr. Bond"; a game of attracting interesting people to your lair, then killing them)
- James Ernest Writes Off Another Trip to VEGAS (An out of print game of casinos and cheating)
- Landyland (A promotional game using Magic: The Gathering's basic lands)
- Mana Burn (A promotional game using Magic: The Gathering cards)
- The One False Step games:
- One False Step for Mankind (A game of getting to the moon)
- One False Step Home (A game of getting back from the moon)
- Punch Cards (A game for conventions)
- Spree! (A game of firearms and larceny)
- Starbase Jeff (An out of print game of gambling in space)
- The Cheapass Album (Not a game, but as the title suggests, a music CD by Beatnik Turtle based on Cheapass' games)
- U.S. Patent Number 1 (A game of time racing and patents)
- Unexploded Cow (A game of marching mad cows through bomb fields)
- Witch Trial (A game of burning the innocent at the stake)