2021 Year in Review
Sunset on Delano Beach, Portunoidea, December 17 2021
Happy new year! If you’re new here, or just wondering what the heck we did in ‘21, here’s a quick recap with links!
The second year of the shut-in was an interesting and productive year for Crab Fragment Labs. We launched a Patreon, released several new and wonderful games, and filled the skies with buttercups and rainbows.
Crab Fragment on Patreon: Our Patreon campaign launched in January 2021, and we now have 22 active backers. Let’s double that number this year! If you’re a connoisseur of our free print-and-play games, Patreon is the best way to show that you appreciate Crab Fragment Labs, and want us to make more great things. For early warnings of new games on the way, and the occasional random freebie, you can become a backer for just $5 per month. Patreonize us today!
New Games: So many new games dropped this year. Fairmarket, Rochi, After the Fog, Agents of the Crown, Letter Boxing, Fist, Copper Creek, Vines. Most of these games can be purchased from DriveThruCards, but the board games are strictly print-and-play.
Short Fiction: Crab Fragment launched the Library page in ‘21, with a few examples of writing from James Ernest. This didn’t fill up as quickly as we had hoped, but James continues to throw letters at the page, looking for what sticks. Believe us, he wrote a lot of things this year that weren’t worth sharing. Leave a comment on one of his works, and perhaps he will find his muse again!
Articles: We’ve posted some brain drippings at the Lecture Hall, including Black Box Games (Ethics in gambling games); Designing Traditional Decks; Writing Effective Rules; Driving Games (French Toast et al); Developing Tak (a retrospective); and Graphic Design for Game Inventors (video).
Podcast: Every week, James Ernest and Kelly Wright record a half-hour podcast filed with trivia, current events, and a funny fake ad. You can listen to the cleaned-up audio mix on blubrry, or watch the janky raw video on YouTube.
Games from Friends: Also in ‘21, our friends and partners released games of the James Ernest variety. They included Everway (including two card games by James), Lords of Vegas (new expansions from Lone Shark Games), and Devil Bunny Needs a Ham from Greater than Games.
What’s New for ‘22? We have no idea, but many more great games are being cooked up right now. If we had tried to guess at the 2021 list at the start of the year, we’d have been way off (and we did, and we were). So please stay tuned, and if you’re not on our mailing list, please subscribe!
