2025 Year in Review

I don’t write many blog posts these days, because I have been posting more videos. But I thought perhaps, as the year draws to a close, I’d write a bit of a recap of 2025, and make some guesses about what comes next.

The biggest event of this year was that Crab Fragment Labs reclaimed the rights to the Cheapass Games catalog. This change comes with a lot of interesting wrinkles, and I’m still not sure what it means.

Some History

The history of Cheapass is complicated, and most of it is written elsewhere. But most importantly, in 2019 Carol and I signed a buyer for Cheapass Games, because we didn’t want to be publishers anymore. We sold them every scrap in our warehouse, and they agreed to make some more games and pay us royalties.

I set up Crab Fragment Labs as a new design studio. And there, we figured, things would stay.

The new owners struggled to understand the Cheapass brand, and overall they found themselves stretched too thin. Eventually, thanks to Covid and other factors, they sold out to a new owner, with Cheapass included.

In the spring of 2025, the new owners ceased production on the entire product line, and soon after we convinced them to release the Cheapass catalog back to us. Our brand was in rough shape, having drifted aimlessly for years, and now we’re trying to figure out the best way to bring it back.

Managing Cheapass Games

Between Crab Fragment and Cheapass Games, I am now sitting on more than 200 titles. This is an impressive list, the product of 30 years of rapid-fire game development. Maintaining the old catalog could become a full-time job all by itself. So I need to choose where to spend my energy

Carol and I don’t really want to run another crowdfunding campaign, unless we have no other options. Manufacturing is weird right now, and there’s no telling what things are going to cost.

For now, I’m looking for publishers to pick up my S-tier titles: Kill Doctor Lucky, Tak, Unexploded Cow, and a few others. Licensing the whole kit didn’t work out very well, because we ended up wanting to develop little things that they controlled but didn’t care about. So now we’re back to licensing one game at a time.

I’m pleased that many publishers have different favorites in the catalog. We’re working on a few deals, but we don’t have anything solid yet. This is frustrating because I’d really like to let people know what we’re doing.

Meanwhile I’m trying to imagine what Cheapass Games looks like today.

What we Accomplished in 2025

I went to sixteen events this year. I posted recap videos for many of them, and also posted a bunch of new games (and game updates, and How to Play videos, and more).

We now have two shops at DriveThruCards: Cheapass Games is for the older products, and Crab Fragment Labs is for the newer ones. We’re not sure how long this split will last, but for now it helps us keep the brands separate.

In a drive to get our products up at DriveThruCards on a regular schedule, we introduced the $32 Coconut Crab level on Patreon, basically a mini-subscription that gets you a new product every few weeks. So far we’ve shipped Before I Kill You, Mister Spy; Get Lucky; and Girl Genius: The Works. Meat on Swords is en route right now.

One major development in 2025 was the introduction of physical products to our web store. Starting with some handmade wooden game components, we’ve branched out into various games and other accessories that still lingered in our basement.

I’ve been surprised and delighted at the popularity of my wooden game boards, and I wish I could make them faster. I’m looking into ways to make some other components, such as Tak and Linos sets, to add to the store next year.

Plans for 2026

Crab Fragment Labs will continue to maintain, preserve, and update the games of the Cheapass catalog, keeping them available as free PDFs (that you can pay for, if you like). I’ve started upgrading some of the simplest free games at the Ready Room, with the plan of someday consolidating them into a book.

This year I’d also like to create three completely new Cheapass titles, starting with Meat on Swords. These won’t go into distribution, unless a larger publisher picks them up, but they will be available for sale both on DriveThruCards and via our web store. I’m looking at games that can be made cheaply, and in small quantities, for which players can provide their own basic components. This is similar to the earliest days of Cheapass Games.

Meat on Swords is a press-your-luck game based on Lord of the Fries. It’s set at Carnespadas, an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse, which is why a menu-driven game never quite worked. Our Coconut Crabs are receiving their copies of this game right now, and it’ll be available for sale in mid-January.

Next up is probably Bad Assassin. I hope to finish this game by May. It’s a map-based game, using one of our 6-suited decks (The Island Deck). You’ve probably seen me testing it in recent videos. To play Bad Assassin you just need the deck, the board, some pawns, pencils, and paper. We will create a Spy-Themed Island deck, the Spyland Deck, to go with the board.

I like thinking about single-deck and single-page games for Cheapass. I’m working on some map-only games, including Too Many Notes, a game about being a composer in Vienna, and Happy Day, a Devil Bunny theme park adventure. I’d also like to do an update of Spree! But I can’t promise too much, because they are not even close to ready, and I hate promising stuff that isn’t ready.

I also have a couple of secret single-deck games in the works, designed for a publisher who hasn’t picked them up, which I hope to add to the catalog this year. We’re also working on a poker deck game called Hard Pass that you’ll learn more about in the next few weeks. I was going to use the Dead Money zombie art for this game, but that art might be lost forever!

Along with releaseing new Cheapass Games here, I’m also pitching games (old and new) to big publishers, waiting breathlessly for the day when I can tell you more. A game like Cold Comfort, for example, is hard to issue as a print-and-play, because it has several specialized pieces: custom cards, hotel tiles, etc. It’s a better candidate for a manufacturer who makes big games.

Is this a lot? Yes.

As I’ve done for many years, I am headed to at least one gaming convention every month, give or take. I do the bulk of my testing and my licensing business at these shows. And when I’m not traveling, I have some new video projects, book projects, and other side quests that will keep me very busy indeed.

I’m still feeling a bit scattered, even after several months of having my full catalog back. We’re calling this “Phase Five” of Cheapass Games, if you’re counting. Cheapass smashed into Crab Fragment Labs when it was already running at full steam. It’s a beautiful sight, like any train wreck, and will surely provide entertainment and challenges for many years to come.

Thanks for being a participant in this grand experiment, or at least an observer, and please let me know what you’d like to see next!