The World Has Changed.

James Ernest and Crab Fragment Labs are pleased to announce that we have regained total ownership of Cheapass Games.

More than two years ago, Crab Fragment issued a cryptic “Cheapass is coming home” newsletter when this change seemed imminent. That turned out to be a false alarm, as the offer was made by someone whose job no longer included making such offers.

But now at last, Flat River Group have signed off on a rescission of the licensing contract, which means all Cheapass IP is now squarely back under our control.

With their permission, we had already been hosting old PDFs and posting a few updated decks at Crab Fragment, mostly made around the time when we thought the change was coming. But this time it’s for real, and it’s huge for us.

What This Means

In the short term, we will be scattered. Crab Fragment Labs was already bristling with new games, having created more than fifty new titles since 2019. Now we have tripled our inventory, and we’re rearranging our workload around the updated list.

Cheapass Games has always been dismayed with the cost of board games, and we plan to make a large chunk of the old catalog available for free. Not just the “original” PDF versions, as we have now at Cheapassic Park, but also all-new PDFs featuring old-style presentation with updated rules.

We’ll put the latest versions of our favorite Cheapass card games at DriveThruCards. Games like Lord of the Fries, Give Me The Brain, Button Men, the Spy Game, and more. We even have a few unreleased expansions, from back when we were still in charge.

This work will take time. Please stick with us as we unpack all these imaginary boxes, and let us know if there’s something you’d like to see.

New Videos

KublaCon Travel Short: James Ernest was happy to share the news above with friends at KublaCon two weeks ago, and you can witness their delight in this travel video.

How to Play Sandy Diggs: One of the standout games in the new catalog, Sandy Diggs is a lightweight puzzle game about archaeology and adventure. This How to Play video is brand new today.

The Modern Rogue Plays Tak: Such timing! One of the biggest games in our catalog is Tak, A Beautiful Game, and the Modern Rogue recently posted a fantastic video about it. We are already actively pursuing avenues to get this classic game back into print.

What Happens Next?

We are trying to figure out exactly how to integrate James Ernest’s old brands with his new ones, redesigning the web presence as we work on migrating trademark registrations and URLs.

This mailing list has always been for fans of Cheapass Games and Crab Fragment Labs, so not much changes here. We expect Cheapass Games to be our main publishing imprint, while Crab Fragment Labs still represents the design studio. We also have additional brands to manage including Hip Pocket Games and James Ernest Games.

We enjoy creating, but we’re not thrilled about manufacturing. So we’ll be looking for new publishers for our most popular games. But anything is possible, and we’re looking into everything, so keep your eyes on this newsletter for more developments as they develop.

And as always, thanks for subscribing, and please help us share the news. Tell your friends about Cheapass Games, and about their new old home at Crab Fragment Cay.