Greetings!

Hello, friends of Cheapass Games. We have so much to tell you!

As you know, Crab Fragment Labs is James Ernest’s game design studio, while Cheapass Games is mostly a large catalog of out-of-print games living under the same roof. We’re carefully consolidating the audiences of Cheapass Games and Crab Fragment Labs, to help those brands quietly squish back together into a single space.

While we negotiate the details of this quiet squishing, we wanted to tell you about some new games in both places, while they slowly become the same place again.

News From the Lab

Linos: James Ernest has created a new classic abstract game, Linos, “the game of twelve stones.” You can read the beta rules and make your own set right now, and soon you will be able to play a web version crafted by the crafty Greg Whitehead.

Tomb of the Ancients: New this summer is our simple puzzle-based archaeology board game Tomb of the Ancients. It’s only available in print-and-play form right now, but we do expect to have a final version ready before the end of the year.

The Harvest: A compact and clever strategy card game, The Harvest has just 36 cards in the deck, but plenty to think about! This game is still just print-and-play at the moment, while we tinker with the details and decide the best way to fit 36 cards into a 54-card tuck box.

And More! Crab Fragment Labs have posted new versions Shipwrights of Marino, Whispers, and many others. If you haven’t checked the lab in a while, you should also look for new content at the Pub, the Library, and the Lecture Hall.

News on the Cheap

Bitin’ Off Hedz: James Ernest has posted a new How to Play video for the 25th Anniversary Edition of Bitin’ Off Hedz. This game has been a dino-huge success at every event this summer, and we hope you’ll try it out soon!

Gunfight Rules: An ancient game from James Ernest and Paul Peterson has returned at the Crab Fragment Pub: Gunfight at the Pretty Good Corral is a standard-deck game about rootin’ tootin’ gunslingers, taking aim and taking names. This game was first published in GAMES Magazine in 1998, and it never got into any of the Cheapass Games collections. Now it’s back from the dead!

Fightopia Rules: Another lost game returns. Fightopia is a pure abstract game about fightin’ robots, a magazine game by Mike Selinker and James Ernest from the early 2000’s. Fightopia is played on a chessboard, using some pieces larger than a single square, and like Gunfight it never made it into any of the Cheapass collections. You can also find a link to Fightopia at The Pub.

Link for a Friend

Lumberjack Games Kickstarter

Our friends at Prolific Games are Kickstartering two new Lumberjack-themed games right now, and today is the final day! Flapjacks and Sasquatches is a fan favorite game series, and this campaign introduces a new dice version, as well as the new game Lumberjacks and Rocket Launchers.

James Ernest didn’t design any of these games, but he did help with the graphic design for the Flapjacks and Sasquatches dice game.

This industry is one big family, so we always do what we can to help each other. The campaign ends tomorrow, so please check it out today!

Join Our Gaming Family

Crab Fragment Labs is a tiny little design studio on an imaginary tropical island, and Cheapass Games is a huge catalog of out-of-print games by the same designer. While we offer many of our games for sale, most of them are also free.

You can help us stay afloat and bring more games into the world by making a purchase from our web store, or by becoming a backer on Patreon.

Thanks for supporting Cheapass Games.