Starbase Jeff
You can learn a lot about a guy when you shoot him into space.
A guy like Starbase Jeff.
Back home, Jeff Tuttle was a humble shareware programmer, content to while away the hours writing code and drawing cute little goblins. But put him in charge of a deep space construction firm, and look out.
Jeff took to his new job like a lungfish to mud, and pretty soon he was raking in the cash, making shady back-door deals, and swearing like the crew of the Bounty. All in the name of money, sweet money.
What drives a decent human being to such desperate acts of greed? What transforms him from a sweet-natured pussycat into the larcenous, whining, squinting, bewhiskered old coot we knew as Starbase Jeff?
The world may never know.
Starbase Jeff is a classic Cheapass Game about building a space station. The rules have remained pretty much unchanged since its very first edition in 1998.
Each player has a deck of 20 square tiles. On each turn, players simultaneously select one card from their hand, and these are revealed together. The cards will be attached to the space station in priority order, but there’s a catch. If you duplicated someone else’s card, both players have to skip their turn.
The cards you can’t play become “deferred,” and you can play them all together the next time you get a turn. This is often exactly what you want, since building a bunch of cards together can be much more profitable.
Each card you build costs money to the pot, except for endcaps, which pay you back. The goal is to play the very last endcap, closing off the station and opening it for business. This move will earn you the entire pot.
Starbase Jeff is quick, clever, and fun. And now it’s available in a new colo-tinted edition from our web store.
Buy Starbase Jeff from our web store (color decks coming soon)
Download the print-and-play version (black and white PDF)
Starbase Jeff Rules (2014 PDF)
The Story on This Edition
Cheapass Games has placed a lot of our games at DriveThruCards, where ordering our games is convenient and easy. But DriveThru doesn’t make square cards, so Starbase Jeff has always been a bit of a challenge.
We’ve printed our new edition on full sheets (also at DriveThru) and cut them at home, to provide you with the best version of this game that a small press can create. The downside is that you can only order it from our web store. The upside is that we include the rules, something DriveThru can’t do!
The original artwork for Starbase Jeff was just one color, printed on different colors of cardstock. Yes, that’s how long this game has been around. Back then we collated those games by hand, sorting four colors into each envelope. And so, the game was rated for only four players.
Now we’ve included a total of six colors (with suits also, for color-blind players), since the game plays well with up to six players.
You’ll need your own money (poker chips are ideal). If you need a link to some really great micro poker chips, check out our favorites from Discount Poker Shop.
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