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Cheapass Games On Being Cheap And Good 32

Posted by simoniker from the expensiveass-games-in-receivership dept.
Thanks to GameGirlAdvance for pointing to an OgreCave.com interview with James Ernest, the founder of noted low-price, high-fun board/card game makers Cheapass Games. As the interview notes, "With a mantra of 'Games: they cost too much, and they are at some level all the same', Cheapass virtually created the cheap games market, selling the boards and cards for their games packaged in white paper bags. Shortly after taking gamers by storm with Kill Doctor Lucky, Spree, and a number of humorous titles, James and Cheapass were being imitated right and left. What did it take to get where Cheapass is now, and how does the company plan to stay on top of the cheap games heap?" The interview also notes Cheapass' diversification into videogame publishing, putting out Digital Eel's titles, including Dr Blob's Organism.
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Cheapass Games On Being Cheap And Good More

Cheapass Games On Being Cheap And Good

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  • Strange Adventures in Infinite Space (Score:3, Interesting)

    by easychord ( 671421 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @01:53PM (#6267919)
    I downloaded the demo of this a while ago enjoyed it for a couple of hours and forgot about it.

    I'm sure that if I saw it in a shop for about 7 GBP / 10 USD I would have bought it and would have been happy with it.

    Gaming needs a company like cheapass games putting out good or indifferent games by small indy development teams. And getting them in shops, these things should be impulse buys.
    • I love this game. I played the heck out of the demo and when i bought the full game (which they got to me in just a couple days) I play it even more. For those that don't know its a space exploration game tht is designed to be playable in less than 20 minutes. It has replaced solitare and minesweeper as my short coffebreak game.

  • Devil Bunny (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BigDork1001 ( 683341 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @01:56PM (#6267932) Homepage
    Devil Bunny Needs a Ham [cheapass.com] is one of the most fun games I've ever played.

    There's nothing like having some friends over, having some beer and playing Devil Bunny. And the best part, it costs $2.50.

  • This reminds me of when Magic first appeared, before it went through its incredible poplular phase. It was cheap at $7-8 for a start box and maybe $2 for a booster pack. Cheap compared to video games (until rampant speculation made a Black Lotus a $300 card.) It was social as well, whether you were teaching someone to play or a trick you had discovered, discussing the artwork or working out a trade. And it was fun, playing with either one friend or many, or even in a tournament. It nice to see somethin
  • Many sites have tried to copy the Cheapass business plan, some well and some poorly. One of the other good ones is Alien Menace [alien-menace.com] who have a growing selection of games of above average quality. I particularly like Sucking Vacuum and Election Day, but would suggest against Danger Guy.
    • I've never played any Cheapass games, but I'm going to have to give them a try soon. The sense of fun radiates like a cheap nuclear reactor, from the titles, to the description, to the wonky interviews James Earnest gives. ("Earnest"? Is that his real name?) It's one thing to duplicate the business plan, but when your competition is having this much fun, I doubt if you can duplicate the business.

  • Cream of the Crop (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:22PM (#6268326) Homepage Journal
    I own most of the Cheapass titles, and would seriously suggest the following (a * denotes a must have :) ):
    Deadwood (with all 4 expansions)
    Freeloader
    *Kill Doctor Lucky
    Spree!

    Any X BRAWL decks, X being at least 1 more than the number of gamers in your group
    *Change!
    *Falling
    Any X FightBall deck pairs, X being at least 2
    Fight City
    *Girl Genius: The Works
    Give Me The Brain
    Starbase Jeff

    *Cube Farm
    *Nexus
    The Very Clever Pipe Game
    Any X Button Men, X being as with BRAWL
    *Diceland: Deep White Sea
    The other 3 Diceland sets

    Assuming X is 3 in all cases, this full list will set you back about $230, plus $25 for the bits pack. If you go for just the *s then for a mere $60 (plus bits) you will have a collection of 7 (or more, Change! is really 3 games) games that will last you through any trip or boring delay, and be more portable than a single Monopoly box.

    • Re:Cream of the Crop (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
      One point to note is that the price of the games does NOT reflect the level of fun youll have. I have spent more time playing Change! in the car with friends on road trips than I will ever spend playing most other games. The higher priced games generally are distinguished by having multi-colored cards with real artwork. If youre a real Cheapass you can get a dozen games for less than $50, including Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack which is actually about 30 different games, ranging from using just dice to

    • Re:Cream of the Crop (Score:3, Informative)

      by FFFish ( 7567 )
      You *can not* not have "Give Me the Brain". It's the second-best card game in existence (the best being the game of "Bartog", which has a Calvinball set of rules.)

      The new full-colour laminated deck for GMtB is awesome. Expensive, but with forty new cards, including some that introduce some hilarious new modes of play. It's even more challenging and, at the same time, more silly.
      • "Bartog" is very cool - also known as "Bartok" and "Warthog" (I learned it as Bartok). Very evil game by the time you're playing at 4am and have rules for every suit, number and colour, and massive extra penalties for getting anything wrong. My favourite rule to add is the Librarian rule - when a certain type of card (e.g. Aces, Threes, Clubs) is played, whoever played it can only say "Ook" and "Eek" until someone else plays that type of card.

        And for the more rules-lawyerly types, there's a game called
    • Got to play it last friday with a bunch of friends. The only bad thing about some of the Cheapass Games is that with many of the games there's a strategy that will almost always let you win.

  • And dont forget the FREE games! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Sunday June 22, 2003 @03:30PM (#6268381) Homepage Journal
    Including the following choice selection, which I am sure we have all thought of before but never written down rules for:

    CEILING FAN BASEBALL

    For 2 or more players

    Equipment:

    One (1) piece of paper

    One (1) ceiling fan

    Some furniture

    A basic understanding of the rules of baseball (without the complicated parts like the ground rule double and when to spit your tobacco)

    Setup:

    1) Wad up the paper into a ball.

    2) Divide the players up into two teams.

    3) Turn on the ceiling fan to maximum speed.

    4) If you like to make this kind of thing official before starting (i.e., you don't trust your friends), determine exactly which pieces of furniture constitute which kinds of hits. (see below)

    The Rules:

    The team throwing the "ball" at the fan is on Offense. The specific person throwing is The Batter. A given at-bat goes like this:

    The batter throws the ball at, or over and into, the ceiling fan...

    * If the ball passes through the fan without being hit by the blades, the attempt is a strike.

    * If the ball is nicked by the blades (i.e., you can hear it), but otherwise just drops through, it is a foul.

    * If the ball is hit by the fan... it's a hit! The result depends on where the ball lands:

    * If it lands on the floor, the batter is out. Pop fly, grounder to the shortstop, something like that.

    * If it lands -- and stays on top of -- on a piece of furniture, then the result depends on the height and size of the surface, as per the following section (or whatever works for your players).

    Scoring a hit:

    Single -- Furniture which is about knee-high or lower with a sizable surface. Coffee table, sofa, easy chair, etc.

    Double -- Doubles are scored on taller (waist-high) or smaller surfaces, often places like the top of the sofa's backrest or the top of the TV.

    Triple -- High and/or slim surfaces such as the mantle of the fireplace, enclosed areas like one level of a bookshelf, or maybe a large-ish container like the trashcan.

    Home Run! -- All those places that make people incredulous that the ball just landed there. Tops of lamps, inside hanging plant pots, the tippy-top of the tallest bookshelf. The kitchen sink. The floor two rooms away. That sort of thing.

    The Rest:

    Pretty much, it works like standard baseball from here on out. Each team has three outs before the next is up. Someone needs to keep track of where runners are located. Assume that runners advance the same number of bases as the batter when there's a hit (i.e., a runner on second advances home when the batter gets a double). Nine innings may or may not be the proper amount of innings -- I've found that outs tend to be common enough that games are quick and low-scoring, but I also only have one ceiling fan/room configuration worth of playtesting. Hey, what do you expect? It's a dumb game! I should have better things to do with my time!

    Chris Floyd

    chrisf@vr1.com

  • Zombies and fast food (Score:4, Informative)

    by wrexsoul ( 48981 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @04:10PM (#6268590) Homepage
    There is a series of games available at cheap-ass games that explores something everyone can relate to- the drudgery of food service, where the workers are literally zombies. By far my favorite is Give Me the Brain [cheapass.com], in which you have to try to finish all of your tasks so you can go home. However, there's only one brain to go around all of the employees, and some tasks (though hardly all) require it to be completed. I'm sure you can get the gist of it from their product description.

    Anyway, if you like shouting "Braiiinnnn" a lot, which I always do, this is a great party game. In addition to being fun and having relatively simple rules, this game is hilarious. If you can't make zombies funny, though, you're obviously not trying.
    • I'm pretty sure they'll be seeing a lawsuit over this soon. The idea of "only one brain in the whole damn place" is obviously stolen from either SCO or possibly the RIAA...

  • The problem with Cheapass games (Score:3, Insightful)

    by k8to ( 9046 ) on Sunday June 22, 2003 @04:37PM (#6268741) Homepage
    The problem with Cheapass games is that.. well.. they're rather cheapass. They're really just not that good as games.

    Most cheapass games are strong on the humour and theme department, but somewhat weak on the actual gameplay. They're typically a fair amount of fun for two or three plays, but after that they get dull and are no longer interesting to play. They often suffer from poor balancing issues and players may not have any chance to win or have much effect on the game. Some of them, despite these flaws, are certainly worth playing, but I cringe at the thought of buying a cheapass game without playing it first, as I'll probably just end up throwing it out or giving it away.

    The contention that these games are just as good as full production games like Medina or LÃwenhurz and so on is wrongheaded to say the least.
    • Exactly how many of these games have you actually played? I've played Bitin' Off Hedz, Kill Dr. Lucky, and particularly love Girl Genius: The Works (btw go read up on GG, it's a great comic [studiofoglio.com]). Neither myself nor any of the coplayers noticed any "weak gameplay", we just had a great time.

      • As I said the first time around, they usually are fun for a few plays, but not a lot more, so it largely depends upon how many times through a given game you travel.

        That said, Bitin' Off Hedz is pretty lousy. It scales badly, being dull with few and taking far too long with a big group. Few decisions, simple interaction, and plodding pacing add up to a dud. Don't take my word for it though, Plenty of other people [boardgamegeek.com] think it's terrible too. Scroll down to see the schocking large number of 1 votes, which

        • Bitin Off Hedz: There is, as far as I know, one way to play this game and enjoy it, and that is to use gummi dinos for pawns so that you really can bite off their hedz.

          Girl Genius appeals to the same mentality as Bejeweled (AKA Diamond Mine), only competitive and a little more difficult. Strangely enough, even though it looks wonky and plays weird, a lot of people pick up on it on a subconcious level. You definitely feel smarter for playing it, though.

          Never ran into the absentia player syndrome in KDL.

          • Never ran into the absentia player syndrome in KDL. Probably depends a lot on somebody just not bothering to finish their own turn (Like in Monopoly: There's no reason your turn should last longer than 1 minute. It's roll & move, buy or not, trade or not.)

            Did you actually read the rules? In Kill Doctor Lucky, between each turn, the Doctor moves. If the doctor enters a room containing a player, that turn goes to that player. (If multiple players are present the one is selected around the table in

  • "You four are calculating how to divide the cost of a CheapAss game?!"

    Yes, I'm serious. Actually, I have been truly impressed by CheapAss games. Ben Hurt is awesome, especially with Gladiator running in the background and a couple of six packs of Corona Extra in the foreground. :)

  • ... in the late 1970's and early '80s, there was a company called Metagaming which had a line of "Microgames" with a usual price tag of $2.95. The company is long gone, although a couple of its titles were rescued by their designer, Steve Jackson, when he formed his own game company (modestly named Steve Jackson Games), which caried on that kind of pricing for a while, but not currently. (Those rescued titles were "Ogre" and "G.E.V.", about future tank warfare, with cyber-tanks similar to Keith Laumer's B
    • The only trouble with Metagaming's Microgames line was the use of about a hundred tiny little square cardboard tokens, about 1cm^2 each.

      That and the maps were printed on flimsy paper, heavily creased (so that they had trouble lying flat unless you covered them with a sheet of clear acrylic or glass), and just plain ugly.
  • A couple of weeks ago, I was a LinCon [sverok.net] (RPG/board/cardgame convention) here in Sweden and played Cheapass Games' BRAWL for the first time.

    For the uninitiated, this is a card game played in real time. One round lasts for about sixty seconds, and then you're stressed as hell.

    So, me and my friend sat down and was introduced to BRAWL. We found it exilarating! The fast-paced, constantly changing gameplay was really neat.
    Anyway, we played it for about twenty minutes, and were dead-tired by the time thy yelled "t
  • Cheapass just "rediscovered" what Microgames did 20 years ago. Ogre/Gev/Wizard/Melee were all famous for originally being microgames in a cheap container, costs like $3-4.

    I'm not bashing cheapass, though I generally think the games aren't as good as the old microgames. I'm just pointing out they didn't create the niche.

  • including Dr Blob's Organism.

    C'mon!! I know I'm not the only one that saw Dr. Blob's Orgasm. Now that's what I'd call entertainment.

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