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Cheapass Games makes a lot of different products, so it takes more than just one set of opinions to really tell you which games are the best. The Staff Picks page has top-five lists from everyone at Cheapass Games, from president and lead designer James Ernest to Prince the Cardboard Monkey. Staff Picks: James Ernest While I'm tempted to write up the five games we make the most money on, I'm going to focus instead on the five games I like to play: Deadwood, Girl Genius: The Works, Diceland, Fightball, and Flip, from Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack. Deadwood (Out of Print): Co-designed by Rick Fish, Deadwood is probably my favorite of the Cheapass boxed games. It's a fun, meaty, and strategic little board game about making money as a movie extra. A player recently told me that he has worked as movie extra and Deadwood is right on the money. I wrote the expansions to help compensate for a slight advantage that the "stay small" strategy has in the basic game, so if you're going to play Deadwood I highly recommend mixing in the expansion decks. Girl Genius: The Works. This game is based on a puzzle game I wrote for Phil Foglio in 1996, the XXXenophile trading card game. We reintroduced it as Girl Genius: The Works because I thought the game needed more players. I like the puzzle mechanic and I think this game has a great mix of strategy and luck: enough luck that anyone can win, and enough strategy that better players win more often. As two-player strategy games go, this game (in either form) is my favorite. Diceland: Diceland is a tabletop combat game featuring equal parts strategy, luck, and dexterity. The last element throws off some gamers, who want to win a game exclusively with their enormous brains, but I get a kick out of being able to physically whack a die when I don't like what it's showing. Diceland was a lot of work and still has a lot of potential and the new Dragons and Cyburg sets are a great place for a new player to start. Fightball: Before we started Lone Shark Games, Mike Selinker and I co-designed this card game about a bizarre future sport called Fightball. It's a real-time card game, like BRAWL but a bit more advanced. Players have to construct piles of cards in the right order: player, ball, and shot. The secret to winning this game is to sacrifice perfect play for speed. To paraphrase David Mamet, a good play today is better than a perfect play tomorrow. Flip: I have a fondness for Flip, a free game from the Cheapass Site and also one of the smaller games in Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack (Out of Print). It proves once again that there's more to a 6-sided die than just a number on the top. In Flip, both players have 5 dice, and they can either flip their own dice over or force their opponents to play dice into the Pot, from which they can take dice that add up to less than the die they put in. It's a change-making dice game with unique strategies and unexpected depth, considering that all you need is ten 6-sided dice. - back to top - People send me ideas for games, and I throw them away. This keeps James Ernest free to design funny games. I do not like them if they are not funny. So here is my list of my favorite games of Cheapass Games, which are the funny ones. They are Deadwood, The Big Idea, Give Me The Brain, Unexploded Cow, and Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition. Deadwood (Out of Print): James likes it too. It is funny. You get to play roles like "falls off roof" and "feller in irons," even if you're on a movie in outer space. I just wish James would find the time to release a few more Deadwood expansions, so to this end I will try harder to keep his desk clear of game submissions. The Big Idea: In this game you get to make products out of random collections of cards, like "evaporated pants" and "cardboard monkey." Okay, these are not actually products from the game, but I will not spoil it for you. The Big Idea is a sleeper hit, and if you have not played it you have not lived. Give Me The Brain: This is the original Zombie game, and the funniest. You get your tongue stuck to the floor. You get your head stuck in the toilet. All because there's one brain to pass around and someone's dropped it on the floor. If you've ever worked in fast food or visited a fast food restaurant or even seen a documentary about fast food restaurants and wondered what it might be like to one day go to one, this game is a hoot. Unexploded Cow: Aside from the emails I must answer from offended cows who think this game is really about them, I love everything about Unexploded Cow. You get to blow up cows and make money off it, and you get to visit the twelve most funny sounding places in France. Mike O'Connor's art is hilarious, with the pigs fighting the cows in WWI, and so on. I can't believe James almost called this game "Cordon Rouge." Unexploded Cow is funnier! Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Expedition (Out of Print): I don't play this game. I just read it. I guess it's a game about going on adventures and telling tall tales about them, but the flavor text on the cards is worth the price of the game all by itself. "Freezing to death is a harsh mistress." I cannot describe it without laughing out loud. And I am a cardboard monkey! See for yourself. Once you read it, try playing it too. It might not be too bad. - back to top - Toivo Rovainen, Warehouse Goblin and Spiritual Advisor Here are Toivo's favorite games. They were culled from pages of illegible
scratchings, discovered under his desk on a rare sick day. Because he
knows all the games by their stock number, rather than their name, we
have listed both for your convenience and to give you a glimpse into
his tortured soul. In order of stock number, Toivo's favorite games are: 001 KDL (Kill Doctor Lucky) (Out of Print): "Nothing helps me unwind after a long day at the summer cons like crowds of people attempting to murder me twice a day, every day. 'You love me! You really, really love me!'" (Toivo plays Doctor Lucky in the live-action version, which we feature at Origins and Gen Con every year. Come kill him this summer!) 005 Spree: "My favorite games involve running around hitting people. With 003 BH (Ben Hvrt) out of print, this is the next best high-velocity violence boardgame. Plus it has my artwork smeared all over it." (Ben Hvrt is actually still available as a PDF download from rpgnow.com, but what Toivo doesn't know won't hurt him.) 031 WT (Witch Trial) (Out of Print): By the time the first pair of lawyers had gone through the evidence, we were all crammed into a rattletrap Wright Flyer delivering letters to blind orphans in Guatemala. I am so very grateful that Reagan appointed me to the bench instead of the rabid Rottweiler favored by the Senate. (Again, we think Toivo is referring to a live action version of Witch Trial, which he hosts at summer conventions. But the tabletop version is just as compelling.) 402 Mozek (Dej Sem Mozek, the Czech language edition of Give Me The Brain): "All the yummy wet pink goodness of 525 GMtB (Give Me the Brain, color edition) and it's in Czech! Prague is gorgeous and so are these cards. Double your RDA of Zombie biotin. Some settling may have occurred in shipping. Employees will please wash hands after using facilities. Probable mucosal damage may contraindicate the use of gastric lavage. Dilute, Dilute, OK!" (Okay, although Toivo likes it, it's not in color, so it doesn't technically have all the yummy wet pink goodness of Brain, especially since it's yellow. But it really is in Czech, and apparently he really likes it.) 517-519 CF (BRAWL: Catfight): "BRAWL is my favorite con demo game. As John Cataldo says, "Two minutes to learn, a minute to play." (I) Love it even though (I) usually lose. You can run an entire tournament while you're waiting in line to buy Diceland: OGRE. Besides, they're legal (in cat years)." - back to top - |
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