Over the last year, we’ve been developing a great relationship with Cheapass Games. They donated games to last year’s fundraiser. And many of you jumped into the Pairs Kickstarter we ran earlier this year.
Today, here they are again, stomping out and donating a bunch of cool games.
We’re putting all these games in the lottery, because we here at Worldbuilders have the firm belief that anyone can love a Cheapass Games game, even if you’re not generally into boardgames (or much of a cheapass). Many of these games you can pick up and learn in 5-10 minutes.
So check out the game descriptions below and ask yourself, “How is this a game? What would it be like to play this?” Once you play them, the only questions on your mind will be, “Why is this so freaking fun?” and “Can we play it again?”
- Deadwood Studios
The art for this game was done by the awesome Phil Foglio and Cheyenne Wright, which is reason enough to love it. To top it all off, it’s a great game for goofing off with your friends. Can you act badly? Can you act like you act badly? Do you like having fun? Then Deadwood Studios.
Amanda plays it a lot with her friends, and she gushed about it (and some other Cheapass Games) over on the Worldbuilders Blog.
Amanda says:
When I play Deadwood Studios with my friends and family, we go all out. The concept behind the game is that you’re new actors vying for parts in movies while Deadwood Studios films a hundred different movies on their sound stages. You need to practice your lines, perform them accurately, and pay off the Casting Director for better parts.
And it’s awesome. It brings out all of the goofy in people as they have to recite lines like “Dead Guy: …..” to get their points. Plus, the art is by Phil Foglio and Cheyenne Wright. There’s no way you can have a bad time while looking at that.
I wouldn’t argue with her, folks. It sounds like she knows what she’s talking about….
- Fish Cook
You are a new fish cook, vying for the cheapest ingredients at the market in the morning, and then making the fanciest food you can with your ingredients in the evening. CatDuo games recently finished a Kickstarter to create a mobile app version of the game, but the original could be all yours for kicking in $10 or more to the lottery.
- Veritas
This one’s designed by James Ernest and Mike Selinker, so you know it’s good. You play different versions of THE TRUTH, and your goal is to be kept alive through the Dark Ages by being copied into books.
Yeah. Awesome concept.
- Captain Treasure Boots
You can now sail the seas and work to be the pirate who brings home the most treasure in the shortest time. There are opportunities to sail, drink, and shoot, so it’s a perfectly equipped pirate game.
- Get Lucky
We’ve featured this one in a previous Novelties blog. That means that, if you’d rather be certain you get your hands on it, you can just head over and buy it in the store. It’s a great game of murder and intrigue, and a lot of goofing off.
There’s also a certain dashing author making a guest appearance on a card….
- PAIRS: Fruit and Pirates Decks
Pairs has made its way into the homes and hearts of everyone who backed the Kickstarter for it. There are a lot of different decks, but we’ve got two of them here. Even if you already have Pairs decks, they’re all wonderful, and it’s such a simple game you can teach someone in a few minutes, or give them as gifts. Brett is a little obsessed with Pairs, to the point of printing his own deck (it’s okay, James wants you to) and making everyone play it before the Kickstarter even ended.
- Dead Money
In Dead Money, you are Zombies in the Old West trying desperately not to win a game of Poker.
I’m not even kidding. I’m just going to leave it at that and have you figure out the rest.
- Unexploded Cow
This is another one that’s a favorite here at Worldbuilders Headquarters. When we occasionally get together for a game night, this generally gets played, because it can play up to 8. You’re simultaneously dealing with Mad Cow Disease and land mines, and making money off of it. More gushing about this one happened at the Worldbuilders blog as well.
* * *
Thanks again to Cheapass Games for coming out in fine style for us. If any of these looked interesting to you, or if you just want to make the world a better place, be sure to donate on the Worldbuilders team page and say you want BOOKS and GAMES or just GAMES for an option in your prizes.
Don’t forget about the auction that’s currently running. There will be more added soon….
15 Comments
I may have to get deadwood studios regardless. That looks very fun.
Wow those look awesome. I did not understand what kind of games we were talking about. “BOOKS and GAMES ” it is!
No way to change that preference in a previous donation is there?
Donate again!!
Yeah. These are the sorts of games that anyone can enjoy….
Pat,
These games look great! I am going to have to check them out for sure.
I do have one question for you that I wanted to know, it has been burning inside me ever since I finished The Slow Regard Of Silent Things last night…..
Do you ever plan on writing about Auri before she slipped into her own special kind of madness? To tell you the truth, that was kinda what I was hoping to read about in this book….how Auri got to be how she is now. I get some of the clues in the book and I am not going to spoil them here for anyone, but to me there wasn’t enough of the how in the book. Reading the book just made me want for it even more. Was her madness caused by an accident, or was it like a slow running trickle of water that turned into a beautiful but tragic river? Now I want two books…book three and a preamble of Auri’s life. I know I am a greedy man. I have accepted it.
Kindest Regards,
The Druid Of Demands
Fight From The Black
So far I have not tried a single Cheap Ass game that I do not enjoy.
I’ve noticed the same thing. If I ever see one I don’t have, I don’t feel bad at all about picking it up, even if I’ve never heard of it before…
You should add the Rothfuss Ring as just a ring. The favor is already worth more than $1,000 on Ebay! Maybe a Rothfuss Ring that you held close to your heart for a minute or something equally stalkerific for those of us who don’t want a favor but DO think that ring is cool.
I should have said, “do want but can’t afford” …
Every one of these games is actually incredible. The guys at Cheapass Games do an amazing job melding unique ideas with simple rules for games that are easy to pick up with a surprising amount of depth. All of them practically demand a 2nd play-through after your first game, and typically more than that.
Except for Pairs, of course. The secret is to just hit all the time. Especially if you have a 10 and haven’t seen any 10s yet. Especially if there’s a 3 on the table. Especially if you’re playing against me.
I’m not bitter about Nate Taylor’s ridiculous luck at Pairs at all, though, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Oh, this is a story I missed and now desperately want to hear, Sky…
Not much to tell. Nate was immediately to my right for several games of Pairs. Every time it came around, if he had a 10, I was sure he’d fold… and instead he would hit, and my thought process would be something like this:
“Okay, that’s fine, he got through with a 7 and a 10, no big deal. I have a 6, we’ve seen 4 6s, we’re early in the deck…”
You can probably tell how that story ends. I don’t think he lost a game, but I was very good at racking up points.
It was almost as impressive as how my wife managed to get through an entire game of Unexploded Cow without a single cow in her herd blowing up.
Do you (/can you please) sell Worldbuilders shirts as featured in the last picture? I would love to support the gift of goat by buying things with goats on them.
We made those a while back, but they sold out. We might do another shirt in the future though. Keep an eye out on the store and the blog for details…