I probably still have two or three copies of Change, since it was so cheap and it is so small. One copy lived in my bag for a while, in large part because it is the size of a box of matches.
And the idea of Change was one that appealed to me and still appeals to me. Instead of one game, it's three different rule sets for a tiny, special deck of cards. You know, a game system.
Really, given the whole found art nature of James Ernst design aesthetic, you could say that game systems are his speciality. In many ways, that has so far culminated with the Pairs deck.
But Change was a very early approach to a game system in the world of Cheapass Games. And, I really hate to say it, it shows.
It's a deck of fifty cards. There are no suits. Instead, there are ten 1's, 3's, 5's, 7's, and 10's. They are decorated with cute pictures of the Fridey's zombies and done up to look like paper money. It's card stock, which might have the word card in it but doesn't make for good cards but this is Cheapass we're taking about.
The games comes with three rules sets: Make Your Own Change Night, Boneyard (which I admit I never played) and Diminishing Returns.
Here's the big problem. Make Your Own Change Night is a retread of Hey Bartender from Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack and Diminishing Returns is a retread of Pennywise from the same collection. In other words, they were games I was already familiar with, just tweaked for the special deck.
Now, I have had fun with Make Your Own Change Night so it's not like Change is a total waste. But a deck of cards can do the same trick and I can play a whole bunch of other games with that.
(It's telling that Boneyard has since been released as a rule set for regular cards, although you do need two decks of cards to get the right card count.. I also have to admit the rules to Boneyard confused me when I first read them years ago but they seem perfectly simple now, although I still think calling the auction sets buckets is bad jargon)
What a game system needs, more than anything else, is a great game. A killer app. For instance, if the only game you had rules to play with the Looney Pyramids was Zendo or Volcano, I'd still be happy with those games. Change it only doesn't have that killer game, its games work just has well with regular cards.
I have seen a lot of different kinds of decks over the years. Five or six suits, pyramid decks, multi-suited cards, straight up numbered decks. I haven't seen another deck like Change and maybe there's a reason for that. It would be really interesting to see what a killer game with a deck like this and I still don't know what it would be.
Showing posts with label James Earnst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Earnst. Show all posts
Monday, September 18, 2017
Friday, March 10, 2017
My stepping stone of Hip Pocket games
Wandering down memory lane has brought me to the Hip Pocket line of games, a line of games that Cheapass produced that were smaller than their usual games but better than a lot of them.
I played them quite a bit in between getting back into board games with Settlers of Catan and Puerto Rico and Fluxx and getting serious about building a library of games. They were a big part me testing the water with my toe before diving headfirst into the deep end.
Every single game is a little deck of cards in a plastic baggy and most of them are tile laying games. At the time, they cost between four to six dollars so it was easy to get a little library going. The games in the Hip Pocket line were simpler and more solid than most of the other games in the Cheapass catalog at the time.
Over the last few years, as I've become less of a game snob, I've come to appreciate Cheapass's designs more and more. Some of the games that have come out in the last few years have been good and well aimed at the 'causual' audience. But I really believe the Hip Pocket line are some of the best games they made.
The best of the Hip Pocket line, which I'm saying are The Very Clever Pipe Game and Light Speed, I have played more times than I can count, particularly since I wasn't keeping track of my plays back then. I'd honestly play any of the ones I've played again without a problem, even Cube Farm, which I thought was just okay.
Confession time: I have not yet played either Safari Jack or Timeline. I may never play Safari Jack but I do want to eventually play Timeline. It is probably the heaviest game in the lot, which was heavy when Fluxx was one of primary games, but it's probably light to me now. Plus, it looks like pretty good.
Small and short but punchy and well designed. The Hip Pocket line was a good way for me to edge into collecting games. And, while I have other games I now carry everywhere, they still hold up really well.
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Demonic hares, climbing chefs, oh my!
For my old gaming group, Devil Bunny Needs a Ham was the mascot for Cheapass Games.
Yeah, that position is actually filled by the Doctor Lucky series with the Friedays Zombies in close competition. But, for us, nothing captured the minimalism and the absurdity of James Earnst's designs like Devil Bunny Needs a Ham.
The medically, the game is about doing teams of sous chefs who are trying to climb to the top of a sky scraper on the outside. You know, rather than take an elevator. Why? I guess regular parkour was too easy. However, Devil Bunny is trying to knock you off the sky scraper because he thinks that will get him a ham. Why? Because he's _INSANE_
Devil Bunny Needs a Ham goes a long way towards justifying the theory that Escape of Elba, a game by James Earnst about escaping from an insane asylum, is autobiographical.
In the original game, you got a paper envelope that had a two-piece board forming the skyscraper in the rules. In the printing play version that is available now, you get the exact same thing. You just need to provide some pawns, some dice and an extra special pawn to serve as Devil Bunny.
At its heart, Devil Bunny Needs a Ham is really just a roll-and-move game (surprise!) It uses the standard methods of making roll-and-move interesting: each player gets multiple pawns to move and you get choices about what direction to move them. You see, the board is really a grid with some blocked off spaces. Pawns can move horizontally and diagonally but not vertically, you know, the way you really want to move. The number of pawns that you get, along with how many dice you to get roll, depends on the number of players.
Of course, the game wouldn't be complete without Devil Bunny. When a six is rolled, Devil Bunny hops on the highest pawn and knocks them down. If you are too high up, you don't get to survive the fall. Other pawns can catch you but, if they belong to another player, they have the option of letting you keep on falling.
The game ends when the roof of the skyscraper is filled up. Scoring is based on the order that the pawns arrive there. Whoever has the highest score wins and presumably actually gets to use the elevator to get back down.
By no means is Devil Bunny Needs a Ham a brilliant game. However, it's a game that is super easy to teach (seeing as how the core concepts are ones just about everyone is familiar with) At the same time, it offers some interesting choices as you jockey your climbers up the sky scraper, trying to block and make sure you can catch your highest climber if Devil Bunny comes out to play.
For years, I kept a copy of Devil Bunny Needs a Ham in my Dungeons and Dragons folder, because three pages took up new room and we could pull out and play if we needed a quick board game.
Devil Bunny Needs a Ham's biggest claim to fame is the absurd theme. It's not like there aren't other genuinely interesting roll-and-move games out there. Backgammon alone has fit that bill for centuries. However, it is super easy to get while still being a decent game. It will make folks laugh when you pull it out and I do like the wide open board, just waiting for players to turn it into a tight maze.
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack - years of casual reading
Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack has given me years of enjoyment. Even to the point where I've had to get a spare copy. Oh, but not to play but as bathroom reading :D
Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack may be the ultimate expression of Cheapass Game's game philosophy. Cheapass's argument is that you already have dice and cards and chips and pawns so they don't need to package them. They just gave you the bare minimum to play their games, often just rules and the boards. (These days, they seem to be more focused on Kickstarter, btw)
This philosophy resulted in a bunch of half-baked, cheaply produced (but cheaply sold) games for a good ten years in their original incarnation, which isn't bad. I bought a good chunk of those games and they have survived numerous purges. Partially because they're small but also because they are wonky and some are honestly good games.
Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack was a booklet with the rules for twenty-four games and six poker variants, plus a couple of game boards. Many of the games had been previously published as ads in convention flyers and such.
Let's be honest. While Cheapass and James Ernest has put out some surprisingly good games, particularly given their rush-it-out-the-door philosophy, this is not a highlights reel. In fact, it might qualify as scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Despite that fact, it has paid for itself over and over again for me in sheer entertainment value, as well as intellectual curiosity.
Published in 2000, Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack is an interesting snapshot of Cheapass's early years. It includes lot of their early freebies, as well as a board game that have been slated as a standalone publication.
Pennywise, Spots and Flip, all variations of the same game for coins, cards or dice, had their ruleset included in card game collection Change, as well as being refined for the online version of Pennywise. Hey Bartender was also part of Change. Dogfight is the prototype for Diceland, as well as helped in the development of Buttonmen, which is a brilliant game.
And, if you are like me and have an interest in game mechanics and design, Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack is a fun read. They are all bare bones designs and some of them were clearly actually prototypes of later games still being worked on. Plus, the snarky, egotistical comments by the fictional Chief Herman are funny.
I might even reach for the collection if I ever need to host a youth group or other kiddy gathering. It would definitely offer some different activities for that.
Chief Herman's Holiday Fun Pack isn't a brilliant collection of games. Frankly, I've only ended up playing a couple of them. However, it has been one entertaining read.
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