Game Designer

James Ernest

James Ernest, active since 1996, is a game designer known for card, dice and print-&-play titles with a humorous bent.

1 Games

Biography

James Ernest has designed and published games since the mid-1990s. He founded Cheapass Games in 1996, later worked with Lone Shark Games, and since 2019 runs Crab Fragment Labs. Our database lists 28 of his games (active 1996–2017).

Career

Ernest established Cheapass Games to publish unconventional, low-cost games and continued to design a wide range of titles from print-&-play and card games to dice-driven designs. He has collaborated multiple times with Mike Selinker and others. His work commonly pairs hand management and dice-rolling mechanics with variable player powers and occasional auction/bidding elements.

Most Famous Games

Notable titles in our data include Kill Doctor Lucky (1996), Give Me the Brain! (1996) and Pirates of the Spanish Main (2004). Later entries include Tak (2017), Lords of Vegas (2010) and Unspeakable Words (2007), as listed among his top games.

Design Style

Ernest's designs tend to be playful and accessible, often leaning on dice mechanics and hand management with humorous themes. Recurring collaborations (e.g., with Mike Selinker) appear in several co-designed titles.