JACOB MARLEY, ESQUIRE

Long before Scrooge and Marley became the best of friends, young Jacob Marley ran an efficient little money lending firm in the heart of Dickensian London. This game is, quite seriously, the second best banking game you will ever play.

A concept poster for Jacob Marley, Esquire had hung in the Cheapass offices since the days of Kill Doctor Lucky, in a period when Cheapass was doing more with, let’s say, “popular” intellectual properties, and less with its own.

It took several years to develop this game, but Jacob Marley, Esquire turned out fairly well. We say “second best” because in 2017, James Ernest revised the core game and produced a streamlined variation, Young Jacob Marley, which keeps the core mechanics and strips away the dead weight. You should definitely check that one out, too; it’s now available from Crab Fragment Labs.

• Components: Board, Cards, Rules

• You Also Need: One Pawn for Jacob Marley, ten counters for each player, six more counters, one 6-sided die, money, and a way to keep score