Meeple

Last updated
Meeples used in Carcassonne Carcassonne Miples.jpg
Meeples used in Carcassonne
A large follower, or "meeple", on a Carcassonne tile Carcassonne-meeple.jpg
A large follower, or "meeple", on a Carcassonne tile
Different figurines used in more advanced variants of Carcassonne, including standard meeples and non-humanoid figurines such as Pig and Dragon CarcassonneFigureTaxonomy.jpg
Different figurines used in more advanced variants of Carcassonne, including standard meeples and non-humanoid figurines such as Pig and Dragon

A meeple is a small board-game piece, usually with a stylized human form. [1] [2] [3] They are usually made from wood and painted in bright colors. Meeples have been called an icon of German-style board games ("Eurogames"). [4] The word is a contraction of "my people". [5] [6]

Meeples are more anthropomorphized than pawns. Whereas pawns have a stylized head and body, meeples have a more humanoid shape, with limbs. [3] They have replaced pawns in many modern games, making the latter a rarity outside classic games. [5]

Meeples are believed to be introduced by the 1984 game Top Secret Spies . Carcassonne , published by Hans im Glück in 2000, [2] [7] has been credited with popularizing the modern concept and shape of the meeple. [5] They have since become a popular component of many modern board games. [2] [5] [8]

The modern meeple was likely designed by Bernd Brunnhofer  [ de ], German game designer, entrepreneur, and founder of Hans im Glück. Although the figures were initially referred to as "followers", Alison Hansel, an American gamer, coined the name meeples in November 2000. [9] [10] According to Alicia Nield, owner of the company MeepleCity, Hansel accidentally combined the words "my people" during a game of Carcassonne. [11] The term was popularized through the website BoardGameGeek. [5] [11] [12] On November 27, 2000, Hansel made a post on the Unity Games forums proposing the term meeples to describe these figures. [13]

Some companies offer hand-painted, deluxe meeples, and meeples in some games are customized in various ways; for example, Tiny Epic Quest has customizable meeples that can hold various items such as weapons. [14] Some games, including expansions to Carcassonne, have wooden figurines shaped in non-humanoid forms that are sometimes called meeples; for example, Dixit has rabbit-shaped meeples. [5] Farm animal meeples are sometimes called "sheeples", monsters "creeples", and robots "bleeples". [5] The term meeple has occasionally been used for wooden board game pieces representing inanimate objects like vehicles. [12] More elaborate miniatures used in gaming, such as the ones used in miniature wargaming, are not usually called meeples. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Board game</span> Genre of seated tabletop social play

Board games are tabletop games that typically use pieces. These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eurogame</span> Type of board game

A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and multiple ways to score points. Eurogames are sometimes contrasted with American-style board games, which generally involve more luck, conflict, and drama. They are usually less abstract than chess or Go, but more abstract than wargames. Likewise, they generally require more thought and planning than party games such as Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit.

<i>Carcassonne</i> (board game) 2000 board game

Carcassonne is a tile-based German-style board game for two to five players, designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published in 2000 by Hans im Glück in German and by Rio Grande Games and Z-Man Games (currently) in English. It received the Spiel des Jahres and the Deutscher Spiele Preis awards in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tabletop game</span> Social activity played on a flat surface

Tabletop games or tabletops are games that are normally played on a table or other flat surface, such as board games, card games, dice games, miniature wargames, or tile-based games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miniature model (gaming)</span> Small-scale model used in miniature wargaming

In miniature wargaming, players enact simulated battles using scale models called miniature models, which can be anywhere from 2 to 54 mm in height, to represent warriors, vehicles, artillery, buildings, and terrain. These models are colloquially referred to as miniatures or minis.

Hans im Glück is a German board and card game publisher. Though many of their own games are language-independent they themselves publish only printings for the domestic market which include only German-language rules; English-language printings of their games have been published primarily by Rio Grande Games, Dutch versions by 999 Games and so on.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers</span> German-style board game

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is a German-style board game. It is a member of the Carcassonne family of board games, and was developed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede. It was first published in 2002, in German by Hans im Glück, and in English by Rio Grande Games. In 2015, the English Second Edition was published by Z-Man Games.

Carcassonne: The City is a German board game for two to four players. As a member of the Carcassonne family of games, it is created by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and distributed by Hans im Glück in German and Rio Grande Games in English. Like other Carcassonne games, the objective of the game is to score points based on placement of the tiles. However, The City also adds city walls and towers, which can inhibit the growth of the playing field in a certain direction. The City is packaged in a "deluxe" manner: the box itself is made from wood, as are the parts for the city walls, followers, and towers.

Carcassonne: The Castle is a two-player German board game. It is designed by Reiner Knizia, although Carcassonne series creator Klaus-Jürgen Wrede is also credited. Like other games in the Carcassonne series, it is published by Hans im Gluck in German and Rio Grande Games in English.

<i>Carcassonne</i> (video game) 2007 turn-based strategy video game

Carcassonne is a 2007 turn-based strategy video game based on the board game of the same name. It was designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede for the Xbox 360, published by Vivendi Games under their Sierra Online subsidiary, and developed by Sierra Online Seattle, formally known as Secret Lair Studios. The Xbox 360 game was released on June 27, 2007, and is the second designer board game to be released on Xbox Live Arcade, the first being Catan.

<i>Small World</i> (board game)

Small World is a board game designed by Philippe Keyaerts, Illustrated by Miguel Coimbra and Cyrille Daujean as graphic designer, and published by Days of Wonder in 2009. The game is a reworking of Keyaerts' 1999 game Vinci. Small World has won several awards, including Games magazine 2010 Game of the Year.

Carcassonne: Wheel of Fortune 2009 is a tile-based German-style board game developed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and distributed by Hans im Glück in German and Rio Grande Games in English. It is considered a game in the Carcassonne series, and is considered both as a standalone game as well as an expansion set to Carcassonne.

This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and tabletop role-playing games published in 2012. For video games, see 2012 in video gaming.

<i>Lords of Waterdeep</i> Board game

Lords of Waterdeep is a German-style board game designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson and published by Wizards of the Coast in 2012. The game is set in Waterdeep, a fictional city in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Players take the roles of the masked rulers of Waterdeep, deploying agents and hiring adventurers to complete quests and increase their influence over the city.

My First Carcassonne is a tile-laying German-style board game developed by Marco Teubner. It is a game in the Carcassonne series, published by Hans im Glück in Germany and Z-Man Games in North America. My First Carcassonne is the third Carcassonne spin-off, following Carcassonne: The Castle and Carcassonne: The Discovery.

<i>Azul</i> (board game) Abstract strategy board game

Azul is an abstract strategy board game designed by Michael Kiesling and released by Plan B Games in 2017. Based on Portuguese tiles called azulejos, in Azul players collect sets of similarly colored tiles which they place on their player board. When a row is filled, one of the tiles is moved into a square pattern on the right side of the player board, where it garners points depending on where it is placed in relation to other tiles on the board.

<i>Patchwork</i> (board game) Two-player board game

Patchwork is a two-player board game created by Uwe Rosenberg. It was released in 2014.

<i>Great Western Trail</i> (board game) Wild West-themed board game

Great Western Trail is a board game designed by Alexander Pfister for two to four players, which was published in 2017 by Eggertspiele. It is a complex and strategic 'Eurogame', loosely themed on the American frontier and the original Great Western Cattle Trail, in which players engage in the transportation of cattle. A second edition was published in 2021, for one to four players.

<i>Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King</i> Tile-laying board game

Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King is a tile-laying board game designed by Alexander Pfister and Andreas Pelikan that was published in 2015. It uses the Isle of Skye as its setting, with players representing clan chieftains each vying to build a kingdom.

<i>Carcassonne – Tiles & Tactics</i> 2017 video game

Carcassonne – Tiles & Tactics is a digital adaptation of Carcassonne developed by Frima Studio and published by Twin Sails Interactive.

References

  1. ↑ Heron, Michael James; Belford, Pauline Helen; Reid, Hayley; Crabb, Michael (2018-06-01). "Meeple Centred Design: A Heuristic Toolkit for Evaluating the Accessibility of Tabletop Games". The Computer Games Journal. 7 (2): 97–114. doi: 10.1007/s40869-018-0057-8 . hdl: 10059/2886 . ISSN   2052-773X.
  2. 1 2 3 Smit, Dorothé; Maurer, Bernhard; Murer, Martin; Reinhardt, Jens; Wolf, Katrin (2019-03-17). "Be the Meeple: New Perspectives on Traditional Board Games". Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. TEI '19. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 695–698. doi:10.1145/3294109.3295657. ISBN   978-1-4503-6196-5. S2CID   83458650.
  3. 1 2 Podrez, Peter (2022-08-27), Beyond Pawns and Meeples: Material Meanings of Analog Game Figures, transcript Verlag, pp. 279–314, doi:10.1515/9783839462003-010, ISBN   978-3-8394-6200-3 , retrieved 2023-11-08
  4. ↑ PrintMag (2008-06-01). "Extraordinary Meeples". PRINT Magazine. Archived from the original on November 8, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wallis, James (2023-03-14). Everybody Wins: Four Decades of the Greatest Board Games Ever Made. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-1-83908-191-0.
  6. ↑ "Different kind of gaming gets home in Meepleville Board Game Cafe – Las Vegas Weekly". lasvegasweekly.com. 2015-12-22. Archived from the original on February 9, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
  7. ↑ DeWyngaert, Emilia (2019-05-13). "Behind the Tiles: Mathematics of Carcassonne". Across the Bridge: The Merrimack Undergraduate Research Journal. 1 (1).
  8. ↑ DeWyngaert, Emilia (2019-05-13). "Behind the Tiles: Mathematics of Carcassonne". Across the Bridge: The Merrimack Undergraduate Research Journal. 1 (1).
  9. ↑ "What is a meeple? – Happy Meeple". www.happymeeple.com. Archived from the original on November 11, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
  10. ↑ Montgomery, Matt (2021-02-16). "Issue 17: History of the Meeple". Don't Eat the Meeples. Archived from the original on November 11, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
  11. 1 2 "Playing around: MeepleCity bringing game night to town | Texarkana Gazette". www.texarkanagazette.com. 2022-12-05. Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-09.
  12. 1 2 3 "What are meeples and meeple games?". Wargamer. 2022-11-18. Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-09.
  13. ↑ Hansel, Alison (2010-11-30). "New RioGrande Games". Archived from the original on November 30, 2010. Retrieved 2023-11-11.
  14. ↑ "The Evolution of the Meeple". Nerdist. Archived from the original on November 9, 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.