What is a meeple?

I have had this question asked to me many times so now I have decided to tell people.

A meeple is a little figurine (normally wooden) in a human shape used as playing piece for a game.
It is a proper word, I checked, not some gamer jargon.

The top 3 games for play value

Okay so first we need to define what play value is and why it is important in a game (especially for children). So in answer to the first, play value is how much you can play with it as a toy, not as a game. One great way to see this in action is if you shove a kid in a room and leave them to play with the game pieces you will see some of them played with for ages and some they won't even get out of the box. Now (with me being a kid myself) I know that normally this factor is over-looked by adults so I have decided to give you list of my top 3 games for play value to get you started on this new concept.

And in third place is… North wind!

Okay I'm not sure where you can get this game (I got my copy in Germany) but I can tell you it is really, really cool. It is a game about being a ship captain and sailing about places and trading with people. Now this isn't the cool part of the game, the cool part of the game is the 3d ships which you can customise at your will with cannons, little meeple crew members and goods. This is great fun as you can imagine, and I think I have spent more time playing with it than actually playing the game.

And in second place is… Terror in meeple city!

This is a dexterity game that is all about eating/destroying a meeple city. But the real reason that this game is on here is the meeples and the things you can do with them. Each of the meeples has a sticker on the front and back of it giving it a face, clothes and other things like that. These meeples (and trucks)here.

make for great story telling and are great fun to play with. Another cool thing to do with them is you can make buildings with them which is very cool. I reviewed this game

And in first place is… Camel Up!

This game is a camel race betting game and is my favourite game to mess about with any time. It has a unique feature of camels being able to stack up on each other. But the real reason this is a personal favourite of mine is that you can race camels round the track in weird wacky races you can make up, mega long races or super short sprints. Yet another cool feature is a pyramid designed to throw your dice for you! I'm not sure why I find it so captivating but if your child is a fan of racing get it for them!