Meeples Together – A Book About Cooperative Gaming
If a book about game design coming out in December isn’t enough for you (if you don’t know what I’m talking about you can read my article on Erin Dean’s book where she interviews over 50 of the most talented board game designers in our time), then perhaps a book about cooperatives games and design will satisfy your game design itch.
It’s a whopping 384 pages of information about cooperative games including 150 illustrations. The book is un-ironically called Meeples Together. I do not know how that word gained so much popularity in the gaming world but I am sure someone else does. Is Meeples Together for you? The Kickstarter page says the book is “for people who play, discuss, critique, design, and love cooperative board games.” Um, yes, please.
Of the 14 chapters, I am most excited about the ones which feature Case Studies. For example, Chapter 3 – Case Study of One Night Ultimate Werewolf; I mean Werewolf is in an amazing series and potentially my most favorite social deduction game in terms of how many times I can play and how much I learn each time, so I would be very interested in having an expert break down the mechanics.
I also look forward to Chapter 13 where Hanabi will be covered, as I greatly appreciate how much Hanabi does for the players. Especially considering the game is about 4 inches long and 1 inch deep. The Chapter is called ‘The Psychology of Cooperative Gaming‘ which I am stoked to read. Also, though I haven’t played SOS Titanic, I am now curious, and a Case Study is offered on it in Chapter 14, which is called “Assembling the Puzzle.”
In the Appendices, there are additional resources offered in the likes of I. The Basics of Game Design, II. Game Design Dilemmas, III. Game Design Types, IV. Game Design & Social Theories, and V. Cooperative & Teamwork Game Synopses & Reviews. These additions should come as not such a big surprise as the publishers who are bringing us Meeples Together also brought us The White Box: A Game Design Workshop-In-A-Box, which raised $119,000 on Kickstarter!
Meeples Together is being published by the team at Gameplaywright, Jeff Tidball and Will Hindmarch, and was written by Christopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline. Gameplaywright has also published a few other interesting books including Things We Think About Games, The Bones: Us and Our Dice, and Friendly Local Game Store which is about how to open your own game store.
The Meeples Together Kickstarter Campaign ends on November 17 and has already met and surpassed it’s goal of $6k. Deliveries of the digital editions and print special editions are expected to arrive between February and March 2019.
