Meeple Party

Buy your copy of Meeple Party here.

Party season is upon us, and so is Meeple Party a suspiciously under-themed game that does sort of come together in the end.

Set out a pleasingly well put together and designed board of various room in nearly any configuration you wish, set up the roommates and start welcoming guests. Placing one in a room causes them to activate their traits, which, depending on whether they’re a jerk, wallflower, cool, party animal or flirt, will draw or repel meeples from and to other rooms. Everyone shuffles around on the board is reconfigured. All of this is in service of lining up the right number of party-goers for photo opportunities – which is how you move the party on quicker, assumedly because time flies when you’re having fun.

Failure comes from when a condition is met on each player’s disaster card. This can be there being too many people in one room, or the wrong mix of personalities. Taking a stress hit each time a disaster befalls the party. This is where the theme picks up most strongly – the more people who come to the party the harder it is to manage. There’s a growing sense of the party coming apart at the seams as more people and more surprises (a kind of card) arise. Get too stressed by these surprises and the roommates have a row and kick everyone out (probably doing the hoovering around those who won’t leave).

Materials wise the game is a mix of nice (board and cards) and slightly too fiddly. The clock (which shows your party progress and provides surprise events) is just a little bit too small and requires a bit of squinting for some to see the actions. As such the game is a nice enough meeple-shuffler, but not much more.
 

CHRISTOPHER JOHN EGGETT

PLAY IT? MAYBE

Designer: Heather O’Neill

Artist: James Stowe

Buy your copy of Meeple Party here.