Tabletop Inc
- Board's Eye View
- Jul 3
- 2 min read
This game from Cotswold Games (formerly Cogito Ergo Meeple) has had a checkered evolution. Designers Joseph and Madeleine Adams had originally planned to call the game Meeples Inc. Since the term 'meeple' was first coined 25 years ago for the game Carcassonne it has fallen into common board game parlance. Carcassonne's German publisher Hans im Gluck has trademarked the term, however, and has recently been seeking to enforce its trademark through legal 'cease and desist' letters. As a result, publishers Cogito Ergo Meeple changed their name to Cotswolds Games and Meeples Inc has been renamed Tabletop Inc. More jarring tho' is the fact that what board gamers will all regard and automatically refer to as meeples are now in this game called 'mumans'. Ugh! We can't bring ourselves to use the word 'mumans' so Board's Eye View is sticking with 'meeple' at least until any 'cease and desist' lawyers letters wing their way to us.
Tabletop Inc is themed around the production of board games and the conceit here is that the board games are being created and manufactured by the 'mumans'. It's a worker placement eurogame where the 1-6 players are placing their meeples, and acrylic standees representing more powerful human specialists, at various locations on the board to gain the resources needed to 'design' and manufacture board games. During the course of play, you'll need to collect the icons needed to upgrade your publisher's capabilities as you take miniature board game boxes and add components and mechanisms to increase their value. Ultimately you'll want to gain a prestigious award for your game and have it displayed on the obligatory Kallax-style shelving; and, yes, Tabletop Inc comes with its own miniature Kallax unit.
Tho' nothing in Tabletop Inc is especially complicated, it's a game where there's a lot going on, and tho' Cotswolds Games have provided two alternative layouts for the board, both are visually 'noisy'. The busy board has some locations that can be accessed for free and but other locations require that you pay resources to visit them. And this is a game with a plethora of different resources, including dice that are used solely as a manufacturing resource: you're not expected to roll them. And even these are not quite what they seem: they may look superficially like regular six-sided dice but they have an unconventional layout where the opposite sides do not add up to 7.
Tabletop Inc is a game that at all levels is geared to appeal to experienced board gamers. This is not a game to break out with players who have previously played nothing much more complicated than Ticket to Ride (Days of Wonder) but seasoned gamers will soon feel at home with the worker placement mechanics and the many options these unlock. It's seasoned gamers too that will appreciate the numerous in-jokes and 'Easter Eggs' in the game; you'll have fun recognising the various well-known board games being mimicked in this game's miniature boxes and even the company names that players adopt are barely disguised parodies of real-world publishers. Let's hope that none of those publishers assail Cotswolds Games with their own 'cease and desist' notices :-)
