Some personal examples:
Dice forge has its way of handling dices that felt incredibly smart the first time I played it
Same for Codex Naturalis, I was impressed by the simple way they printed the cards to allow for modularity, obviously the game is a lot simpler than I thought but it gave me some interesting ideas with how to overlap cards
Or the boards in Fort that have this double layer so that you can nest your pizzas and toys in there, so cozy!
Innis has awesome art and the most unique tiles that are technically hexes.
The gears in Tzolkin make it such a unique game.
The entirety of Too Many Bones is awesome components. The massive over engineering leads to a fun experience. Neoprene mats with cutouts for dice, plastic cards and player aids, weighted poker chips for characters and baddies, and screen printed dice with tons of unique artwork.
The chips is Splendor are solid and feel good, not just a cheap plastic, but weighed even.
Splendor I was just going to say I love to handle those pieces.
That’s the older versions of Splendor sadly, newer ones are just cheap plastic 😭
Aww, that’s too bad.
What’s even the point then? BOOO
I always kinda want to eat the eggs in wingspan. I think they remind me of small sherbet pieces in texture and colour.
wingspan e g g
I bought Settlers of Catan just because I liked the wooden tiles. I don’t even see the full wood sets in store anymore.
The penguin meeples from Ark Nova Sea World expansion are so cute, I always play with black colour just so I get the penguins!
There’s something about the tiles in Azul that is so satisfying to me. I think the noise they make when you mix them in the bag is a big factor.
Yeah, Azul has some spiffy pieces indeed!
They also look gorgeous and feel nice to hold!
The nice round disks of a decent Xiangqi set give me a pleasant feeling just looking at them. This, for example, is a set made of Indian sandalwood with mother-of-pearl inlay:
wow it’s beautiful!
Sadly it’s a bit too rich for my blood.
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I don’t have about US$1200 to spend on a chess set. :(
My playground really enjoyed that in Artisans of Splendent Vale, the Harinya meeple fits nicely on top of the doggo meeple. Then the player unlocked the ::: spoiler Tag Along ::: power that ::: spoiler lets Harinya move whenever the doggo moves ::: so the fact that they fit together is actually ludologically relevant
The chips for splendor have a great feel to them.
Only if you bought one of the earlier releases. The later ones encountered enshittification and feel like cheap plastic.
Awww, that’s a shame.
I love the little stackable camels in Camel Up! Not too mention the dice dispensing pyramid!
That is such a cute game. I played it once and found the camel-stacking to be as hilarious as it amusingly strategic.
I really like big wooden meeples and the sound they make when you place them on the board. The meeples in Lost Ruins of Arnak are nice and chunky. But I also love the cowboy meeples in Great Western Trail 2nd edition. They are not that big, but the little cowboy hats are just 👌🏼.
Btw, what’s the plural of ‘meeple’?
One meep, many meeple
Meeple is already plural, the singular is moople (or meerson, which one is funnier)
The guns in Cash & Guns are extremely satisfying.
There’s much more power in that foam than one might expect!
There’s this game where you play as Egyptian gods, the minis used for each god are just epic and super detailed.
By far my favourite board game pieces.
Ankh?
That’s the one!
I am really like the panda miniature from Takenoko.
I also really like the character cards from Tokaido with the cutout that allows you to place the color of your marker.
