This site honoring the Meeples' Choice Award-winning games could never of happened without a lot of help. In no particular order, I want to thank Robert Klarer for designing the Meeples' Choice Award graphics, Mark Johnson and Stephen Glenn for founding and fostering the growth of Spielfrieks and all the contributors who have (or will) share comments about the games seen in this site.

For those readers wondering what a Meeple is, I refer you to the above photograph of the playing pieces used in Carcassonne. Carcassonne introduced the term Meeple to the American game-playing public, though, the term is not included with the game.

Alison Hansel coined the term. It's short for "My People" as she felt the little meeples were uber-cute. Local Massachusetts gamers started to use the term Meeple in numerous session reports that appeared on the 'net, and caught on over time. I've even heard Jay Tummelson use the term. (I'm still waiting for an official Rio Grande Games translation that uses the term.) It was said at an SSG session back in November of 2000. So it is written so let it be known... I've seen people refute this and claim that it was used far earlier for some other game... In any event, if the term was used before, it was not known to Alison. In any event, the usage with Carcassonne followers has a very specific origin. - David Bernazzani

According to recently unearthed historical records, the Meeples' Choice Awards name was originally simply The Spielfrieks Award. Mark originally suggested Meeples' Choice Awards, but Stephen did not like it, so it remained some form of The Speilfrieks Award for the first several years. When Larry Levy took over the helm of the awards in 2004, he adopted the name that we have now.

I hope you enjoy the site. It has been my pleasure to assemble and maintain it. If you have a comment or suggestion about the site, please send an e-mail to meeple@meepleschoice.org.

 - Joe Casadonte, Webmaster and Spielfriek.