About meeple.in
Where India comes to play.
Board games have been bringing people together for thousands of years. From chaturanga to pachisi, India has always known how to play. Somewhere along the way, we forgot.
Then something shifted.
Over the last few years, a quiet revolution has been happening in cafés across Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, and beyond. People are pulling out Catan at midnight. Designers are prototyping games rooted in Indian mythology. Cafés are filling up on Thursday nights. A community is finding itself.
meeple.in exists because that community deserves a home.
The problem we're solving
If you wanted to find a board game café in your city today, you'd probably Google it, get a half-outdated list, click through to a closed Instagram account, and give up. If you wanted to join a game night, you'd need to be in the right WhatsApp group. If you were a café owner trying to fill seats, you'd be managing RSVPs in a spreadsheet and chasing UPI screenshots at midnight.
The Indian board game scene has a visibility problem, an organisation problem, and a connection problem — all at once.
- For gamersfinding where to play, what's on this weekend, and who else is into the hobby requires being plugged into the right circles. Most people aren't, and they give up before they find their community.
- For cafés, game libraries, and event organisersthe tools simply don't exist. Running a board game night in India means cobbling together WhatsApp groups, Google Forms, UPI requests, and Instagram DMs into something that barely works. There is no single platform built for the way Indian game businesses actually operate.
- For first-time indie game designersthe barriers are invisible but real. Where do you get your game manufactured? Which publishers in India are open to submissions? What tools do other designers use for prototyping? Who can you talk to when you're stuck? This knowledge exists in scattered conversations across forums and friend groups — but there is nowhere to find it in one place. A first-time designer in Kochi shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel that a designer in Bengaluru already invented.
- For publishers and manufacturersreaching India's growing base of board game enthusiasts and connecting with the designers who are creating the next generation of Indian games requires navigating a fragmented, informal ecosystem with no shared infrastructure.
The Indian board game scene is thriving. Its infrastructure is not.
meeple.in is that infrastructure — built specifically for India, by people who love the hobby.
What we're building
directoryThe Board
A living directory of every board game café, store, publisher, designer, manufacturer, game library, and organiser in India. Searchable, verified, and kept up to date by the community itself. Whether you're a gamer looking for a café near you or a designer looking for a manufacturer who works with small print runs — The Board is where you start.
eventsMeep Ups
A home for every board game event in India. Find a game night near you, RSVP in seconds, pay securely, and show up ready to play. For organisers and cafés, the tools to create events, collect payments, manage waitlists, run tournaments, record results, and share leaderboards — without the chaos of twelve different apps.
databaseMeepledex
A searchable library of board games India's most comprehensive game catalogue. Find games by player count, duration, complexity, and category. See which cafés near you have a game before you make the trip. Discover what's popular in the Indian board game community right now.
communityThe Commons
A community forum for the Indian board game scene. City chapters, game discussions, a designer corner for people building the next great Indian game, and a space to find your people wherever you are.
designThe Playtest Den
A bridge between game designers and the players who want to help shape what comes next. Designers post playtesting requests, find willing players, and gather structured feedback. For a first-time designer, it is the fastest way to get your prototype in front of real players without needing to already know the right people.
This is just the beginning.
Our philosophy
Community is the product. meeple.in is not a marketplace that happens to have a community. It is a community that happens to have tools. Every feature we build starts with one question — does this make the Indian board game community stronger?
Businesses are partners, not customers. Cafés, organisers, publishers, and designers are the lifeblood of this scene. We exist to amplify what they do, not to extract from them. Listing on meeple.in is free. We only earn when we help a business grow.
India first, always.The global board game industry is built around Western tastes, Western prices, and Western distribution. We're building something different — a platform that understands Indian cities, Indian pricing, Indian languages, and the uniquely Indian way of gathering around a table and playing.
The name
A meeple is the little wooden figure that represents a player on the board. It's you. It's your friend across the table. It's the stranger who becomes your ally halfway through a game of Pandemic. The .inis obvious — this is India's game.
Every person who joins meeple.in is a meeple in the truest sense. A player. A community member. Someone who showed up to the table.
Get involved
Are you a gamer?
Create a free account, find events near you, and join the community. It takes two minutes.
Join the community →Do you run a café/library or organise events?
List your business on meeple.in for free. Reach thousands of board game enthusiasts across India.
Add your listing →Are you an indie game designer?
List your games, post playtest requests, and connect with publishers and manufacturers.
Join as designer →Publisher or manufacturer?
Get discovered by designers looking for partners and by gamers looking for what to play next.
Add your business →meeple.in — Where India comes to play.