Game Review: Carcassonne

Rio Grande Games, $24.95

My wife Joni and I were in for a real treat this week when we visited our friends, the Stonebraker Family, to play and review Carcassonne. Excellent game!

In this beautiful, well-produced game, players lay down randomly-picked tiles to build towns, roads, monasteries and countryside, then they take one of their “meeps” (little people playing pieces) and, depending on which part of their tile they occupy, these meeps represent farmers, robbers, monks or knights. You get points for completing your cities and roads, and for building nine-by-nine fields and monasteries. The game is over when all the tiles are played, and the winner is, of course, the player with the most points.

This is an excellent game for families, because it is easy to learn and play, yet there is plenty of room to develop complex strategies.