Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2020)

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers (2020)Imagine if Carcassonne took place during the Stone Age. Pictured it? You're thinking of Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers! This standalone game features the core Carcassonne mechanisms, but with its own twist. This is also a 2020 updated version of the original 2002 title, from Z Man Games. If you've played Carcassonne before, you'll know some of the features here. Your turn consists of tile placement into a communal, ever growing landscape. You can

Imagine if Carcassonne took place during the Stone Age. Pictured it? You're thinking of Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers! This standalone game features the core Carcassonne mechanisms, but with its own twist. This is also a 2020 updated version of the original 2002 title, from Z-Man Games. If you've played Carcassonne before, you'll know some of the features here. Your turn consists of tile placement into a communal, ever-growing landscape. You can place one of your meeples onto that tile, with the aim to complete objectives to score it later. But Hunters and Gatherers takes place in a time before castles and monasteries. Instead, this is a land of forests, rivers, lakes and meadows - complete with wild animals! On your turn you add one square tile into the expanding map. Terrain types have to match, like in regular Carcassonne. When you place a meeple on that tile, it represents different type of neanderthal. This is dependent according to the terrain. It's a hunter when placed in the meadows, a gatherer if you put it in a forest, or a fisherman when in a river. This isn't a mere reskin of French countryside Carcassonne, though. Completed a forest that has gold in it? That lets you draw and immediately place a second tile - and it's one of twelve separate 'bonus' tiles. Completed meadows, meanwhile, score you points per wild animal in it. (This differs depending on animal type.) But careful if a tiger enters a meadow! Tigers are predators and cancel out any animals in that meadow... Rivers act a bit like roads (completed rivers score as many points as tiles they span). They differ though, because they also score points depending on how many fish sit within their lakes. And talking of lakes: players also have wooden huts, which they can place on rivers/lakes. They score you points according to fish at the end of the game. You don't need the Carcassonne base game to enjoy Hunters and Gatherers - you can play it on its own! Player Count: 2-5 Players Time: 35 minutes Age: 8+