I’ve always thought of board games as a fun thing to do together; but I have to admit, it drives me crazy to sit and play a board game that is based 100% on the roll of the dice, with little or no skill or personal choices involved at all. As a parent, I’ve come to realize that almost all of the “traditional” American boardgames for kids are extremely unsatisfying, and in an era of video games, even the kids get bored of them. But parents still buy games like Sorry and Trouble because of the nostalgic feeling that “I played that when I was a kid.”

The basic premise of Carcassonne is that each player draws a tile piece in turn, which is used to create a little medieval countryside. You draw the tile at random, and it can only fit in certain places — that’s the random “every time you play it’s different” part. But where you place it is your choice, and then you have an option of placing a “follower” on the piece which can score you points. You only have a certain number of followers to put in play (though sometimes you can get them back and use them again) — and therein lies the strategy. Do I place a follower on this piece, or wait in hope of a better move later? If I place him, how can I place him to score the most points?

The beauty of it is that it is simple enough for a child to learn, and yet interesting enough to keep adults entertained as well. Furthermore, if you like the basic game, there are over a dozen expansions available to it, to expand the game and change up the rules, etc.

We first played Carcassonne on the Xbox, actually, and got quite into it — this past weekend, I picked up an inexpensive “travel” version of Carcassonne which fits in a little cloth sack. The Xbox version had lead me to think that the scoring, etc., would be difficult — but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually very simple and straightforward. The average Carcassonne game (without expansions) lasts about half an hour, which is comfortably within the attention span of my kids.

I just can’t find any fault with this game; it’s fun, straightforward, and addictive even. Well, I guess there is one thing: every board game suffers if someone knocks the board, and this game is particularly easy to mess up in that fashion; perhaps best to play on carpet or something that helps prevent the tiles from moving very easily… anyway, give it a try!