This post originally appeared on my old blog: PinkMeeple
“This is a Meeple,” I say to my daughter as I let her hold the little wooden game bit. She calls it “a guy.” Fine, whatever works.
My daughter’s first foray into hobby board gaming was….
She was 4 when I first taught her how to play. Granted we had a house rule. I eliminated the farmer placement, for now. As she gets a better grasp of the game, I will introduce it. Some people were impressed that a 4 year old was playing a game where the box clearly states ages 8 and up. I looked at the game from a different perspective. I see it more as a puzzle. And that’s how I explained it to my little girl. She can take the tiles and complete cities or make them bigger eventually closing them off. The bigger city, the more points. Or you can take the tile and make the road longer your thief is on. The longer the road, the more points. She loves cloisters. She goes on the hunt to find the best place where she can surround it with as many tiles as possible, and then places her Monk….I mean “guy” and, yup you guessed, get more points.
I think she is enamored with Casrcassonne in that respect. She sees that every game is different. Every map is a different shape. It snakes in one direction one night, and the next, it almost snakes right off the table.[/floatleft]
Believe it or not she has actually beaten me. Legit. No joke. Maybe I wasn’t feeling well. Maybe I was tired. Or maybe the luck of the tiles I was drawing just didn’t benefit me enough. The tiles like her. Just like dice. Dice hate me. More on that another time.
I think Casrcassonne is a wonderful game to introduce to anyone about our hobby but also kids. It’s simple and the puzzle-like, make-your-own map dynamic, I think will entice many kids to play.
Carcassonne is designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede and published by Z-Man Games. There is a whole plethora of expansions that can make it overwhelming and change game play dramatically. For starters, stick to just the base game which also comes with the River Expansion. Natty and I play that along with the Inns and Cathedrals expansion. This is a great place to start. If you enjoy the game, then later you can add more complexity with other expansions but keep in mind the game play does change quite a bit with subsequent expansions.
Viel Spaß!
