Mists Over Carcassonne

For over two decades, Carcassonne has been the king of competitive tile laying, sneaky farmer-stealing, and blocking your friends' roads. But designer Klaus-Jürgen Wrede has turned the legendary formula entirely on its head. Instead of fighting for dominant territory, you and your fellow players must work as a cohesive team to appease the restless spirits, contain haunted ground, and build a village together before you are completely overrun by ghosts.  

In Mists over Carcassonne players now cooperate to build up the french countryside, all the while trying to vanquish ghosts and stay ahead of the game's internal countdown clock.

Unboxed

Inside the box, you will find:

• 60 Land Tiles 

• 1 Start Tile 

• 1 Level Summary/Scoreboard Tile 

• 30 Guard Meeples 

• 15 Ghost Meeples

• 2 Dog Markers 

• 1 Rulebook 

I like the Carcassonne aesthetic so I'm happy to see that this game doesn't try to mess with the formula. Everything is as you would expect it, nice tiles, wooden meeples and a slightly messy rulebook. There's also plenty of space in the box for expansions although it doesn't look like they have anything further planned for this line.

A Quick Overview

Mists Over Carcassonne is a cooperative game played across six increasingly difficult "levels." In each level, your team has one main goal: reach a specific target score on the scoreboard before you run completely out of tiles. However, you can lose instantly if the supply of physical ghost meeples runs out and you are forced to place another one or if you place the final tile without reaching the target score.

The core gameplay loop will feel instantly familiar to anyone who has played the original game, but with a tense, survival-focused twist:

1. Draw and Place a Tile: You draw a land tile and place it adjacent to the existing tiles. All roads and city walls must align. However, if your newly placed tile features a patch of Mist, you must immediately place the number of depicted ghost meeples on it.  

2. The Ghost Rule: The number of ghosts you place depends on how you played the tile. If you used the tile to expand an existing mist bank, you place one fewer ghost than depicted on the tile. If you started a brand-new mist bank, you must place the full amount shown.  

3. Place a Meeple: You may place one of your Guard Meeples onto an unoccupied feature (road or city) on the tile you just placed to claim it.  

4. Scoring or Clearing: When a feature containing one of your meeples is completed, you trigger a scoring phase, just like in regular Carcassonne. Instead of just taking the points however, the team must make a critical decision:  

   • Gain the Points: Move your marker forward on the scoring track to get closer to your target goal.

   • Banish the Ghosts: Forgo all the points you would have earned, and instead remove up to three ghost meeples from a single tile on the board, returning them to the supply.  

     
     

If your team manages to cross the target score line before the tile bag is empty—and without letting the ghosts completely overrun the board—you survive the mist and win!

Six Levels of Difficulty

Level 1: The First Ghosts

• Target Score: 50 Points

• Setup: Uses the basic tiles

• The Rules: The standard cooperative base game where you learn to balance scoring points versus removing ghosts.

  
  

Level 2: Cemeteries & Castles

• Target Score: 75 Points

• Setup: Adds 5 Cemetery tiles and 5 Castle tiles to the deck.

• The Rules:

  • Cemeteries: While a Cemetery tile is active, any time you place ghosts you must also add a ghost to the cemetery. To close a Cemetery, you must add tiles to all four orthogonally adjacent sides. Once closed, you return its ghosts to the supply, but you must "bury" one of your meeples from your supply onto the Cemetery, removing it from the game.

  • Castles: Castles are scored when they are completely surrounded by 8 tiles (like a cloister). You score 2 points for the Castle tile itself, plus 2 points for each surrounding tile that contains mist.

    
    

Level 3: The Hounds & The Stacks

• Target Score: 100 Points

• Setup: For the first time, you shuffle the tiles and divide them into three equal-sized draw piles. 2 Hounds are placed on the scoring track (at 15 and 50 points).

• The Rules:

  • The Stacks: You must draw strictly from the currently active pile. You have a deadline: you must score enough points to reach the first Hound space before the first pile runs out, and reach the second Hound space before the second pile runs out.

  • The Hounds: When your scoring meeple reaches or passes a Hound space, you claim that Hound and place it next to one of your meeples on the board. Placing a hound allows you to banish up to 3 ghosts from each of 2 tiles. When the meeple it is placed with scores you also score 1 point for every ghost on the board.

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Level 4: The Pressure Rises

• Target Score: 120 Points

• Setup: Same components as Level 3 (three piles, Castles, Cemeteries, and Hounds).

• The Rules: There are no new rules, but the target score rise to 120 points, requiring much tighter coordination and faster scoring and the number of ghosts in the supply drops to 13.

Level 5: The Haunted Cemeteries

• Target Score: 100 Points

• Setup: The deck is split into 3 piles again, but 2 ghosts are permanently removed from your supply, leaving you with only 13 ghosts.

• The Rules: Cemeteries are now "Haunted" and much more dangerous. To close a Cemetery, it must be completely surrounded by 8 tiles (instead of just 4 orthogonal sides). Furthermore, whenever you place a Cemetery tile, you must immediately add 1 ghost to every tile with mist on it around that Cemetery.

Level 6: The Ultimate Test

• Target Score: 50 Points

• Setup: Uses all tiles and components.

• The Rules: You have to play with multiple scoring meeples on the scoring track, meaning you must score colours separately and you only unlock new tile stacks when all scoring meeples have passed the boundaries.

  
  

Thoughts

Now, firstly it must be understood that I have only played up to level 4. Level 4 is my happy place. Complex enough that I get the crunch I'm looking for and difficult enough that I don't always win, but crucially, I don't always lose either.

With that said, does Carcassonne translate well into a cooperative experience? Yes, with a caveat. It is the mechanisms but not the spirit of Carcassonne that remains. The game of Carcassonne is one of cutthroat area control with a vast number of expansions to shape and change the experience. One cannot simply make that game Cooperative. However the mechanisms, which feel wonderfully familiar do make for a very interesting cooperative puzzle.

Yes, the competition is gone, but it is replaced with several restrictions and timers that keep the players under pressure and that force cooperation. Previously we had become adept at sneaking our meeples into another players city so we could steal their points and make them our own. Now we still need to use all that same cunning and guile but instead to share in those points as features score for every player that shares them. Now your ability to shaft your friends and rivals will actually ensure your survival together.

The difficulty levels are also a very welcome addition. They feel a little like mini expansions which help shake up the formula and keep you coming back for more. But more than that they allow a play group to find their particular flavour and tune the game to their taste buds.

Like previous Carcassonne's before it the rules are a little tricky to parse at times and the fact that they change as the difficulty increases doesn't help. But with a seasoned gamer at the helm to field any tricky edge cases most players should be able to just concentrate on what makes Carcassonne great, that cooperative jigsaw in the middle of the table.

Final Thoughts

Mists Over Carcassonne is one of the co-op games that I keep always in reach of my table. When we only have time for something quick or we're looking for a relatively simple co-op experience this is one of my main go to games. I love the puzzle and the look of this on the table. It scratches my nostalgic itch while quenching my co-op games thirst.

If you're looking for a twist on an old classic, a simple co-op with enough difficulty levels to keep you challenged, or just a thematic tile layer for a halloween bash, you can't go far wrong with Mists Over Carcassonne.