Unboxed the Board Game Blog

A year has passed since the release of Paleo, but in the world of the game several thousand years have passed. We've tried to settle, but nothing is as peaceful as it might seem. New dangers and tasks await us, but with a little skill and new tools we can manage to settle down.

Discover the lost treasures of Egypt and make your fortune! You are an archaeologist working the dig sites of the Egyptian desert. Search for the right pieces to complete torn parchments, broken pots and other priceless artifacts. Explore an ancient pyramid hoping to uncover a huge stash of treasure! Trade shrewdly at the local marketplace to increase the value of your collection. Sell your treasures to the museum at just the right time for maximum profit.

In Archaeology: The New Expedition, you are an archaeologist leading expeditions in search of lost relics. These artifacts lie hidden in the desert, but they belong in a museum! Luckily, the museum will pay you handsomely for whatever you deliver. Uncover shards of ancient pottery, valuable coins, masks of the Pharaohs, and more during your excavations. You can sell each right away, but you can earn even more by delivering complete sets. Don't wait too long to sell, though, or you might lose your discoveries to rival explorers or vicious sandstorms. The player with the most money when the Treasure deck runs out wins!

Inspired by the medieval fortress in southern France of the same name, Carcassonne is a tile-laying game in which players fill in the countryside around the fortified city. Players choose from tiles that depict cities, roads, monasteries, and fields; each new tile placed creates an ever-expanding board on which players can then add their followers. Players score points by having followers on features as they're completed. The player who makes the most strategic placements of tiles and followers will score the most points and win the game.

This is mists over Carcassonne, the world’s first cooperative version of Carcassonne. Players take turns, adding a new land tile to the board each time. This creates an ever-enlarging game board onto which you place your meeples to score points. During the game, ghosts will keep appearing – your job is to pacify them. Together, you must reach the goal tile by scoring a pre-determined number of points. But watch out: If there are too many ghosts on the board, or you can’t draw land tiles anymore, then you have lost. All players play together against the game.

Return to the stone age in a new cooperative adventure! Paleo is a survival strategy game for 2–4 players, who form a tribe of people working together to explore their surroundings and undertake the ultimate paleolithic quest: completing a cave painting. Each player begins the game with a couple of humans, each of whom have a skill and a number of life points. On your turn, you’ll send them out to explore. While you can guess what you might find there—food, crafting materials, extra help on your mission—you never know what dangers may await you out in the wild. Be careful not to collect too many skull tokens and lose the game before you can cement your legacy!

As skilled members of a disease-fighting team, you and the other players work together to keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics. Only through teamwork will you have a chance to find a cure. Pandemic is a cooperative board game in which players work as a team to treat infections around the world while gathering resources for cures. First published in 2007, the game's unique combination of cooperative gameplay, engrossing premise, and compelling design have proved a hit with everyone from hardcore gamers to casual players. The Pandemic game line now includes multiple expansions and stand-alone titles.

It starts simply. A virus tougher than the rest. Nothing your team can’t handle. But as January turns to February, things take a turn for the worse. This is no ordinary virus. What results is a year that will never be forgotten. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is a unique and epic cooperative game where your decisions in one game carry over into future games. Over the course of the campaign, you will open sealed packets, reveal hidden information, and unlock secrets that will change your world in unexpected ways. Characters will gain scars, cities will panic, and diseases will mutate. Adapt to each new challenge and save humanity before it’s too late. The world will never be the same again.

Players slip into the role of gnomes. As a gold seeker, they go hunting for the precious metal in the mine. Suddenly, a pickaxe breaks and the pit light goes out. The saboteur has striked. But who of the players is the saboteur? Do you find the gold first or lead the saboteur's sinister actions to the target? After three rounds, the player with the most gold pieces wins.

The Inns & Cathedrals expansion adds more ways to shape the Medieval countryside in the award-winning tile-laying game Carcassonne. Eighteen Land tiles feature two new buildings that open additional avenues to scoring points. Construct imposing cathedrals that increase your cities' value, or build humble inns along your roads to double the value of your thieves. But be careful! An incomplete feature that uses an inn or cathedral scores no points at the end of the game.

You’ve found the cures to four deadly diseases. But what happens when those diseases get stronger? Worse yet, what happens when someone spreads them intentionally?! Return to the world of Pandemic with On the Brink and prepare for the unexpected. The three challenges included with this expansion evolve the base game mechanics in exciting ways. One disease might become a Virulent Strain and become more difficult to treat as the game goes on. Or you could introduce an unpredictable fifth disease with the Mutation challenge and watch it pop up in unexpected places. Finally, teamwork is even more important if a fifth player dons the mask of the Bio-Terrorist and spreads panic while moving secretly across the board. Try each challenge individually or combine them all for a major test!

This small expansion to Carcassonne released by Rio Grande Games is actually a compilation of smaller expansions. * The Cult, 6 tiles. (One tile is only available in this compilation.) * The Siege, 4 tiles. (The tiles in this release have different art than the original Spielbox 2004 Release.) * “Creativity”, 2 blank tiles that you can use to create your own expansion. Part of the Carcassonne series.