Chase Away the Spooks and Ghouls in Mists Over Carcassonne

Carcassonne is overrun with mists and ghosts. Brave guards and even braver dogs will be needed to chase them away!

Published by Z-Man Games and Hans im Glück, Mists Over Carcassonne is a cooperative take on the classic tile-laying game. It is designed for 2-5 players and has a 35-minute play time.

Gameplay

The game is divided into six levels, which slowly increase in complexity and mechanics. Players are encouraged to start at level one and play their way through the levels in order.

In level one, players must collectively earn fifty points in order to win the game. Each player has five meeples of their player color. On your turn, you draw a tile and must add it to the board, connecting it to at least one other tile. There will be multiple features on the tiles: roads, cities, fields, and mist. Everything but mist must properly connect when playing a tile adjacent to one or more tiles. Players are encouraged to discuss with each other where they should place a tile.

Once a tile is placed, if there are any ghosts on it, you add one ghost meeple for each one shown. You may then choose to place a meeple on the tile, either on a road or a section of city. You may not place a meeple if that section of road or city is now connected to another tile’s road or city that already has a meeple on it.

When a road is completed (it is closed off at both ends), and there is a meeple on it, you score it. You give the meeple back to its respective player and score one point for each tile that made up that road. Cities work much the same, only you score two points for each tile that made up the city and an extra two points for any of those tiles that bore a shield icon. When you would score a meeple, you can instead choose to skip the scoring and remove up to three ghosts from any one tile. If you are able to close off a mist bank, you also get to remove all ghosts from that bank.

If you run out of tiles to draw or must place a ghost and do not have one remaining in the supply, you lose the game. If you reach the points goal, everyone wins!

In level two, you must earn 75 points and also add castles and cemetery tiles. A meeple can be placed on a castle. Once the castle is completely surrounded by other tiles, you score your meeple: two points for each surrounding tile with mist on it. For the cemetery, as soon as there is a tile to the left, right, top, and bottom of it, you must take a meeple from somewhere else on the board and place it on the cemetery. You get to remove any ghosts on the cemetery tile, but you also cannot use that meeple for the rest of the game. Until a cemetery has been closed off on those four sides, whenever you must place a ghost on the board you always add an additional ghost to an open cemetery.

In level three, you must score 100 points. You also divide all the tiles into three equal stacks of 20. You will draw from one stack completely until it is depleted and move onto the next. You lose the game if you do not reach 15 points before finishing the first stack, and 50 before completing the second. When you reach both of those score goals you gain a dog. You add the dog to one meeple on the board and remove up to three different ghosts from two different tiles that are adjacent to where you played the dog. When that meeple scores you also score the dog, earning one point for each ghost currently on the board. The dog is then discarded for the rest of the game.

Level four plays the same, only there are two fewer ghosts in the supply, you need to score more points before completing each tile stack, and you need to reach 120 points to win the game. In level five, cemeteries work a little differently: when you close a cemetery, it must be completely surrounded now, even diagonally. When placing a cemetery, you also add one ghost to each tile with mist on it that is surrounding the cemetery. Additionally, when there is an open cemetery on the board, you draw an additional tile on your turn but keep it face-down and place it adjacent to any open cemetery. These will make it impossible to complete other locations, castles included, but can count towards closing a cemetery.

For the final level, all point requirements are much lower. However, each individual player must score the required number of points individually with their own meeples.

The game can also be added to the original Carcassonne. Add the tiles, ghosts, and the guard meeples from this game into the competitive Carcassonne. In this version, mist works differently. When you play a tile with mist on it, if at least one side connects to more mist then you place a ghost next to another player’s meeple on the game board. If the mist is not touching other mist, then you must place a ghost on the game board next to one of your meeples. Ghosts can never be added to guard meeples. When a third ghost is added to a meeple’s space, it and the ghosts are removed from the board and returned to their respective supplies. When a meeple scores, each ghost with it is worth negative two points. For cemeteries, when one is played you can place one of your regular meeples on it. When that cemetery is completely surrounded, you take back your meeple and also gain an extra guard meeple to add to your supply.

Review

Carcassonne is a classic that has spawned many, many expansions over the years, so it’s exciting to see it get the cooperative treatment in a standalone format, which in turn refreshes the core gameplay of the series. There’s a lot of interesting choices to be made, as you try to balance between ghosts and points, which becomes even more challenging in the later levels when time gets tighter as you work your way through the individual stacks and the ghost supply becomes smaller.

The system of teaching the rules through a series of levels helps to keep the game accessible and not overwhelm you right out of the gate, while each level still feels like a complete game in and of itself. The game can be pretty tough at first, as you try to figure out the best strategies, but that does make those wins all the more worth it. The levels also increase in difficulty as you progress through them, and the result is a challenging and interesting puzzle that evolves as you improve.

On the downside, there’s nothing to keep any one player from taking over and quarterback gaming, since players are encouraged to discuss tile placement with each other. How much of a problem this is will definitely depend on your game group.

The game is quite attractive and the theming around it is quite fun, with the ghosts, castles, and dog tokens. It’s also a nice touch that it can be combined with regular Carcassonne to act as a more traditional, albeit slightly take-that, expansion. It would be neat if there were also ways to combine other Carcassone games into the cooperative gameplay, although we can see why this would likely be difficult.

If you enjoy the core gameplay of Carcassone, this is a smart, cooperative take on it that’s thematic, fun, and does an excellent job at teaching you the rules.

Pros: Theming, level system for introducing rules as well as increasing difficulty

Cons: The cooperative version cannot be combined with other Carcassonne variants

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.