Carcassonne Central

Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: Halfling on June 12, 2016, 03:03:17 PM

Title: Spinoff headtohead QF#1 - Kids of Carcassonne vs The Castle
Post by: Halfling on June 12, 2016, 03:03:17 PM
Kids of Carcassonne received a bye in the opening round as it was the remaining version in the hat after the other 10 had been drawn against each other.  The best 2 runners-up H&G and New World got through as best losers.  It is now winner takes all in each poll.


Carcassonne is a great tile laying game with infinite expansionability.  It has been reduced to a travel version, reinvented as Carcassonne II, colour changed for the Winter Edition and had luck added in the Wheel of Fortune.  But these are all different flavours with the same playability as the vanilla version we all love and return to again and again.

Variants on a theme are all very well but the tile laying concept can be taken much further, and has been by Hans im Gluck and other companies too.  This series of polls is for the forum to offer thoughts on which is their preferences and why.  I am only including spinoffs by Hans im Gluck through various distributers in this series.

The poll is open for 7 days and then another will be offered up for comments.  It may well be that the 3rd option gets most votes but it'll be the spinoff with the majority that progresses to the next round.
Title: Re: Spinoff headtohead QF#1 - Kids of Carcassonne vs The Castle
Post by: danisthirty on June 21, 2016, 06:48:29 AM
I would have voted for Kids of Carcassonne if I'd been paying closer attention to the General forum.

The tiles are big and sturdy, and the backs are the most interesting of all the Carcassonne spin-offs in my opinion (which jungleboy will inevitably disagree with purely for the sake of it :P). The game is very simple, but it's still fun to play every now and again, and I like that my daughter (5 y/o) and I can play head to head without me having to make any bad decisions in order to keep her in the game.

With a game like this, I can imagine it being very easy to make it simple, but boring at the same time whereas I don't feel that this is something that this game suffers from. It certainly is simple, but the tactical/ strategic element is still there to a degree and is easy enough to grasp that even my daughter recognises how to place the tiles in order to maximise her chances of completing her roads without adding to mine (we always play this head to head and have two colours each).

I've never really played The Castle but I've watched it being played and nothing about it appealed to me apart from the fact that it was 2-player only.
Title: Re: Spinoff headtohead QF#1 - Kids of Carcassonne vs The Castle
Post by: jungleboy on June 21, 2016, 07:13:27 AM
The tiles are big and sturdy, and the backs are the most interesting of all the Carcassonne spin-offs in my opinion

What??!! That's ridiculous!!  :(n)

Oh wait, I actually have no idea what the tile backs look like for Kids of Carcassonne. So I don't disagree. But I am sceptical.  ;D  :(y)
Title: Re: Spinoff headtohead QF#1 - Kids of Carcassonne vs The Castle
Post by: danisthirty on June 21, 2016, 07:18:55 AM
Oh wait, I actually have no idea what the tile backs look like for Kids of Carcassonne. So I don't disagree. But I am sceptical.  ;D  :(y)

I just went all the way upstairs to get one of the tiles for you, so that I could take a photo of the back and post the picture here. But then I realised I couldn't be bothered as it had other games on top of it and it's awkward to get out.

True story.

PS: (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FdDQdEM2TCE/VPCaGo58nsI/AAAAAAAA0Fw/8s84k03IQPE/s1600/20150226_092150_resized.jpg)
Title: Re: Spinoff headtohead QF#1 - Kids of Carcassonne vs The Castle
Post by: jungleboy on June 21, 2016, 08:01:32 AM
Those tile backs are awful.   >:D