Carcassonne is a tile-placement game where the players draw and place a tile with a piece of southern French landscape on it. The tile might contain a city, a road, a cloister, grassland or some combination thereof, and it must be placed adjacent to tiles that have already been played, in such a way that cities are connected to cities, roads to roads, etcetera. Having placed a tile, the player may then decide to place one of their meeples on one of the areas on it: on the city as a knight, on the road as a robber, on a cloister as a monk, or on the grass as a farmer. When that area is finished, that meeple scores points for its owner.

During a game of Carcassonne, players are faced with choices like: "Is it really worth putting my last meeple there?" or "Should I use this tile to expand my city, or should I place it near my opponent instead, giving him a hard time to complete their project and score points?" Since players place only one tile and have the option to place one meeple on it, turns proceed quickly even if it is a game full of decisions and possibilities.

Carcassonne: 20th Anniversary Edition is a special edition of Carcassonne to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Spiel des Jahres win back in 2001. This edition comes with the tiles from the Carcassonne base game, "The River" mini-expansion (with five new river tiles), "The Abbot" mini-expansion, and a new 15-tile "anniversary" mini-expansion. All tiles are adorned with UV-print, with many detailed easter eggs hidden in the art. Costume stickers are included should you wish to "dress" your meeples.

All contents are compatible with both existing and future Carcassonne releases.