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About Paleo
Paleo is a cooperative card game about keeping a Stone Age tribe alive long enough to finish a cave painting. Each player explores their own deck, and every card back shows a scene, a forest, a river, a mountain, that hints at what is on the front. You gather food and materials, make tools, face animals and help each other through hard encounters. It is built from lettered modules, so each scenario changes the deck. It won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2021.
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Is Paleo Right for You?
Best for
Paleo is for cooperative groups who want something with real decisions but less bookkeeping than a dungeon crawler. It is at its best with two or three players, when everyone is resolving their own card but still talking about the tribe's shared survival. The module system means a new scenario feels different rather than harder, which gives it a long life.
Maybe skip it if…
It is punishing, and early games are often lost in the first day or two. Anyone who dislikes losing to the game, or who wants a clear, visible puzzle rather than hidden decks, may give up before it clicks.
How to Play Paleo
Setup
Choose a scenario, combine the base deck with its modules and deal each player a personal deck. Give each player their starting people.
On Your Turn
- Each player looks at the backs of their top cards, picks one to face and returns the rest.
- Everyone reveals at once. Resolve your card, or send your people to help another player with theirs.
- When the day ends, the tribe must eat. Missing food, injured people and failed dangers all cost skulls.
How to Win
The tribe wins by completing five pieces of the cave painting, and loses immediately on the fifth skull.
💡 Strategy Tips
Read the card backs. They are not decoration, and choosing a familiar landscape is often safer than chasing the card you need.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Ignoring food. Hunger is the most common way to lose, and a tribe that spends the day making tools often starves at night.
- Facing danger alone. Sending people to help another player's card is often the difference between success and a skull.
- Choosing cards at random. The backs tell you what kind of landscape you are entering, and reading them is most of the skill.
- Starting with the hardest modules. The easier scenarios teach the rhythm of the game, and the hard ones assume you already know it.
Advanced Strategy
- Plan the day around the night. Count the food you will need before choosing risky cards.
- Keep one strong person free to help. Flexible support is often more valuable than a second card attempted.
- Track what each deck has shown. Knowing which dangers are still to come tells you when to push and when to play safe.
- Build tools early in the game, when skulls are cheapest to absorb. Tools compound over the remaining days.
Variants & House Rules
The scenario modules
The base game contains lettered modules, A to L, which are combined to make scenarios of different difficulty and theme.
Paleo: A New Beginning
An expansion with six new modules, M to R, plus grain, huts and farming. It needs the base game.
Video Guides
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Our Verdict
Paleo is a smart cooperative design that makes exploring a deck of cards feel like exploring a landscape. The card-back hints are its best idea, giving real information without removing the tension. It deserved its Kennerspiel des Jahres, and the module system gives it far more variety than its box suggests.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I play Paleo solo?
Not officially. The box is for two to four, but many players run two decks themselves, and the game handles that well.
Is it too hard?
It is hard at first. Start with the introductory scenario and treat early losses as learning the deck; it gets manageable quickly.
Does it have a campaign?
No. Each scenario is a standalone game, and the modules are recombined freely rather than played in a fixed sequence.