Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
More strategic control
How it plays
How does it play?
Grow a rival ant colony through digging, foraging, incubation, pheromone trails, and specialized workers while competing to dominate a living garden.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Income
Receive recurring resources according to your position, assets, or development.
Hexagon Grid
Use a hexagonal map where each space connects evenly in six directions.
End Game Bonuses
Earn additional points for meeting conditions evaluated when the game ends.
Read the full game description
Ants is a substantial strategy game about constructing an anthill below ground while projecting influence across the garden above it. On a turn, players choose among six core actions: dig new rooms, explore terrain, gather resources, incubate larvae, play cards, or defeat hostile insects. Eggs become workers with specialized roles, and pheromone trails shape how efficiently the colony reaches food, leaves, mushrooms, and enemies. Queen rooms and asymmetric development options push colonies toward different strengths, while a shared card market and contested garden ensure that growth never happens in isolation. Income, room placement, hand management, and end-game bonuses are tightly connected, so an efficient colony must balance immediate survival with an evolving engine. The theme is not cosmetic: the best plans feel like colony logistics, with many small units turning coordinated labor into dominance.
