Atta Ants Review

Atta Ants is a game of leaf collecting, ant reproduction and arachnid avoidance that comes in a small package but with a surprisingly nice set of components. The game sees players laying tiles to extend the network of tunnels leading from their nest (in a strange twist, the competing ant families all originate from the same nest, which makes sense from a game design standpoint but no sense whatsoever thematically!), then moving through the tunnels attempting to collect leaves and then get them back safely to the nest where they are exchanged for new ants. The object of the game is to get all six ants into play.

This is harder than it would at first seem: spiders patrol the board - each tile with a spider picture has a spider token placed upon it as soon as it is laid, and these spiders are moved by the active player after a) a tile is laid and then b) their ants have all been moved. The rule of moving spiders is that they will move towards the tile containing the most ants, along the shortest route possible (but not through the nest). Any ties for shortest route or tile with most ants on is resolved by the acting player who chooses which direction the spiders move.

Adding to this, players cannot simply keep their ants in the safety of their nest - only two ants of each colour can ever be in the nest at one time, and if an ant starts the turn in the nest it must move out of it on that turn and cannot move back in until the following turn.

Atta Ants plays pretty quickly and is very simple to explain and play. The packaging is great, as it comes in a nice little plastic box which is very compact, yet manages to nicely fit everything inside. The ants and spiders are represented by wooden, circular markers in various colours and leaves are small green glass stones. It would have been nice to have had markers that looked a little more ant like and a little less abstract, but it is totally understandable that the wooden markers have been used as the glass stones fit snugly on top of them when they are being carried around the nest.

Atta Ants is a fairly simple and light game that is nicely designed, reasonably priced, plays quickly and the subject matter is very appealing (well, mostly – i’m sure lots of players will hate the spiders!). Recommended for those players looking for something a little different in an ant-sized package!

Summary

Presentation:

The incredibly compact, transparent plastic box is superb. The wooden playing pieces are a little too abstract, however – and the map tiles are a little flimsy. 6.8/10

Clarity of Rules:

Easy to understand, fairly well written rules. A few awkward rules do make things a little hard to digest at first. 7.9/10

Game Length:

Variable – games can turn into a bit of a tug-of-war at times – but for the most part pretty short and wrapped up from setup to end within 30 minutes. 8.5/10

Value:

Considering the price and the fact that expansions are available to add to the main game, Atta Ants does represent excellent value for money. 9.1/10

Overall:

A great little game in a nice little package, Atta Ants is cheap and cheerful fun that can be taught and played very quickly indeed. Recommended. 8.8/10 (not an average)

Review by Jason M. Brown