Gingham

Gingham Deep Dive

What the Community Thinks About Gingham

Gingham is a small abstract strategy game from Bitewing Games for two to four players. Players command rival ant colonies raiding a picnic blanket full of sweets. It launched on Kickstarter alongside Gazebo as the first two entries in Bitewing's travel line, and reviewers who liked it tend to like it a lot. Eric of Cardboard Herald calls the pair great games and a harbinger of things to come. Board Of It ranked Gingham number three in a mid-year list of favorites, and Board Game Animal said plainly that it loves the game. The Dice Tower is the dissenting voice. Tom Vasel gave it a five out of ten and Mike DiLisio a six, both finding it more clever than fun, while Chris Yi rated it 7.5. Much of the coverage came from supported copies. Board Of It and Cardboard Herald reviewed copies sent to them, and Before You Play recorded a playthrough of a prototype on Kickstarter, sponsored by Bitewing Games.

Core Mechanics That Define Gingham

Rows, the Stitch and Turn Order

Each round, players place a queen ant beside one edge of the cloth blanket. That activates a row or column, and the player then places a worker ant in it. A stitch runs diagonally across the middle of the blanket, and no ant can be placed past it, so some rows offer only one or two spaces while others offer many. Turns run outward from a star in the corner. Cardboard Herald explains the catch: the player who takes the row with the fewest options goes first next round and chooses which side of the board everyone plays on. Eric calls this genius, because it trades fewer choices now for control of the next round. Board Of It notes the rhythm this creates. A player can sometimes take several turns back to back by going last in one round and first in the next.

Connecting Sweets and Claiming Stockpiles

The scoring comes from chains. Connect two matching sweets with a line of ants and the chain scores a point for each ant in it. One sweet is then stacked on top of the other, and sugar cubes are left in the emptied space. Before You Play walks through the second path: completely surround a sweet or stockpile with only your own ants and you may claim it. A center stack needs four ants to surround, a side stack two and a corner one. Board Of It points out the trade-off: a one-ant claim is easy to take and just as easy for an opponent to steal, while a four-ant claim is hard work but almost impossible to lose. Sugar cubes pay for five special abilities, whose costs shift along a track as they are used.

The Gingham Experience

Deliciously Mean

The cute picnic theme hides a biting game. On any turn, a player can bump an opponent's ant off the board instead of taking an empty space. The bumped ant can then return to any empty space, even past the stitch. Board Of It says every bump means weighing what the opponent can do with that freed ant against the value of knocking it away. Its hosts recall a game where a bumped ant completed a ten-point chain that ended the game. Tally of Board Of It jokingly called it an arch nemesis game after losing repeatedly, while still calling it a good game. Eric warns that sweet piles you have been building toward for rounds can be moved in the blink of an eye.

A Tight, Chess-Like Duel at Two

Two players is where Gingham earns its warmest praise. Board Of It describes it at two as a 30-minute game of something very chess-like, a head-to-head contest of positional placement rather than chaos. The Dice Tower broadly agrees on the best count: Mike DiLisio calls it a solid two-player game and finds that it slogs beyond that. The sugar cube abilities keep it from being fully calculable. In the Board Game Animal interview, the designer explains that the abilities add enough chaos that players cannot simply work out every move the way they would in chess, which makes the game feel less dry.

What Makes Gingham Stand Out

A Theme That Teaches

The theme arrived late. The designer told Board Game Animal that Gingham started life as a trick-taking card game, then became a city game about connecting landmarks, and only turned into ants at the very end of pitching. Justin of Board Game Animal praises it as one of the best themes for teaching an abstract strategy game: new players immediately understand ants forming a chain to carry food. Farrell of Board Of It calls it surprisingly thematic. The Dice Tower disagrees here, with Tom Vasel joking that the game gives up on its theme almost immediately.

Many Paths to Victory in a Small Box

The game ends when someone reaches 40 points, or 32 with four players, but end-game scoring can still decide the winner. Claimed stockpiles score a point per tile, the tallest stack of each sweet type earns five bonus points, and leftover sugar cubes are worth a point each. Farrell of Board Of It enjoys that some players chase long chains while others quietly build stockpiles, so the final scores can jump past the trigger. Portability is the other draw. Eric says both travel-line games can go in a hiking bag or luggage, and the designer called the travel case a favorite part of the final product.

Potential Drawbacks

Hidden Scores and Fiddly Rules

Scores are kept secret, and that divides reviewers. Tally of Board Of It found it frustrating to plan a big turn without knowing how close an opponent was to 40. Tom Vasel asked what the point of hiding the scores was at all. Eric of Cardboard Herald, by contrast, enjoys the push-your-luck tension of guessing how many turns remain. The rules also get a mixed reception. Mike DiLisio says Gingham feels like it should be simpler than it is. Chris Yi has to reread the scoring every time before teaching it, and sees a pronounced skill gap between new and experienced players.

Busy at Four, and Wobbly Components

Higher player counts draw the strongest complaints. Tom Vasel calls four players abysmal and so chaotic that strategy disappears. Board Of It says it would rather reach for other games with more people. Components raise concerns too. The Dice Tower dislikes the standard cloth mats without the upgraded components. Eric finds the cloth maps ergonomically challenging, because a small bump sends the tall sweet stacks toppling, and suspects the game could grow stale after many hours.

If You Enjoy Gingham

Chris Yi of The Dice Tower says Gingham gives the feel of Hansa Teutonica, one of Chris Yi's favorite games: bumping other players' pieces feels great, but the bumped player gets to place the piece anywhere. The Dice Tower also compares its turn order to Kingdomino and Floriferous, where taking a weaker option now buys an earlier turn next round. Gingham's travel-line sibling Gazebo is the natural companion. Cardboard Herald reviewed the two together and initially slightly preferred Gingham, though it noted that Gazebo's varied maps give it more variety.