Game Info
Year
2025
Players
2-4
Age
8+
Playtime
30 min
Complexity
2/5
Collection
Your Tier
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Description
Deploy ants on a picnic blanket to connect and stockpile sweets in a sharp abstract game inspired by trick-taking
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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 5
This page: 5
Sentiment:
pos 3 ·
mix 0 ·
neu 1 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–5 of 5
Video lXveR8CEX7A
Board Of It Discussion at 7:33 sentiment: positive
video_pk 81117 · mention_pk 199879
Click to watch at 7:33 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Brilliant game.
- Very tactical.
- Can play very offensively.
- Really good. Captures a rhythm of simple actions with a huge mental board state.
- Great game, quick playtime (20-30 minutes).
- Sharp, abstract, tactical with lots of options.
- Low rules overhead.
- Designer is becoming a favorite.
Cons
- Can be frustrating to be honest.
- Infuriating to have other players' ants moved around.
- The game ends when someone reaches 40 points, but the score is hidden.
- Irritating that there's no idea how close players are to 40 points.
- Hidden information can lead to different decisions if players knew game end proximity.
Thematic elements
- Competing ant factions at a picnic blanket trying to gain sweets
- Picnic blanket
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Action Point Allowance — Players exhaust items for actions.
- Area Control — Completely surrounding a stack of candy to control it.
- Hidden Movement — The score is hidden on a little score tracker per person.
- Set Collection — Making chains of ants connecting sweets.
- Worker Placement — Placing a queen down and then an ant down on that row.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- The partial cutthroat special.
- Root is the famous at this point cutesy but brutal asymmetrical war game where every player has a completely unique faction that plays in a different way and scores points in a different way but follows some kind of few simple core basic rules.
- Ants, my arch nemesis game of 2026 for sure, if not beyond.
- I may have said that I hate this game upwards of 10 times while we were playing it, at least.
- It is very good. It's a bit chesslike, right?
- One thing that I really don't like about it, and I'm sure you disagree because you kept winning. Uh, but it's the the game ends when someone reaches 40 points.
- So, I just find there's really a lot of game state and people win in different ways from going after different strategies.
- It has this great excitement at the end. Uh, it's kind of quick to go through as well.
- A Feast for Odin is a kind of worker placement mixed with polyomno game where you're sending out workers essentially fill up these player boards with all different shapes of tiles to cover up negative points.
- I find the occupation cards here. They're never interesting to me and they're so like they're so difficult.
- Dune Uprising... It's just so cutthroat and there's so many twists and turns and it's exciting and frustrating.
- I really hate about AI factions is when they get to do things that real players couldn't do.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video 2h57eq5rd64
Board Of It Top List at 8:47 sentiment: positive
video_pk 80520 · mention_pk 196093
Click to watch at 8:47 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Very sharp, surprisingly thematic abstract game
- Really quick to play
- Brutality and interaction are enjoyable
- Lots of tactical options
- Theme is quite fun
- Multiple strategies to win
- Varied game to game due to scoring elements
Cons
none
Thematic elements
- Ants capturing treats
- Picnic
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Placing a queen ant activates a row or column, and then players place their ants in that activated area.
- Area Control — Players place ants to surround and capture treats on a picnic blanket board.
- Diagonal Split Board — A stitch divides the board diagonally, affecting placement order and movement.
- End game scoring — Multiple strategies for winning exist, with significant points available through endgame scoring.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- I'm going to try my best to keep it to games that came out in 2026, but of course with different regions, different games come out at different times.
- So, as far as for me, these games came out in my region this year. Although some of you might have been able to access them earlier.
- And then, some of the other things that I like as well is I like this team talk before you start playing. I think it's fun. It gives everyone a chance to kind of chat and contribute and come up with different strategies and try them out.
- But Amelean feels like the first one that almost deserves to be there in its own right.
- It's just very sharp, it's very brutal, it's very interactive.
- And then we're getting to the heavy Euro section of this list of the year so far is Nippon.
- And this is, yeah, 1920s, 1930s New York mobsters building speakeasies across Manhattan.
- But this one might possibly be my favorite Vital Lacerda Vital Lacerda game.
- So, I always like that element. It's also, going back to what I said about Nippon, I really like navigating the actions.
- So, with that, those are my top five games of the year so far. Things are going to be really interesting to see what comes out in the second half of the year and if my opinions on these will shift or change or, you know, maybe you won't even see any of them on my list because so many good games come out between now and the end of the year.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video QcvzJ0BZ2qE
Discussion at 3:16 sentiment: neutral
video_pk 77747 · mention_pk 187921
Click to watch at 3:16 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
neutral
Pros
- Reviewed recently
- Been playing recently
Cons
none
Thematic elements
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- I'm not a businessman. Uh, I am not jack business Eddie.
- If you build it, they'll come.
- The cult of new is so strong that I feel like having a lot of content saying older games are also still really great. Um, yeah, can also counteract that.
- The entire Carboard Herald experiment, uh, has been about a dialogue, uh, between the people hosting it and an audience about sharing enthusiastic love for tabletop gaming and the people who make it.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video unzItOoYVso
Analysis at 2:38 sentiment: positive
video_pk 69145 · mention_pk 165513
Click to watch at 2:38 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Deliciously mean in the best way
- Genius mechanic for choosing play side
- Creates strategic opportunity cost
- Works great for pushing your luck and reckoning with turns left
- Wonderful thematic catch
Cons
- Cloth maps are ergonomically challenging
- Tall stacks are prone to falling
- Lacks a bit of depth and could become stale with many hours of play
Thematic elements
- Ants stealing sweets
- Picnic blanket
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — Each round, players choose which side of the mat (rows with limited spots) everyone must play on.
- Area Majority — Players place ants on a grid; whoever has the most tile spaces in a connected area takes over.
- Player Elimination (indirect) — Players can bump enemy ants off the board.
- Route Building — Ants are trying to connect sweets across a picnic blanket to score points.
- Set Collection — Connecting sweets allows players to claim treats for points.
- Variable end condition — The game ends when a player reaches a predetermined amount of points (40 or 32 depending on player count).
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- These are great games. Gazebo and Gingham are the first two official entries in Bitewing Games new travel line.
- They're both simple and elegant and beautiful in a kind of utilitarian way that I find quite pleasing.
- However you want to pronounce them.
- But let's take a deeper look at both of them.
- Don't let this game sweet exterior lead you astray. It is deliciously mean in the best way possible.
- This this is genius.
- The truth, though, is that just as you've been building your path, they've been building theirs, and you were probably too busy to notice or interfere.
- Now, some notes on both games that I feel it's important for you to know.
- As mentioned earlier, these two games are the first entries in Bitewing Games new travel line. And if these are the first two entries, I am very excited to see what's going to come next.
- These are the perfect games when I'm thinking of what do I want to bring that's simple and easy to understand, but also offers some strategic choices every round.
- And they're so rugged that you can just toss them into a hiking bag or a luggage bag or even just strap it to your belt loop.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video i1qOiS4UQIk
Before You Play Playthrough
video_pk 12840 · mention_pk 166528
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
none
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- We are playing with a prototype, so some of the pieces are upgraded
- Points are kept secret
- Ants are trying to connect like type sweets
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Transcript Navigation
Showing 1–5 of 5