Each player controls a colony of ants in Marabunta. On a turn, the active player rolls the six dice, then splits them into two groups. The opponent chooses and uses the dice in one of the groups, then the active player uses the remaining dice.
New version of the Spiel des Jahres Recommended Big Points with a new theme, more engaging components, and rule tweak cards to make sure every play is different.
Four page illustrated rulebook. 20min play time. Highly interactive with no direct conflict.
Players move ants along a trail and collect food as they go. However, the value of that food depends on how the other ants move.
Shared incentives mean you are always trying to figure out what the other players are up to. Variable "rules cards" tweak the rules to every game so that each play is fresh.
During setup, a trail of food is laid out. On each player's turn, they can move any ant to the next food in the trail that matches their color (red ant to apple, purple ant to grapes, etc). Then the player takes the food token directly in front of or behind the ant, saving it to score at the end of the game.
However, players don't know for sure how much the food is going to be worth until the matching ant makes it to the ant hill at the end of the trail. This creates shared incentives as players work together to advance some ants and hold others back.
Along the way players also have the chance to pick up chocolate, which can be turned into special actions, and wine, which provides a way to score bonus points.
There are four decks of cards that define the rules for the game. Each game, one card is chosen from each deck to provide a unqiue combination. Players have to adapt their strategy to the actions the other players are taking and the unique rules for this game. The "rule decks" are:
Ant Hill - Food tokens are worth more points if the matching ant gets to the hill FIRST. Or, food tokens are worth more points if the matching ants get to the ant hill LAST.
Wine - The wine tokens have a different way of scoring in every game.
Chocolate - The chocolate tokens provide a different special power in every game. And, the best way to use that power will change based on the other special rules in play.
Variant - One special rule that applies to this game which offers an extra twist.
Your actions will change the incentives for the other players. Can you manage these cascading effects to collect the most valuable food collection?
You are sloths — cuddly, lazy, and, oh well, slothful.
All animals (including humans) like to take vacations, so everyone is together at a country resort. We sloths are sitting around, of course, while all the other animals are running throughout the resort. We want to look around, too, and traveling around the resort to pick up tasty leaves would be great — but running around ourselves is just too tedious. All the other animals are having fun, and we want that, too, but...we are so slothful.
And then we have an idea: We'll let ourselves be carried around by the other animals, thus getting around nicely. The other animals have so much energy that they'll even gladly carry us. They aren't slothful! Which of us sloths will be the first to get through the entire country and be victorious? We are ambitious, but so lazy!
Fast Sloths (a.k.a. "Faultier" in German) is a race game that at its core is a classic pick-up-and-deliver game — except that we ourselves are the cargo being delivered. We are being carried along the whole way and never take a single step on our own!
You always play with six out of twelve different animal species, and you can place the giant game board in four different combinations. On a turn, you draft 2-3 cards of different animal types from the top of their face-up decks, then you play as many animal cards as you like of a single type. Each animal provides a different type of movement or interaction with you, with ants carrying you along in a chain and the elephant throwing you with its trunk.
Fast Sloths is a game free from randomness that evolves only through the interaction between the players, doing so without any "take that" mechanisms — except for you snatching an animal from under the other players' noses because you need to use it yourself.
Each race offers new challenges for you to get to the different trees faster than the other sloths. Enjoy all 256 different combinations, each with countless starting positions of the animals on the game board...and we are already working on new game boards and more animals for even more fun combinations!
From the Publisher:
Hive is a highly addictive strategic game for two players that is not restricted by a board and can be played anywhere on any flat surface. Hive is made up of twenty two pieces, eleven black and eleven white, resembling a variety of creatures each with a unique way of moving.
With no setting up to do, the game begins when the first piece is placed down. As the subsequent pieces are placed this forms a pattern that becomes the playing surface (the pieces themselves become the board). Unlike other such games, the pieces are never eliminated and not all have to be played. The object of the game is to totally surround your opponent's queen, while at the same time trying to block your opponent from doing likewise to your queen. The player to totally surround his opponent's queen wins the game.
Online Play
Boardspace.net (real-time, AI option)
BoardgameArena (real-time)