Antsy

Antsy

Players take turns selecting and laying new tunnel tiles or play a harmful tile on a player’s colony, or removing a harmful tile from their own. Over time each player will develop a Colony of tunnels and chambers full of eggs, larva, food, and more. Each tile placed will have some kind of impact on the players Colony during the game. The game will end when one player finishes off their Colony by placing all 7 chambers and closing off all open tunnels.

In The Box

120 Ant Tunnel Tiles each with different tunnel types for Connecting to make your future ant colony. Chambers:

5 of each of the 7 different rooms.

Hazards: 5 Collapse, 2 Infection, 2 Poison, and 2 Invasion.

Four-way tunnels: 13

Three-way tunnels: 24

Curved tunnels: 18

Straight tunnels: 13

Dead ends: 6

7 Chamber tiles: Egg chamber, larvae chamber, waste chamber, food storage, queens chamber, army barracks, & worker dorms.

4 Harmful Tiles: Infection, Collapse, Poison, and Invade.

1 Central double-sided play mat with ant hills, 2-4 player and 3 player.

1 8-sided dice, with 7 color stickers and one multicolor sticker. Multicolor is for re-rolling.

2 Bug tokens, black & white. Used as action selection markers.

1 Purple bug token used to show the forbidden action after it is selected.

Game Setup

Shuffle the Tunnel Tiles and place them within reach of everyone. place the playing mat in the center of the table. Put the 8-sided dice and bug tokens onto the center of the playing mat. Roll the dice and this is the first forbiden action. Put the Purple Bug there. Then Place the black bug first and the white bug second. These are the player pieces.

Each player takes 3 Tunnel Tiles, you may call a mulligan once on your first draw. play starts for everyone from their chosen ant hill on the central playing mat.

The person who goes last is the person who burned ants with a magnifying glass as a kid (be truthful). Continue play clockwise from there. If no one did this or there’s a tie, then the youngest player goes first.

Overview

The dice is used to indicate a forbidden action (Initially determined randomly by rolling), place the purple bug token on the action, and the remaining segments constitute a rondel with the two other bugs as markers. Each turn, a player may move either an ant marker any number of spaces clockwise, up to the space behind the other bug, excluding the forbidden space, then take the action(s) on that space. You may never pass the other ant, nor land on the temporarily forbidden segment.

When choosing a new temporarily forbidden action, you may select a space occupied by one of the bug markers, (without “breaking” the game.) Laying new tunnel tiles/play a harmful tile into a player’s colony, or removing a harmful tile from their colony. Over time each player will develop a colony of tunnels and chambers full of eggs, larva, workers, etc. Each tile placed will have some kind of impact on the players Colony during the game. The game will end when one player finishes off their Colony by placing all 7 chambers, closing off all open tunnels, and removing all harmful tiles.

When there is a deadlock and the next player cannot move a bug, that player moves the first ant ahead of it

Congrats you have your new ant kingdom to run.

Tile Placement

Each Tunnel Tile has 4 sides. If the side of a Tunnel Tile has a pathway, it must be matched up with another pathway when it is placed. Each tile placed must connect to previously placed tiles on at least one side.

If the tile has a chamber on it, place it into your Colony and continue play till you have all 7 of these chambers into your Colony. As in nature, if your tunnel or chamber was placed first, it’s your space, others have to go around or they need to invade and disrupt your colony.

Harmful Tiles

All harmful tiles must be removed from your colony before you can win the game.

Poison Must be played on top of an existing chamber or dead end segment & must be dealt with by playing a dead end segment over the poison; then discarding both the poison and the underlying chamber or dead end tile, then drawing a new replacement card. Chambers can be used as dead ends for poison. Once the chamber is used, discard both underlying tiles and place the chamber tile face down in there place. This is considered a closed dead end tile. If a colony is closed completely you cannot play a poison tile.

Collapse Must be played on top of an existing straight tunnel or curved tunnel & Must be dealt with by playing either a straight or curved tunnel tile over the collapse, then discarding both the collapse and the underlying tunnel tile. Draw a replacement card.

Infection Must be played on top of an existing three-way or four-way tunnel tile & must be dealt with by playing a three-way or four-way tunnel over the infection. Discard the underlying three-way or four-way tunnel, then moving the infection to an existing three-way or four-way tunnel in an opponent’s tunnel network, then drawing a replacement card.

Invasion Play if your tunnel network gets close enough (within a one card distance), to a neighboring tunnel network, you may invade. If both or neither players have already played their army barracks, then there is no effect, but if only one player has played an army barracks on their next turn, they can start removing and discarding chambers from their victim's tunnel network, one per turn. The invaded player can deal with the Invasion by playing their own army barracks or by playing a collapse on top of the Invasion card. Either way of handling the Invasion removes the Invasion card. On your turn you may either move the bug token or remove a chamber tile. If you remove a chamber you then draw a tile afterwards. Once the final chamber has been removed from their colony, the Invasion tile is discarded.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

The game will end when one player finishes off their Colony by placing all 7 chambers, closing off all open tunnels, and removing all harmful tiles. Players get one more turn to place their last tunnel piece.

The first player to finish their colony is the winner and you get to enjoy your beautifully created new colony.