Terrain and location cards are important as these are the only places where you can play your tokens. Cards are always placed upright, so that the title is in the upper left corner. Note that some cards will have a leaf symbol in this space; these nature icons will become important for other actions. Some spaces have preprinted icons on them; this tells you what goes there. Empty spaces can be filled with anything so long as there is at least one other thing of the same type already on the card. In general, when you place a token, you take the leftmost available one from your supply board. If you spend or return tokens, place them on the rightmost available space. The game is played over 7 rounds, and in each round, players will get three chances to place a workers and take the associated action. Possible actions include: The perfect balance between flying foxes (another common name for fruit bats) and the growth of the farm is the key to success and thus victory in this classic worker placement game!

Atiwa won’t be a game for everybody; Lookout has slotted this into their "Advanced" range for a reason. It’s a bit mathy. It’s mostly heads-down, min-maxing gameplay where you’re concentrating on your own little world… and it might be analysis-paralysis hell for some players. Player interaction is present, but is relatively gentle; major disruption of your plans by an opponent can happen, but it’s a rarity rather than the norm (maybe a couple of times a game?). However, if you DO like this sort of game, the puzzle presented by those personal supply boards can be an absolute delight to chew over, and all of the game mechanisms live and breathe the setting. Atiwa doesn’t feel like a case of somebody taking a pre-designed game, and then eco-washing it with nice art and a trendy environmentalist theming. Everything fits. Everything makes mechanical sense. It’s an interesting setting for a board game, and you very much feel like the designer is telling the story that he set out to tell.Good to know: A single colony of 150,000 fruit bats (AKA flying foxes) can contribute to the reforestation of 800 ha of forest within a year! Breeding – look at the current round space on the main board where there are 3 icons. If you have at least as many things as shown, gain exactly one more of that type. In this game, you will develop a small community near the Atiwa Range, creating housing for new families and sharing your newly gained knowledge on the negative effects of mining and the importance that the fruit bats have for the environment. You must acquire new land, manage your animals and resources, and make your community prosper. The player who best balances the needs of their community and the environment wins. Atiwa is a one to four player worker placement, resource management game, designed by Uwe Rosenberg and published by Lookout Games. Atiwa is a region in southeastern Ghana with steep-sided hills and flat summits. The region consists of evergreen forests and is home to many endangered species. The Mayor of the nearby town of Kibi is giving shelter to fruit bats in his own garden. The Mayor has recognised the importance of these species that sleep during the day and head out at sunset in search of food. These bats excrete the seeds of the consumed fruit and spread them across large areas.

The graphic design and iconography is very well done. As we have played our first few games, the other gamers in my group (who did not read the rules on their own) were able to correctly interpret the icons on the player aids and the cards; this was very nice to see. And speaking of the player aids – though there are 3 cards worth – they pretty much explain everything that you need to know to play – and this really streamlines the experience. It’ll come as no surprise to you by now that I love Atiwa. I loved it after my first play at Gridcon last year, and that love has only grown. Part of my love is because the components are so adorable, part of it is the ease of play, and part is of how streamlined it is. Solo will take you half an hour, then you can reset in a couple of minutes and go again (steady now!). How many games can you say that about? Time will tell, I’m sure, but as I write this now, Atiwa is my favourite Uwe Rosenberg game, just edging out Nusfjord. I’m sorry my fishy friend, I love you dearly, but these bats are just too much. Atiwa is a wonderful game. In the work phase, players will be placing workers to perform a variety of different actions such as gaining new resources (from their supply board), acquiring new terrain and location tiles (to build up their tableau) and spending resources. Resources (fruit, wild animals, goats and trees) are taken from your own player supply board and new terrain and locations tiles are placed below your player board. Tiles will depict a range of different icons ranging from the above mentioned resources to bats to houses. The shown resource can be placed on the respective space. There are some basic placement rules about placing resources, wild animals and bats in certain locations which I will not go into detail here.In the game, you'll develop a small community near the Atiwa Mountain Range, creating homes for new families and sharing your new knowledge about the negative effects of mining and the importance of fruit bats to the environment. You must acquire new land, manage your animals and resources, and grow your community. The player who finds the best balance between the needs of their community and the environment wins. Theme(s)