Atiwa

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Plus, there’s a thing going on around “training” the families who live in your village. (Though “training” seems like a bit of an odd choice of word to me, and I do wonder if it’s just a slightly awkward German->English translation … I kind of like to think of this action as “educating” your villagers instead of "training"). By default, a newly-arrived family in your village will cause pollution, and see bats as a threat to their livelihood. There’s an end-of-round action where your families all earn income … any “untrained” families do this by mining gold and bauxite — a process which causes pollution chits to creep down your tile tableau, putting spaces out of action for the rest of the game … and “untrained” families also don’t like having bats roosting in their home, which deprives you of a handy bat-keeping space. “Trained” families, on the other hand, earn their income in an ecologically-sound, non-polluting way, will happily provide a home for bats, and will also score you bonus points at the end of the game. So you really want to train your villagers, if you can.

In Atiwa you develop a small community near the Atiwa range. You will create housing for new families, share your knowledge of the negative effects of mining and the importance of fruit bats in the environment. You will need to acquire new land, manage animals and resources and develop your community. Atiwa is played over seven rounds, with each round consisting of a work phase in which players will take three actions, followed by a maintenance phase. I have now played Atiwa as a solo experience, with 2 players, and at the max 4 player count. At all levels, the game moves along briskly and is easy to teach due to the straightforward iconography and included player aids. I really liked the fixed economy that each player has on their personal boards and how moving one item off and onto your cards opened up income of another type during a later phase of the game.

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Players must then feed their families based on the difference between the number of goats removed from their supply board and the number displayed on the family row. Goats, wild animals, fruit and gold can be used for food. 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) Dans Atiwa, vous développez une petite communauté au Ghana, tout en gérant les populations de chauves-souris. Passionnant, pertinent ! To start off, let me say that this game is very much on the lighter end of the Uwe Farming Worker Placement spectrum. That alone might tell you how you’re going to feel about this. Unlike some of the other UFWP games, this one has a pretty streamlined scoring system. Sure, everything kinda scores something in the end, but the bulk of the points come from the village cards that you build and the families that you have raised. It’s a lovely core mechanism. And you really feel the pain of taking actions with sub-optimal timing.

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 game will proceed this way for seven rounds at which point players gain victory points for gold, terrain cards, resources removed from their supply board, trained families and fruit bats. Points are deducted for missing food. The player with the most points is the winner. Final ThoughtsGood to know: A single colony of 150,000 fruit bats can contribute to the reforestation of 800 ha of forest within a year! Another aspect that I enjoy is Atiwa is your supply board. You have your own personal supply board that you remove and add resources to as your progress through the game. Balancing this and managing your resources is very compelling. The more resources you remove the better rewards, but as you spend resources they re-populate your supply board. I love this mechanism and it is so simple. So, here's a bit of a rarity for this blog: an actual REVIEW! ... as in: a fully-baked opinion that isn't based on mere first impressions, and has been written after I've got a decent number of plays of the game in question under my belt!

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! At first glance, you might think the board rivals something like A Feast For Odin in terms of action spaces to place your workers. In reality, the choices are much more simple. Many of the actions involve moving something from your supply board (goats, wildlife, trees, families, fruit) to your village spaces, usually by trading something else in return. The game’s economy is really easy to grasp. Above and below the main board are new tiles to add to your tableau, representing wild areas (things like grasslands, lakes, caves), or living areas such as villages and towns. Expanding your tableau with these tiles is essential as the game goes on. At the end of a game at my local games club. Atiwa has a relatively small footprint. Income – For each trained family token, gain a gold. For each untrained family, draw a pollution token, gaining 0/1/2 gold as shown. Then, place these pollution tokens, going row by row, left to right on the cards; filling in all top middle spaces first, then top right, then second row, and so forth. If there is a token on a space that is filled with pollution, that token is lost. The pollution tokens are never removed, so this represents a permanent loss of space on your cards. As this game is on the lighter end of the WFWP games – we’re definitely staying within the 30 min / player suggested time frame. This game doesn’t have much in the sense of alternate setups. There is one part of the board that changes based on player count; but this is mostly to even out the number of action spaces. The six round boards are shuffled each game, and they slide along during the game – but otherwise, there isn’t much else that changes. For me, this is no problem. Firstly, I still haven’t proved to have a great grasp of how to succeed in the game consistently. Second, the game design is solid to me, and I don’t need a different setup each time I play the game for it to provide an interesting challenge. Third, the random deal of the initial landscape cards can definitely change how you might approach the game based on what things you have room to store… After my first few plays, Atiwa is highly recommended – probably supplanting Nusfjord as my favorite light UFWP game.

The thematic touch of the untrained workers creating pollution for your community is a great addition. It always pains me to pollute my tableau, especially if I have to destroy a resource, or worse, a bat. It makes you think about what you are doing and pushes the theme of working with nature and the fruit bats for the greater good. Going Alone There are a couple of criticisms here as well. After several plays, it feels like the possibility of discovering new strategies is low. I fear that after a few more plays that this one may be relegated to being “solved” and become a bit samey. The solo mode scenarios should help with this at least. I also don’t love the graphic design choice of the main board and the terrain cards. It’s a long-running joke that Euro games can be all beige, but in Atiwa, various shades of brown and green really do the heavy lifting in the art department. I wish they had opted for some more vibrant art befitting the beauty of the Atiwa rainforest. That being said, I have enjoyed my time with Atiwa, but worry that the theme will overshadow the gameplay after a few plays. I can’t help but think that maybe Uwe Rosenburg meant it to be that way.

But it’s one thing to read about a concept in a book and an entirely different matter to actually experience it for yourself. And, let me tell you, Atiwa is an absolutely brilliant piece of game design. Mechanically, everything fits together like a cog in a well-oiled machine. There is zero fluff. And, despite how it looks on paper, it’s an incredibly easy game to teach and learn. 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. There is nice balance in your engine building. You will generate a tree engine – whether it is from bats pooping out seeds to generate new trees, or maybe having a lot of wild animals in your area which also lead to trees in the income phase – but in the end, you need trees to buy more land cards, especially village cards. Village cards provide spaces to house families, and as I said – this is one of the main ways to score points. Of course, as soon as you add more families to your area, you increase your food demand and you also increase the chance of pollution taking its toll on your cards… And the noise that the new kid is making is a high-pitched squeaking noise. Look at the lovely little bats!

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!