Gingham

About this board game

Gingham is a 2025 strategy game for 2–4 players that plays in about 40 minutes. In this tricky game of confection connection, rival ant colonies compete across an abandoned picnic blanket filled with sweets.

Players position their queens around the gingham playing area and deploy ants to connect matching sweet tokens and create valuable stockpiles. By surrounding and claiming these stockpiles, players score points and work toward proving their colony’s pint-sized royalty.

Each round, the lead player chooses which edge of the blanket everyone must use. Players place their queens next to rows along that edge, then deploy an ant into the row where their queen was placed. However, ants cannot be deployed beyond the stitch in the blanket, while rows closer to the star offer fewer placement options.

The queen placed closest to the star becomes the next round’s leader. That player may place their queen beside a row on any other edge, while turn order follows the sequence of queens in the previous row. This creates a central tactical choice: do you pursue a better position for the next round, or seek greater flexibility for your ant placement now?

• Connect matching sweet tokens with lines of ants.
• Surround and claim stockpiles to score points.
• Stack connected sweet tokens and leave sugar cubes behind.
• Place next to sugar cubes to claim them for powerful abilities.

As the blanket fills, players stretch their ant networks across the playing area and compete for the biggest piles of sweets. Gingham is the second title in Bitewing Games’ Travel Line, a collection focused on games that are supremely easy to play with anyone, anywhere.