We are very happy to present you today with Hive, a game by John Yianni (Gen42 Games).

To give you a quick first impression of Hive, we could say that it's a little like if chess had been brought in the XXIst century to the mysterious insect world. The game is played 1 on 1, using hexagonal pieces matching various insects, and the goal is to capture the Queen Bee of your opponent. It's of course very tactical: an astute sequence of moves can completely reverse the flow of the game at any moment. And the average time for a game is just around 10 minutes!

The rules are really simple to learn: on your turn, you can either place a new piece in play or move one already in play (note that the Queen Bee must be placed before or during the 4th turn, and that you can move pieces only after the Queen Bee has been put in play). Whatever else happens, the pieces must always stay linked together to form the playing area ("the hive"), which means that as a general rule insects will move by "sliding" around other insects. Finally, a player wins immediately if the opponent Queen Bee is completely surrounded.

Of course, each of the 5 insects of the game has its own specific movement rule, from the Soldier ant that moves an unlimited number of spaces, through the Grasshopper that jumps from one side of the hive to the other, to the Beetle that can "climb" on top of other insects to block them!

Hive is a subtle, profound game that will grow on you over time: the more you play, the more you like it. So we strongly encourage you to go beyond your first learning games to really enjoy it!

The adaptation of Hive on BGA has been done by Cédric Leclinche (vaanatomic) and Antoine Tallotte (Ixxar) using BGA Studio. A big thank you to them for their work on this game, and to John Yianni (Gen42), author and publisher of Hive, for creating this game and for his kind authorisation to make it available on BGA!

Have a great buzzing time!

PS: some of you seem to already be expert Hive fans and have asked about expansions. Please know that it's quite possible that the Ladybug, the Mosquito and the Pill bug will come to bug the other insects in the hive sometime in the future, when Cédric and Antoine get the time needed to train them in the Studio 😉