Stop Bugging Me! - Games With a Bug Theme

Bugging Out!

My brain is a weird place. Sometimes, I come up with some really fun ideas like, "Cats are basically dragons or vice versa" and then make a blog post about various games that fit those themes. Other times, I sit for quite a bit of time thinking about what I want to write about and my mind goes into a spiral. I had so many different ideas for today's post but I couldn't figure out what direction I wanted to take it.

"Space theme?" There are far too many games out there and I'd want to narrow that down a bit more before attempting to make a list of games that interest me or I want to play or just in general. Space is vast and so are the number of games with that theme. I'd have to do a list that contained at least 30-40 games to really encompass a bunch of different space themes and I don't want to do that for fear of missing something.

"Ruins in space?" Derivative. I just did a post about ruins on earth and that would feel a bit too close to something I had done recently. I need to be more creative. I'm a writer. Writers are creative (sometimes). Don't choose an easy way out. Go with something fun.

"What about animals? Animals are fun!" Ok now we're getting somewhere. But I'd want it to be different than my previous post since the last one was about cats and dragons. Can't be too close to cats or dragons with the themes or I'll feel like I'm cheating. I'm all about challenge, so let's find something that's unique

"Can I write a post about games with bees?" Sure, that's a great idea, but now we're getting too narrow with our field of scope. Let's back it up just a bit. I think we could make a blog post about bees, but that would be un-bee-lieveable.

"Ok that was too narrow, how about insects?" Now we've hit it right on the honey. A post about insects is bee-autiful and I think it'll keep this blog from getting to stagn-ant. Ok that last pun was a stretch, just like an inchworm, but the theme still is a fun one to explore.

With that wild train of thought out of the way, lets launch into a few games about insects that are either (a) interesting to me and I want to play or have played, or (b) have popped up here on BGG enough that I'd like to address them, or maybe even a bit of both.

Full of Ant-ics

Why does this theme work so well?

Starting off, we have Apiary, a more recent game by Stonemaier Games that came out towards the end of 2023. It was one of those weird games that was a bit of a sleeper hit for me and I originally was interested just due to the theme of the game. Bees in space? That feels like it shouldn't work. And yet, when I was able to find a copy of the game and play it myself, I found that the theme was actually really clever and worked really well with the game. It was an odd sensation to find something that really was quirky with the theme and yet worked so well within the theme it created. It was just announced that there's an expansion for the game that comes with "more everything" so I'll be curious to find out what else it adds. I loved the game initially and having more for it definitely intrigues me.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Kabuto Sumo is a really clever implementation of something that occurs naturally but isn't something that I ever would have thought to bring to a tabletop game. The game itself is a dexterity game where players use discs to attempt to push off the other person's disc in a shoving match that really feels like a sumo wrestling match (from what I could read in the description). Bugs in real life have "wrestling" matches where they compete for dominance over females, so this feels like a perfect fit for the sumo theme and I love that it's a pure dexterity element to how the game is played. While I've not had the opportunity to play myself, I'm definitely interested in the game and would love to try it sometime to see how much fun it is.

Abstract and Colorful.

One subset of games that I have yet to fully explore is the abstract theme. I've played a few here and there, but none of them really look like Hive with it's beautiful iconography. I know that the game itself is a two player game and revolves around attempting to trap your opponent's queen bee, but I haven't really had an opportunity to play yet so I don't have any more information aside from that. The game itself looks absolutely incredible and I'm interested to try it since it seems to have been a perennial favorite since it's release in 2001 (Wow. This has been around for a while!).

First space, now economics?

Moving onward with our insect-related games, we come to Honey Buzz. First we had bees in space and now we have bees building their own little economic empire. Although, Honey Buzz did come before Apiary, so maybe it's more correct to say "economics and then space?" The game itself looks like a super cute medium-light worker placement game and while I already have a game that fits the bill for bees and worker-placement, I don't think I'd turn down a game of this to see what all the buzz is about since it is currently #454 on the rankings.

Creepy crawler bluffing game?

I'm not a big fan of cockroaches. Nor am I fan of Poker, but Cockroach Poker seems like it would be a blast to play with the right group. It's a bluffing card game where you're attempting to make someone else get a set of four cards, and when that happens, everyone else wins. It's a really funny twist on the normal set-collection genre and I think that it would be perfect to play with my family as we're generally pretty cutthroat with the games we play with one another.

Monarchs are so beautiful.

Last but not least, we have the beautiful Mariposas by Elizabeth Hargrave (of Wingspan and The Fox Experiment fame). I will admit that I've not really seen anything about this game here on BGG, but as I was doing research for the various games on this list, I came across the cover design and was immediately intrigued. I dug a bit further into the images on BGG and found that the game itself is gorgeous, and beautifully illustrates the life cycle of the monarch butterfly as it migrates from Mexico to the eastern US and back again each year to proliferate it's offspring. As someone who loved seeing monarch butterflies as a kid, this was so cool seeing this illustrated on the table via the board and I think it would be a really cool opportunity to teach my daughter about the lifecycle of the monarch, all while enjoying a beautiful and seemingly fun to play game.

Butterfly-ing to the End

This was a really fun post for me as most of these games I haven't really had the opportunity to play personally, but after writing about each one, I definitely see each of their strengths and it once again astounded me to how vast the world of board games is and how many themes there are. One could build an entire collection around bug-themed board games and easily come up with a collection of 200+ games (not necessarily good ones, but there are that many games with bugs in them).

While my initial intention with writing this blog was to write about my experience playing games, it's also opened up the opportunity for me to look deeper into what else is available to play. Themes have been a really fun experiment for me and it's opened my eyes to various games that are out there that I wouldn't necessarily choose to play, yet after reading about them, couldn't help but pique my interest. I read a statistic that I believe stated that 2023 alone saw 5000 new games come into the market via various sources. There's a whole ton of games that are out there to play and I will be the first to admit that I find that overwhelming sometimes.

I'm hoping that with these posts, I can at least narrow down a few games for specific themes that will help you on your journey into the board game realm and provide some ideas for games to play or try on your own. I'll definitely be revisiting some of these game themes in the future and keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of anything. This is just a quick list that I threw together about games that I knew or found in my research, so enjoy it for what it is and hopefully you can get a good idea for some fun games for your next game night.

Give me your thoughts:What are your favorite bug-themed games that you have in your collection or have played? What is one element of bugs that you think would be fun to build a game or mechanic off to include in a larger game? Am I bug-ging you with all this buzz about insect games, or are my questions fly-ing by you without landing?

As always, thank you so much for checking out this blog. If you liked it, please hit the green thumb at the top of the page and feel free to leave a comment on the post. I appreciate all interactions and will respond to everything that I can. If you really liked the post and want more ramblings, feel free to subscribe and get new posts every Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

*Originally posted on BoardGameGeek on 24/6/2024*