March of the Ants: The Ultimate Ant Civilization Game
Created by Tim Eisner
Expand your colony and evolve your ants in this fast-playing 4X nature civilization game.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Shipping Update #1
7 months ago
– Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 11:58:35 AM
Hello Fantastic Marchers!
We are very excited to announce that all of the games are on boats and headed your way. The shipments to the UK and EU hit some delays leaving port but all games are currently en route and we expect fulfillment to start in the US by early October and the rest of the regions by the end of October!
Games on Boats! This is a stock image but our games are on very similar boats!
Shipping Timelines
See below for region specific info on when the ants will be marching into your region. Once the boats land in port it generally takes an additional week to reach the fulfillment center and then another week before fulfillment begins.
Our shipping agent has advised us that many shipments are taking longer than expected these days due to delays leaving port and during port stops in transit. We're hopeful the boats will keep to these schedules but there is a chance that some will have additional delays.
Estimated Port Arrivals
USA (All Play): September 15th
Canada (Board Game Bliss): September 28th
UK (Spiral Galaxy): October 13th
Germany (Fulfillment Europe): October 12th
Australia/New Zealand (Aetherworks): September 15th
China (VFI): Games have already arrived and are being prepared to ship to backers in China and to HUBS around Asia.
We'll be locking addresses based on region. Backers in each region will receive a "lock address notification" via email before their games ship out. Keep an eye on the email account you used for Backerkit. If you want to check your address now you can visit the pledge manager (Backerkit) to make sure we are shipping to the correct location. We'll be sending Updates every few weeks as the games are moving towards fulfillment centers and towards your tables.
All games will ship with a tracking email sent to the email you used in the pledge manager. Please email or message us with any questions or concerns.
Thank you all so much for your patience during the production process. We are thrilled that the games are so close to delivery and we can't wait for you all to play March of the Ants!
Tim, Ryan and the Weird City Team
Weird City Games Booth Essen 2024
Ants at Essen
Weird City Games is very excited to be attending Essen Spiel convention later this year in Germany. Spiel is the largest game convention in the world and we are excited to showcase March of the Ants (and all of our other wonderful titles) at the show this year. We would love if you could help boost awareness for March of the Ants by visiting the boardgamegeek Essen Spiel preview page and thumbing up the game as one of your most anticipated.
This will help more folks find us at the convention and help boost awareness of the game for its retail release later this year.
If you are attending Essen we would love to see you at the show so please stop by booth 2E111 to say hello!
(Unfortunately we are unable to offer Spiel pickup as we are a small team and it is too much for us to coordinate this year).
Manufacturing Completed, Tariffs, Pledge Manager Closing and our Next Game!
8 months ago
– Thu, Aug 14, 2025 at 02:00:48 PM
Hello Wonderful Ant Backer!
We have a lot of exciting news and updates to share today so we're going to jump right in.
MPC Looks Fantastic
At the end of July, Weird City Games traveled to Indianapolis for GENCON (the biggest gaming convention in North America). The MPC (manufacturing production copy) was scheduled to ship to us in Portland in mid-July but was delayed and we ended up having it shipped to our hotel room at GENCON.
Deluxe Edition with paper wrap. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see more photos of manufacturing and production!
After landing and settling into the hotel, we dove straight into reviewing the MPC, eager to check the final production quality and see if any last minute tweaks were needed before giving the factory the green light. For several hours, we inspected every component (verifying counts, feeling the materials, and checking colors) and everything looked incredible. We’re thrilled with the quality and gave the go ahead for our manufacturing partner start assembling the games.
We've got some other topics to cover in this update but we'll share photos of the MPC and manufacturing at the bottom of this update.
Games Headed to Boats
All the games are now packed, palletized, and ready to go. Several shipments have already left the factory and we are currently scheduled to have all games on boats by August 20th. If all goes as planned, by the end of next week they’ll be on their way to a fulfillment center near you, keeping us pretty close to our previous estimated timeline:
August 22nd: Ocean Freight Shipping Starts
August 25th: Pledge Manager closes - cards are charged
October 1st - 15th: Games Arrive in Port
October 15th - November 1st: Fulfillment Starts
November 1st - 30th: Games Arrive, Ants March, Enjoyment Ensues!
We'll have more specific dates for each region in our next update once all the ships with games have departed port.
Cartons of Games ready to be loaded on boats!
Tariffs
News came out at the start of the week that tariffs on board games imported from China have been paused at the current 30% rate. While that’s far better than the 150% rate earlier this year, it’s still a heavy hit to the board game industry. These tariffs are a tax on small businesses and consumers, not on China.
When we run a Kickstarter, we work hard to keep costs as close as possible to what we originally show. For that reason, Weird City Games has decided to absorb the 30% tariff cost rather than pass it on to backers.
That said, it’s still a significant loss of revenue for our small business (around $10,000 for the Kickstarter copies alone) that we’ll be paying directly to the U.S. government. We’ve added a Tariff Help Tip Jar in the pledge manager for U.S. backers who’d like to chip in $1 – $5 to help offset these costs. Any help is greatly appreciated!
Pledge Manager
The pledge manager will be closing on Monday, August 25th at which point your cards will be charged for shipping and any add-ons that you picked up in the pledge manager. If you want to add anything else to your pledge or you need to update or change your address, now is a great time to do so. If you need to recover your pledge manager survey you can do so by going to the survey recovery page. Enter the name of the project (March of the Ants) and the email address you used to pledge on Kickstarter.
Up Next from Weird City Games
Now that March of the Ants has finally finished production and will be heading to backers soon we are thrilled to announce our next Kickstarter launching on August 19th: Satchel Quest!
Satchel Quest is a competitive bag building adventure game for 1-4 players. Designed by the team from Flat Out Games (the designers of Point Salad, Ten, Propolis and many more), Satchel Quest will be Weird City Games first external design and we are thrilled to bring this fantastic and unique game to Kickstarter. For more info on the game and to get notified on launch sign up with the link below!
Tuckboxes within tuckboxes. Each player has their own box.
Proofing all the components.
All the punchboards!
So Many Tuckboxes!
Game Boxes prepped to be filled.
Whatz Manufacturing's awesome team doing final game assembly!
Check out this amazing video of how a boardgame box is assemble. Boxes are actually one of the most difficult things to manufacture and one of the reasons producing large high-end boardgames in the US is not feasible.
MPC on the Horizon
9 months ago
– Wed, Jul 09, 2025 at 08:21:33 AM
Hello Ant Backer Extraordinaire!
We hope you all are having a fantastic summer and we have a very quick update for you today.
Production News
Production is rolling along smoothly and we expect to have the MPC (manufacturing production copy) delivered by the end of this month. The MPC is the final version of the game, printed on the mass production printers that they assemble first to make sure all components are included and everything is looking good.
Once received, we'll do a thorough review of the MPC and if everything is looking good we will approve it and the factory team will assemble all the games! Then they'll be packed into cartons and loaded up for ocean freight. Currently we're looking solid on our timeline to ship the games by mid-August.
Gen Con
Weird City Games will be returning to Gen Con this year. If you will be attending we'd love to see you. Come by our booth (#2661) to check out the MPC in person and get a high five!
To help promote our presence at Gen Con we'd love if you visited the BGG preview page for Gen Con and thumbs up March of the Ants! BGG Gen Con Preview Page
We hope you all are enjoying the July weather and we'll be back in early August with another update!
Tim and the Weird Citizens
Ants Marching through Mass Production
10 months ago
– Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 01:40:58 PM
Hi Marcher!
We are very excited to report that production of March of the Ants is underway! It took longer than expected on multiple fronts but we are very excited with how awesome the final production is looking. We cannot wait for the manufacturing to be completed so that we can get the games shipped to you.
Updated Timeline Now that the games are finally getting produced we can give you a more accurate timeline for the rest of the project.
June 5th: Production Underway
July 25th: Mass Production Copy Received
August 5th: Production Completed
August 15th: Ocean Freight Shipping Starts
October 1st - 15th: Games Arrive in Port
October 15th - November 1st: Fulfillment Starts
November 1st - 30th: Games Arrive, Ants March, Enjoyment Ensues!
*Please note that the fulfillment schedule will vary based on region. We'll provide more details for specific regions once the games are moving towards fulfillment centers.
Shipping Congestion While most of the schedule is pretty firm there is currently a lot of uncertainty around shipping timelines. It can always take a week or two to get games loaded onto ships, but the tariff rollercoaster of the past few months created a huge increase in demand for containers which has led to higher prices and shipments often getting bumped to the next boat. We’re hoping the situation will calm down a bit over the next 2 months, but this is an area where we have very little control and that may impact final fulfillment dates.
Pledge Manager Our current plan is to close the pledge manager on August 18th. If all goes smoothly the games will be loaded on boats by then and we’ll have full knowledge of any tariff fees that our shipment to the US will face. As we said in the previous update our goal is to minimize any extra costs, but if the tariffs rise severely we may need to ask for additional funding from our US backers.
We’ll of course keep you updated on the progress of the project throughout. We want to thank you all for your patience and support through this entire process. We’re so excited to be making this game for you and cannot wait for you to enjoy it!
Tim and the Weird City Team
Ants on Our Table or the PPC Arrived
11 months ago
– Fri, May 16, 2025 at 10:58:40 AM
Hello Fantastic Friend of the Ants!
We're very excited to announce that the pre-production copy (PPC) of March of the Ants arrived this week and it is looking fantastic! This project has taken longer than imagined but we are over the moon with how all the components are looking and we are very excited to get the game into production and shipped out to you as soon as possible. We'll show off a ton of pictures below, but we want to cover some important updates before we dive in.
The Meadow is vibrant and inviting. But watch out for those centipedes!
Project Timeline
May 22 - Production Starts
Late July - Production Complete/Games ready to be loaded onto cargo ships.
Early to Mid-August - Games on Boats
Early to Mid-October - Games arrive at fulfillment centers
Late October/Early November - Fulfillment Begins
This timeline will vary slightly depending on region, but we hope to have all games fulfilled in November. This is a couple months behind schedule and we do apologize for the delay. We'll be working hard to keep the project moving as swiftly as possible.
Tariffs
For backers in the USA, we recently got some hopeful news on tariffs in that they have been reduced to 30% for the next 90 days. Unfortunately, this is a pretty tight window since the games take 60-70 days to produce and getting them loaded on ships can often take several weeks.
Shipping is now a big concern, as the demand has increased dramatically since the tariff reduction announcement and we expect there will be high demand right before the 90 day window ends (which is when we will be trying to get our games picked up). In the best of times, ocean freight shipping can be a roll of the dice, but with all the uncertainty around trade and the increased demand we can't be sure how long it will take for the games to get loaded onto boats. We are also anticipating higher prices for container shipping due to the demand.
Our current tariff plan is similar to our previous one in that we are still waiting to see what happens. If the tariffs remain at 30% we will cover the additional cost. If we miss the 90 day window, or tariffs unexpectedly rise again we may need to ask backers in the US to help cover part of the cost. If the tariffs rise above 50% we will ask US backers to cover half of the tariff cost which would likely be $5 or less.
But there are still a few months before we will make that decision and if we've learned anything it is that the current political and trade climate is very unpredictable. We will be waiting to close the pledge manager until the games are on boats so we can be sure of the tariff situation. We will send out an update well in advance of the pledge manager closing. We'll keep you all updated as we learn more.
Thank you for your patience and understanding!
Tim and the Weird City Team
Now let's look at this PPC!
Deluxe Edition box
March of the Ants: Evolved Edition Deluxe is our biggest game yet. A ton of awesome components and gameplay in one box!
