About Awaken the Ancients
Awaken the Ancients is a solo puzzle game by Gregg Jewell that turns mancala into a card layout. As Warden of the Grove, you sow Wildseeds around a ring of eight slumbering Ancients. Each Ancient wakes when the seeds on it match its ritual pattern, but some awakened Ancients then eat the seeds that land on them, and you only have sixteen. The game took first place for Best Overall Game, Best Graphic Design and Best PnP at the BoardGameGeek 2024 Solitaire Print and Play Contest.
It needs only 18 cards and a handful of coloured tokens, so it is one of the quickest builds on this site. BoardGameGeek gives ages 8 and up and 10 to 30 minutes. The files are name your own price on itch.io (enter 0 to download for free) and also on Google Drive from the designer’s BGG thread. It suits anyone who likes short abstract puzzles; three small expansions add new Ancients and twists once you have beaten the base game.
How to play in one minute
- Choose a sowing direction for the whole game, deal eight Ancients, sleeping side up, into two rows of four, put a Keeper card at each end and place two random seeds on each Ancient.
- On your turn, pick up every seed from one Ancient or Keeper and drop them one by one on the following Ancients in your chosen direction, skipping the Keepers. Once you let go of a seed it stays.
- Remove any seed that lands on an awakened Ancient showing that seed marked with an X: it has been consumed.
- When the seeds on a sleeping Ancient include its ritual pattern, move all its seeds to a Keeper (left for an even number, right for odd) and flip the Ancient awake. Each Keeper can be flipped once to sow in the other direction.
- Wake all eight Ancients to win; your score is the number of seeds still in play. If waking them all becomes impossible, you lose.
What’s in the PDF
- Base game rules on 2 Letter pages.
- 18 poker-size cards, double-sided, on 6 pages; files for A4 and US Letter, with cut lines on one side or both.
- Wildseed tokens to print, or a sheet for 1/2-inch round Avery stickers if you use wooden discs.
- Rules and cards for three mini-expansions. Print in colour on card stock.
In the PDF
- Base game rules (2 Letter pages)
- 18 double-sided cards: 16 Ancients and 2 Keepers (6 pages, A4 or Letter, cut lines on one or both sides)
- Wildseed token sheets and an Avery sticker sheet
- Three mini-expansions: Blight & Bother, The Dream Eater, Starstones
