Aton smashing!

I'm always on the lookout for decent two-player games; there's the ever-present hope that I might find something that Charlotte or one of the girls doesn't hate (I know, I know, when will I learn), and, more realistically there are times at the studio when a half-hour of idling is just what's required to reset the head. So Sam is nagged on iChat, and if he isn't too busy, we might just squeeze in a quick game of something before getting back to the hard graft. Ahem.

My tireless searching has thrown up a few gems that fit the bill; Haggis is a superb two-player card game, and Coloretto with two is good as well. But sometimes only a game with an actual board will do. Pergamon is great with two, and very dinky (important in the cramped environment of my drawing-cupboard) but a little over the strict half-hour time limit, especially when you factor in the fiddly set-up. Through the Desert, same. TransEuropa? Board is too big, and not enough strategy. Hey, what can I say: I'm picky.


Now I can add Aton to the list of strategic, involving half-hour two-player experiences; and it seems, even after a first play, to succeed where others have failed. It's small and compact, very quick to set-up and play, strategic, with lots of interesting decisions, but enough luck to mitigate any hard feelings.
It's an area control game, with players placing pieces in one of four areas (temples) on the board. When a scoring round is triggered, the player with most pieces in each temple gets some points, with each temple offering different criteria. There is a theme, but it's so papery light as to be non-existent, and it doesn't matter; it's just red versus blue, and that's fine. The fun comes from the multiple possible strategies, and the presence of several instant win conditions - while you're busily persuing points, your opponent might just whip the entire game from under your nose by filling an entire temple; stay on your guard!
A deck of cards numbered one to four determines how many pieces you can remove, play, and where you can play them. Each round you deal four cards to yourself, and assign them to four slots on your side of the board. If you've dealt yourself four fours that's terrific. Four ones; not so good. More often you've got a single four in there, and then you have to decide whether to use it for placing counters (meaning you'll be able to place four counters), or for determining which temples you can place in (meaning temples one to four), etc. It makes for some tense decision-making.
Another of your cards will determine how many pieces of your opponent's you can remove (or sometimes your own). Counters you remove go into a track with nine spaces on it, and when that's full it triggers a scoring round.
This control over the scoring rounds makes for some added strategising; if you can just hold off triggering a scoring round for one more turn, maybe you can get a majority in that all-important 4th temple.
Given the overall elegance of design, it might not come as surprise that the game was created by Thorsten Gimmler, the guy behind everyone's favourite filler, No Thanks!
It came out in 2007, but is readily available online, and relatively inexpensive (£12+ vat).
This post is starting to sound like an advertisment feature, so I'm going to stop now. But if you ever have half an hour to spare and fancy a game, you know where to find me. I'll leave the board set up. JB