Northern American birds are bountiful in this beautiful, relaxing engine builder. You start with five randomly selected birds and five unique food tokens; discard until you have a total of 5 between the birds and the food. This starts your supply of materials to build your engine. Over four rounds of turns you will make the most of the birds, eggs, cached food, end of round goals, and tucked birds to score points and be the optimal birder!
Spider: I loved the components, I loved the artwork. I thought this game was so killer. I loved that you could see the parts of a single engine. You had to care for the different aspects of the mechanism. I liked how it was like games within games, but it was really easy to understand. It almost felt shallow, but it really wasn’t. The creativity behind it was unique and fun. This felt extra special because they took a chance. It’s real birds. They took the time to have original, beautiful artwork created for the actual creatures. It wasn’t even stock art with generic facts. It felt like an encyclopedia with commissioned art, but a game. I found myself wanting to read the facts on other people’s bird cards and look at their art, too.
Cat: Ok, this game struck a cord with me. I was immediately wrangled in by the cover art. I felt like there was something special. Opening the box was a beautiful and fun experience.The art was all done in the same style even though there was more than one artist. The detail in the pictures made it feel almost like photos. This game actually got me into birding as a hobby. Hey, Cooper’s Hawk, I see you, too….with my binoculars. I found myself recognizing the birds around town that I saw in the game and it just made the whole experience even more endearing.
Some of the functional aspects of the game were obviously really thought out. It was easy to recognize how much care was put into the details. The three areas to build the engine were fun as were the different locales to which they linked. I thought the egg function was hilarious and always got a kick out of placing my eggs on the board. I liked figuring out which habitat to place the birds. I thought the strategy for selecting food, placing a bird in a given habitat, laying eggs, or pulling another bird card was fun. Another really fun aspect were the pink and brown powers on the cards. I thought it was so funny they called the abilities the brown powers. They even made an internal bird poop joke! And all of the brown powers, although follow similar types of events, are unique to the birds. It’s great.
Spider:
I wonder how many unique brown powers there are actually. I happened to find it interesting. There are birds all around. Birding is a hobby we’re actually getting into because of the game.
I think it’s a near perfect game. Are my negatives really negatives? I felt there were some elements that were over powered. I found myself favoring the laying eggs track. In the end, laying eggs seemed almost more important than round objectives because the eggs racked up points. So I invested in birds that could hold a lot of eggs with star (wild) nests. This seems like the best strategy, but then in turn I mark it a negative because I feel like I figured it out.
I thought the care they put into the components was awesome. They limited the use of cardboard cutouts to the food; they made actual little egg pieces and multicolored at that!
The food mechanism was random to what was rolled, so you couldn’t always get what you wanted, but you could plan for future birds. The dice tower was awesome. I liked how the dice were chunky and easy to hold. The boards were thick. The game tray put away really well.
Cat: I loved that the game wasn’t too complex. It made learning this entire new biological realm seem to come alive. It was fun playing it with our son, Owl (7). What did you think of how the game played?
Spider: The game wasn’t a brain burner. It was really accessible. Our seven year old, Owl, was able to process the mechanics of the game. He did need some help reading the cards, but he could conceptualize everything.
It’s a game that I would play and then think about it long after. Something about this game just stuck with me. It’s a longer game I could play back to back. Most games that isn’t true.
The game is just balanced so well. They hit a great spot of balancing the intellectual curiosity, the beauty of the art, the intrigue of building the engine/strategy.
Pros:
Every bird is unique and there are interesting facts about each bird on the cards
The quality of the materials.
The beauty of the art.
Cons:
If you don’t care about birds, you won’t give two brown powers about this game.
Ratings:
Spider: Four Spiders
Cat: Four Cats
Rating Scale
Would not buy or play again
Would not buy but would play again
Would buy and play again, but only occasionally
Would buy and play again in normal rotation