OUR REVIEW

Fast Early birds catch the fattest worms

Tweeeet

Together as a team

Yes, they do, of course, because otherwise the game by Corné van Moorsel, published by his own company Cwali, would not be such fun to play. If you believe that I wanted to imply any connection with getting-up-in-the-morning habits of players, is in error. But, when I think about it, I could mention a few things about some people - and a few more not too polite remarks relating to birds as playing pieces, which I better keep to myself with regards to a G-rated WIN.

But now for the game itself: Three Red Robins and three Bluethroats fly from their starting positions to their nesting grounds, Papa Bird, Mama Bird, and …? Who makes up the third bird in the trio is up to your imagination. As the flight is rather energy-sapping the birds must eat on the way in order to have enough energy to fly.

20 landscape tiles with differently structured landscape make up the board, always three tiles are revealed in front of the leading bird, so that you get to know your track step by step. Landscapes are made up from meadows, bushes and water areas in different layouts. A bird cannot cross water; the birds are either shy of water or do not trust themselves with the long distance crossing. The squares with bushes are marked with different food and you place food miniatures on them accordingly. That you can do good business with pretty miniatures and that a game can gain greatly by them, is proved each year by the Lamont Brothers at Essen - this year with their game Spellbound. But that is as it may be.

Now back to food and feeding for our winged friends. Our birds adhere to a balanced diet made up from nuts, strawberries, grapes, worms and lady bugs, all nicely made and pretty to look at. Contrary to scientific knowledge and information nuts have few calories in this context and deliver only one energy points, as opposed to lady bugs that - probably due to their protein content, deliver a juicy amount of 6 energy units equal to six movement steps; each square that you cross is paid for with one energy unit.

So the motto of the day is eating and flying; for your trip the water areas already mentioned are blocked and so are squares already occupied by other birds, forcing other birds find alternative routes that might only yield second-best food. And this in turn can result in forcing an individual robin or bluethroats to relinquish a turn or even drop out of the trip due to lack of food energy. Birds of a feather, that is, the same color, play as a team and may - provided there is no bigger distance between them than six steps as the crow flies - agree on their tactic. The last landscape tile depicts five different nests. Birds of the same color must target the same nest, that is, the first arriving bird decides the nest for all birds in the team. When all birds have arrived, the outcome of the game hinges on the amount of food value delivered to nest. The food points for each bird in the nest are added and for each bird that did not make it to the nest you deduct one point. As you play as a team, you now divide the total of points from all birds in the team by the number of players in the team (is not necessarily the same!); the team that achieves the higher result, wins the game. Oh, and by the ways, the advantage of the starting player is balanced by different starting quantities of food.

As a resume I would like to say that Corné van Moorsel probably will not win the title of „Game of the Year“ with this game, but he has combined many standard game mechanisms into an enchanting game. Of course it is a lightweight game, but I believe that once in a while one can easily enter the ring in favor of such a game.

The rules are exemplary, even enhanced with examples, and the components of the game are simply enchanting and a sight for sore eyes. The age group of ages  7+ is, I think, maybe a bit on the high side, because for children this is also an excellent educational game with which the train addition (of food values) and subtraction (of flight points). If that was a children’s game I would rate it as a clear 9 out of 10 and I can easily imagine that adults might have fun with the game, too - just like me!

Rudolf Ammer

Players: 2-6

Age: 7+

Time: 30+

Designer: Corné van Moorsel

Art: Phanee Jaiwan, Ron van Dahlen

Price: ca. 30 Euro

Publisher: Cwali 2012

Web: www.heidelbaer.de

Genre: Movement with payment for distance

Users: For families

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Wonderful components

Pretty graphics

Topic and mechanisms go very well together

Compares to:

All movement games with payment for distances travelled

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Rudolf Ammer:

An absolute insider tip, if only for the fantastic, enchanting components; one would like to start to play immediately and might wonder why the birds don’t sing. And the mechanisms with planning, chance in the plans and agreeing on plans is fun, too!

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 2

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0