Songbirds
- Board's Eye View
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Songbirds, from Homosapiens Lab, is a loosely themed card game with square cards numbered 1-7 in four suits, each corresponding to a species of bird. It's designed by Yuo and it's attractively presented, with appealing art by Kotori Neiko and Claire Donaldson.
Cards are played to a 5 x 5 grid that has a randomised starting card in the centre. Cards must always be played orthogonally adjacent to a card in the grid. Play continues until the grid is complete, at which point players should be left with just one card in hand. When the grid is complete you tot up for each row and column the number of points for each species, and the points for that row or column goes to the species with the highest unique number of points. That means that ties cancel each other out as they do in the dice game Las Vegas (Ravensburger). So. for example, if two species each total 6 and a third species totals 4, it will be that 'third place' species that takes the points for that row. When the points for each species have been calculated, players reveal the card left in their hand. They score the points that the species on their card totalled, plus the value of the card itself.
Tho' the basic gameplay is simple, there's depth to it: players need to keep a mental track of the area control majorities emerging for each row and column as the grid fills. They'll either have in mind the card they want to finish with in hand and will be trying to finesse things so that its suit comes out on top or, perhaps more likely for most players, they'll adjust their idea of which card they want to end up with as they see the way in which the grid has filled. Either way, players are often likely to play their lower value cards first and hold onto their higher ranking cards to the point where they can swing the tally in favour of the card they expect to end up with. Bear in mind tho' that it's only unique totals that win, so a cunningly positioned rank 1 card can be played to create a tie that lets another species take the win for that row and/or column. There's jockeying for position too tho' because some columns and rows are worth more points than others...
Tho' players need to think about their card plays, increasingly so as the game progresses, Songbirds nonetheless plays quickly and it works as well as a two-player game as it does with three or four players. There's a solitaire option too but that's less satisfying because you're really just competing against yourself for your best possible score. Our plays at Board's Eye View have all come in at a filler-length 15-20 minutes, and game length isn't extended at higher player counts. Homosapiens Lab have included components and optional rules for varying gameplay, including some manifestly not songbirds: an owl that can be played to swap a previously played card to an unfilled position in the grid, and a crow that is optionally used as the starting card in a four-player game, where it deducts points from the majority suits of the rows and columns adjacent to it.
