Birdwatcher
Birdwatcher is about attracting birds of paradise to your tree and creating a portfolio of their photographs. If you wish, you can even replicate their bird calls to each other!
Birdwatcher: Quick Summary
Score:
6.5/10
Number of Players:
1-5
Time to Play:
60 minutes
Overall, a sound game, but it has too many overly complex additions, which can make for a baggy experience. If you're after a great board game involving birds, plump for Wingspan instead.
What we loved:
The artwork is very good, and overall, the finish on the components is premium
Collecting the sets of birds and unlocking scores is fun
It has a solid solo mode
The bird calls printed on the cards are a really nice touch
What could be improved:
The scoring is unnecessarily complex. It could be simpler and would have more impact
Publications don't work as a mechanism
The idea of playing bird cards is solid, but in practice, it involves a lot of picking up and putting down
Birdwatcher - become photographer of the year!
In Birdwatcher, 1-5 players compete to attract the rarest and most stunning birds to their trees so they can photograph them for their portfolio. The objective is to score the most points and be awarded Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the end of the game. The box contains a huge stack of different bird species, jungle and clearing boards, insects and a deck of publications. Players need to combine sets of birds with publications and insects to create the highest-scoring portfolio.
How to play Birdwatcher:
In turns, players can take three actions each turn to encourage birds into their trees and then their portfolios. Actions include photographing a bird, running through the jungle to spook birds into the clearing, publishing your findings, calling birds to your tree with your astounding mimicry and stealing other players' birds from their trees with your long lens. Each action has consequences that will impact your ability to keep birds or score, for instance, photographing a bird in your tree will cause another bird to get spooked and fly away into the clearing, publishing your findings will end your current set of birds and take two actions as well. Winning strategies balance calling sets of birds with knowing when to make a publication or flush birds into the clearing. Points are scored for sets of birds, number of unique insects, actions solved on publications and the greatest variety of species in a portfolio.
Pick it up, then put it down again
The rounds in Birdwatcher are pretty quick, and as gameplay ends when a certain number of cards in the portfolio is reached, there isn't an open-ended drag. We found that a lot of the rounds involved spooking birds into the clearing, calling the ones you wanted to your tree, and then also calling ones you didn't want to your tree too. This is an odd part of the game, brought about because of the photography rule that means one of your birds leaves your tree each time you photograph another. The upshot of this is that you find yourself picking up sacrificial birds just so you can photograph others.
There is a wide range of different species and also other bird cards, such as nestlings, that allow you to replicate a bird already in a set in your portfolio. The cards show how rare the birds are in the deck, and the scarcer the bird, the less you need to make a set, and the higher the score. Some birds have insect tokens on the cards, and these can also add to your score at the end of the game. The flow tends to follow trying to find the good sets you want to put down, without maxing out your hand of 6.
Gameplay is OK, it's not a bad experience and not frustrating, but it doesn't feel very dynamic or exciting either. Birds appear, you pick them up, remove your sacrificial ones and then go to the next round. This is a similar game engine to Fungi, but that game feels more rewarding, is just as pretty, and is half the size and price!
The pros and cons in detail
What we loved:
The artwork on the cards is exceptional. Illustrated by Lauren Helton, a biologist and professional illustrator, the images are accurate, detailed and a joy to look at. It's a real selling point for the game, and even the backs of the cards look stunning. The little finishes on the bird cards are also fun too, like the bird calls, it's impossible to resist playing a bird set into the portfolio and then calling tweek tweek or something similar. Some of them are also spelt hilariously too (we're looking at you kwank!). Visualising people charging into the jungle and shouting tooky tooky or something to get the birds into the clearing is also amusing.
Actually collecting and playing the sets is one of the best bits of the game. Aside from the pickyupputtydown mechanic, getting a set of four birds played with 20 points in the bag is satisfying and something we would happily repeat all day. Its solo mode is good, with set rules to make it easier and different cards included or removed based on the number of people playing.
The game isn't not fun it just isn't very very fun (if that makes sense!).
What we would improve:
The two largest bugbears we have with Birdwatcher are the publications and the complex scoring. Publications take two actions, and once they are played in your portfolio, they end the set of birds preceding it. So you want to ensure you've collected a complete set before claiming a publication. They then have an action that can lead to more points, might also have points on the cards and then also have book icons that are also required to score at the end of the game. The actions are very hit and miss; some can be fulfilled as the game progresses, but a lot of them either work for your portfolio or don't, and you can't adjust after it's been played. Publications would work better if you could collect a limited amount and then play them once they've been achieved, OR if the payoff was worth the two actions needed to pick them up. It's easier to just keep collecting birds.
The scoring has seven different elements to it, and the game isn't clear enough in explaining them. First and easiest is the scores on the sets of birds; you simply add these up and you're done. Then you have the number of Black Sicklebills, but it isn't clear if hybrids are included or not. Then you have the most variety of species, then the number of unique insects, then the points on the publications (but not the books), then the actions on the publications (but not the books) and finally the number of books on publications!
It's hugely unnecessary. The scoring could be like Wingspan or Finspan, which have easy-to-understand bonus objectives and the birds and not much else. This game would be a lot better if the publication mechanics were scrapped entirely. You may need a few house rules to make this a game you keep coming back to.
Birdwatcher: Our summary
Collecting birds and loudly making their calls at each other is a lot of fun, plus the artwork is exceptional. But the cards aren't as interesting as Wingspan or Finspan, the card gameplay isn't as slick as Fungi, and it tries to be too complex when it doesn't need to be. We recommend getting this only if you can get it on sale (like we did, with a damaged box) or if you have exhausted the other great nature-related games available.
Expansions and Related Games
Expansions
There are currently no expansions for Birdwatcher
Related Games
If you're looking for a card game that's affordable, easy to understand and pretty, then Fungi is a good option. It's significantly cheaper than Birdwatcher and we find it more fun to play. If you want a board game that's all about birds then the absolute boss of this sub-genre has to be Wingspan, it nails everything Birdwatcher tries to achieve, and isn't too far off in price.
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Birdwatcher: Frequently asked questions
Who drew the illustrations for Birdwatcher?
Lauren Helton is the illustrator for Birdwatcher. Her artwork is stunning and can also be found in the Nature board game expansion, Flight, as well.
Is Birdwatcher good for children?
There are a lot of game mechanics to learn in order to play birdwatcher. The box recommends ages 10+ and we think this is pretty accurate.
Are there any games similar to Birdwatcher?
Conservation, wildlife and nature have become popular themes in board game design over the last ten years. It's a great way to educate people about conservation in a fun and open way. Games such as Wingspan and Finspan, In the Footsteps of Darwin and Cascadia are all brilliant nature or conservation related board games.
Transparency Notice
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