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| 1-5 players, 20 minutes, 8 years and older |
| Author | Stefan Alexander |
| Illustrator | Kristiaan der Nederlanden |
| Published by | Catch Up Games
GamInBiz |
| Online since | 2022-04-17 |
| Developed by | Bart De Cock (be_com4) |
| Boardgamegeek | 245476 |
| Complexity | 1,31/5 |
| Yucata.de owns a license for the online version of this game. A big "thank you" to the copyright owners (publisher and/or author and illustrator) who make it possible to have this game for free online here! |
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Every day, dozens of birds
perch on the fences
of our countryside. When it is time
to fly away, these birds jumble up,
unable to organize themselves into
flocks to fly home. Help them find
their way back
to their nest.
Object of the game
The game is won by the first player
that manages to have gathered in their
collection in front of them:
Either 7 different species
Or 2 species of at least 3 Birds
Game overview
A game plays in several successive rounds.
At the beginning of each round, each
player starts with 8 cards in their hand. A
round continues until one of the players
has no cards left in their hand. Starting
with the dealer and going clockwise, each
player fully completes their turn before
proceeding to the next player. On their
turn, a player lays one or more cards at the
center of the table in order to pick cards on
the table to put into their hand. Then they
can complete a Flock in order to add Birds
to their collection.
Players take turns until the end of the
round or until a player manages to win the
game.
Turn of a player
On their turn, a player must lay one or
more Birds from their hand, then they may
complete a Flock. The play then proceeds
to the next player, going clockwise.
1. LAY BIRDS (MANDATORY)
Mary has 4 Birds. As she wants to play
the Parrots, she has to play
the 2 Parrots that she has in her hand.
Mary lays her
2 Parrots on the
left side of the row.
As there is already
another Parrot on the
other side of the row, she surrounds a Pink Flamingo and an Owl.
She then puts these two cards into her hand.
The player chooses a Bird from their hand
and must play all the Birds of this species
that they have in their hand. They lay these
birds, each one next to the other on the left
or on the right side of one of the 4 rows at
the center of the table.
They can choose
their cards independently of the species of
the Birds already present in the rows.
If a player places a Bird in a row that already
has one or more Birds of that species, the
player must take all the cards between
these Birds into their hand.
Once she has taken the cards,
Mary reorganizes the row by bringing
the cards together.
Next, the player slides the remaining Birds
together, so that they form a continuous
row.
There are only Parrots left in the row!
New Birds must be added!
The first card added is a Parrot.
There is still only one species
of Birds in the row, so the dealer
adds a new card.
The second card
added is a Toucan.
With two different
species, the row is now complete,
and the dealer stops adding new cards
to it. There are now five cards in the row.
If (and only if) there is only
one species of
Birds
left in the row right after the player
took cards from it, the dealer must add
cards from the draw pile to this row, one
by one, until there are two different species
in it.
The Birds added from the draw pile can be
placed either on the left or on the right of
the row.
By placing an Owl or a Magpie here,
Mary would not surround a Bird
and would not take any cards.
She would then
have the option
to take the 2 first
cards from
the draw pile.
It may occur that a player lays one or more
Birds without surrounding any other cards
between Birds of the same species.
In this
case, the player takes no cards from the
center of the table.
If they choose so, they
have the option to
take the two first cards
from the draw pile
and add them to their
hand.
2. COMPLETE A FLOCK (OPTIONAL)
Flocks can come
in two different sizes: small or big.
The number
for a small
Flock is
displayed
on the left.
The number
for a big
Flock is
displayed
on the right.
All Birds from the same species also
possess the same Flock numbers.
A Flock is a series of Birds of the
same species
. Completing a Flock allows the
player to add one or two Bird cards to their
collection, which is kept in front of them.
Fred has 6 Magpies in his hand and
decides to complete a Flock. He reveals
all the magpies in his collection
and produces a small Flock (5 cards).
As he completes a small Flock, Fred keeps
one Magpie and adds it to his collection
in front of him. The five other Magpies
are placed in the discard pile.
In order to complete a Flock, the player has
to reveal all the Birds of the same species
that they hold in their hand.
If the number of revealed cards is higher
or equal to the number stated for a small
Flock, the player adds
one of these revealed
cards
to their collection.
If the number of revealed cards is higher or
equal to the number stated for a big Flock,
the player adds two of these revealed cards
to their collection.
In both cases, remaining cards are placed
into the discard pile.
A player is not allowed to reveal cards
if they do not have enough of them to
complete a Flock.
On their turn, a player can only complete
a single Flock, but they are never forced to
complete a Flock. Once a Bird has been
added to a player’s collection, it can never
be put back into their hand or into the
draw pile.
End of a round
As soon as a player has
no cards left in
their hand
, the current round ends. Other
players have to place any cards that they
have left in their hand into the discard pile.
The cards laid in rows at the center of the
table remain in place
.
The player who just ended the round
becomes the new dealer and gives 8 cards
from the draw pile to each player. If the
draw pile gets empty, shuffle all the cards
from the discard pile to form a new draw
pile.
The new dealer is the first to play in
this round
.
Game End
Seb has 2 Toucans and 3 Pink Flamingos
in his collection. He obtains a third
Toucan by completing a small Flock.
With now 2 species of at least 3 Birds,
he immediately wins the game.
If a player has 7 different species or
2 species of at least 3 Birds
in their collection
at the end of their turn, they win the game.
The play immediately stops and the round
is ended.
The game ends immediately if it is
impossible for the dealer to deal 8 cards to
each of the players
even after reshuffling
the discard pile into a new draw pile. The
player with the most Bird cards in their
collection then wins the game.
In case of a tie, tied players share victory.
Solo variant
It is also possible to play CuBirds alone. In that case
you play against a virtual opponent, RobinBird. You
play following the standard rules. But the rules for RobinBird
are a bit different.
Setup
Prepare the game as you would do for 2 players. Give yourself
and RobinBird 8 cards, but lay the cards for RobinBird open on the table.
You and RobinBird both receive a first Bird from the draw pile in your collection as usual.
Hint: if you like a bigger challenge, you could add
1 or more additional cards to the collection of RobinBird at the start of the game.
Course of the game
You take the first turn of the game. Take your turn as usual. In her turn, RobinBird draws for each row a card from the draw pile and
lays it on the right side. This means drawing 4 cards in total. If this would enclose Birds, RobinBird takes those in hand and completes the rows according to the normal rules.
If RobinBird would get more cards by adding the drawn card on the left side in the row, she prefers that.
The second part of RobinBird's turn, she can complete flocks. Contrary to the normal rules, RobinBird may complete as many flocks as possible.
For each completed flock, she adds Birds to her collection following the normal rules.
If RobinBird doesn't have any cards left on hand after completing flocks, the round ends as usual. You need to discard your remaining cards in hand. Start the next round drawing each 8 new cards.
All other rules remain and so is the winner determined as usual.
There are 110 Bird cards in the game,
distributed in 8 species. The bottom-left
corner displays the number of copies of
each Bird.
| Species | Flamingo |
| Small Flock | 2 |
| Big Flock | 3 |
| # of Birds | 7 |
| Species | Owl |
| Small Flock | 3 |
| Big Flock | 4 |
| # of Birds | 10 |
| Species | Toucan |
| Small Flock | 3 |
| Big Flock | 4 |
| # of Birds | 10 |
| Species | Duck |
| Small Flock | 4 |
| Big Flock | 6 |
| # of Birds | 13 |
| Species | Parrot |
| Small Flock | 4 |
| Big Flock | 6 |
| # of Birds | 13 |
| Species | Magpie |
| Small Flock | 5 |
| Big Flock | 7 |
| # of Birds | 17 |
| Species | Reed Warbler |
| Small Flock | 6 |
| Big Flock | 9 |
| # of Birds | 20 |
| Species | Robin |
| Small Flock | 6 |
| Big Flock | 9 |
| # of Birds | 20 |
Some actions could be automatic but are not for a good reason:
- When a lane contains only one species after taken Birds, you'll need to confirm that new cards may be drawn. Undo will not be possible!
- Even when you cannot complete a flock, in most cases you'll need to Skip this explicitly. This is to avoid leaking information to your opponent.
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