When it comes to games for younger audiences, a little bit of physicality — or in the case of Birdy Call, silly noises — can make the difference between a shelf hog and a game that gets played with regularly.
Birdy Call‘s whole thing is awkward noises. Players spend most of their time reading off sounds from cards while attempting to find their pairs, if they manage to do so then they both secure eggs, with the winner being the person who hoards the most before the deck runs out of cards.
There’s something to be said about the egg scoring mechanic, which I do feel is just there to allow for the egg stealing card and punishments (which are maybe not needed, considering the pace and volume of the game). It’s an extra component that, while thematic, tends to slow things down. Birdy Call is at its best when four people have entirely different cards and are slowly increasing in volume over the top of one another as they assume somebody else will try a different bird in order to match them — that doesn’t occur as often with stoppages.
What does enhance the fun is some of the extra cards: The peacock card requires players to fan their cards out like a plumage above their head, The Parrot has players copy another in order to steal a card, another card has players wave at one another to pair out the cards. It also includes a card where the last person to stop making a noise loses points, while another allows you to steal — neither of these really seem to match the cadence of the rest of the game and really slow it down… I’d advise taking them out.
Conclusively, though, Birdy Call is a really fun, quick to play, noisy game. It’s also almost always incredibly cheap.
Birdy Call is available now from Amazon.
