Flockers by Mark Swanson is currently a Gamefound campaign preview.
The rulebook for this 1–4 player game starts off with: ‘The sharp chill of winter drifts in from the north. With a thunderous honk, you signal to fellow snow geese that it’s time to fly. The first flock south will settle on the best terrain. But be vigilant—predators and decoys dot the landscape!’ and the game is described as ‘tactical card game of shrewd hand management, [in which] you will take to the sky to navigate your own flock of snow geese.’
Gameplay
Flockers doesn’t seem as complicated as the age rating of 14+ would imply (BGG suggests 12+, but even that feels high).
Players start with a hand of 5 flock cards. A common market of 3 terrain tiles and 3 flock tiles is created, with one additional terrain tile used as the start of the flight path, upon which everyone’s flock token (a goose on a stick!) is placed. As the game progresses, the flight path will extend, as will the flocks of geese in front of players, and the aim of the game is fly farthest along the flight path until either someone reaches the tenth terrain tile or can’t add another bird to their flock.
The turn structure is straightforward: place a card from your hand into your flock, taking actions as indicated on the card, then replenish your hand back to 5 from the market (unless your flock has already reached 7 birds). The first goose to be placed is the leader of the flock, and subsequent cards are played in a V shape behind it. Flock cards have up to 2 icons at the top, one indicating a terrain type (mountain, forest, field or lake) and the other an action, and may have a bonus action at the bottom.
The available actions are:
· Fly—if any card in either branch of the flock’s V (not necessarily the one the current card has been added to) has a terrain icon matching the terrain of the next tile on the flight path, move your flock token forward; this continues as long as there are similar matches along the same branch.
· Navigate—take a tile from the terrain market and append it to the flight path.
· Graze—remove any card from your flock, and you can additionally discard any other cards with graze icons, sliding cards forward to fill in any gaps.
· Swap—as the name suggests, switch positions of any 2 cards in your flock.
· Lead—activate the lead bird in the flock.
Bonus actions (appearing on both flock and terrain cards) are similar, but conditional on having a certain number of the same type of goose in your flock.
Some terrain tiles have additional icons indicating further actions, referred to as ‘encounters,’ to be taken when you land on them, such as a fox requiring you to sacrifice one card, or wind blowing you farther along the flight path.
Flockers also includes a solo, beat your high score, automa mode.
Final Words
With art by Matt Emmons, this is a pretty game, and it has a clever theme. I have to confess that the one thing I’m not keen on is the choice of goose playing pieces—yes, they’re pretty, but they look fragile, and to be frank, a wooden token or goose meeple would be perfectly adequate (and potentially make the game more portable).
Flockers looks pleasingly puzzly, and while the rulebook is comprehensive and well-written, the lack of playthrough videos for the game makes it difficult to be absolutely certain about how well he game plays. Perhaps some videos will be available when the project launches, which could be May this year according to a note in the campaign comments section.
The Gamefound page mentions a couple of expansions available right now: Birds of a Feather, which allows for a couple more players and includes some new card actions, and Unwelcome Guest, with flock cards that can create ‘no-fly zones,’ though what that means is not explained.
Add-ons also include a nice-looking but unnecessary playmat and a wooden goose call… A what!? Why? Just no. I reckon the pretty goose meeples ought to be deluxe add-ons, with simple tokens in the base game, to bring prices down.
Having mentioned prices, as the campaign is currently only in its preview stage, there is no information on costs at all yet.
Some commenters make reference to previous campaigns by the same publisher, Odd Bird Games, specifically about Feudum, which seems to be hugely delayed in Europe though it looks like the main factor is Allplay’s delivery process. Mark has said that ‘Fundamental Shipping improvements [are] in the works’ in response to one comment.
Regardless, this is definitely one campaign I’ll be keeping an eye on. Delivery risks are something to revisit closer to the end of the campaign, and it hasn’t even started yet!
About the author
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
