How to Play Yard Birbs

Introduction

Yard Birbs is a trick-taking game about spotting the cool birds that visit your feeder. Create flocks over multiple rounds by collecting birds from every trick— win or lose. Use unique actions to cleverly build your flocks and win the title of best birder on the block. The player with the most points after three rounds wins the game.

Components

Yard Birbs comes with the following components:

• 55 Bird Cards
• 8 Ability Cards
• 1 Lifer Card
• 5 Player Reference Cards
• 5 Player order tokens
• 4 Ability order tokens
• 1 Rulebook

Setup

To set up Yard Birbs, follow these steps:

1. Shuffle and Deal Bird Cards:
   • Shuffle the bird cards thoroughly.
   • Deal 7 bird cards to each player to form their hand.
2. First Bird in Yard:
   • Deal 1 additional bird card face-up to each player. This card represents the first bird in their yard and is placed in the space in front of them.
3. Set Lifer:
   • Deal 1 final bird card face-up on top of the Lifer Card.
4. Prepare Order Tokens:
   • Take the ability order tokens matching the player count:
     • In a 5-player game, use all tokens 2-5.
     • In a 4-player game, remove the 5th token.
     • In a 3-player game, remove both the 4th and 5th tokens.
   • Place these tokens to the right of the Lifer Card in order.
   • Shuffle the ability cards and place one face-up next to each order token. If the ability card matching the last place token has a feeder on it, discard and draw a new ability card.
5. Prepare the feeder:
   • Put the remaining player order tokens (1-5) in the center of the play area, known as the feeder.
   • Remove the same tokens as in step 4 for the player count.

Bird Cards

Each bird card consists of three key components:

Number: Ranging from 1 to 15, the number on the card determines its value within the game.

Suit: There are five distinct suits, each represented by a different color:

• Purple
• Blue
• Green
• Yellow
• Red

Bird Species: Each bird card features a specific bird species.

• Nuthatch
• Starling
• Goose
• Hawk
• Mockingbird
• Kingfisher
• Woodpecker
• Waxwing
• Crow
• Towhee
• Magpie

It's important to note that the numbers within each suit vary:

• Purple suit: 1 to 11
• Blue suit: 2 to 12
• Green suit: 3 to 13
• Yellow suit: 4 to 14
• Red suit: 5 to 15

Wait what? Yes, the suits are not equal in terms of numbers. This helps with avoiding ties. See the Gameplay section below for how this works.

The bird cards have a helpful range indicator on the left side that will tell you how "good" that particular card is. For instance, if the filled dot is 3 from the top, you know the card is the 3rd best card in that suit.

Gameplay

Yard Birbs offers engaging gameplay filled with strategic decisions and exciting birdwatching action. Here's how the game unfolds:

1. Choose lead
   • Choose a lead player randomly. For inspiration, maybe the last person to go birding.
   • In subsequent rounds, the lead player is the player with the highest score.
2. Leading
   • The lead player starts by putting down a card in any suit.
3. Following Suit
   • Each player will play a card clockwise from the lead player.
   • The next player must play a card that matches any suit on the table if they have one.
   • If a player doesn't have a card in the led suit, they may play a card with any suit.
   • At any time, a player may play a card matching the species of the Lifer, even if the suit doesn't match any other card at the feeder.
4. Determining the Winner
   • After all players have played a card, the winner of the trick is determined.
   • If any player played a card that matches the Lifer species, they win the trick. If multiple cards match the Lifer, the highest number wins.
   • After that, the most common suit on the table becomes the lead suit.
   • The highest card within the lead suit wins the trick.
   • In case of a tie in suit majority, the originally lead suit wins.
   • If all colors played are unique, the lead suit automatically wins.
5. Ordering the Rest
   • Order tokens are placed in front of players based on the order they finished in the trick.
   • The same rules for determining the winner apply to the order of the rest.
   • If all colors played are unique, the remaining order is just based on highest number and then clockwise from the lead player.
   • This sets the draft order for birds that are part of the trick.
6. Selecting Birds
   • All players select a bird that is part of the trick, in order of their placement.
   • The winner selects a bird and adds it to their yard.
   • All other players also select a bird and add it to their yard and optionally use an ability before the next player selects.
7. Using Abilities
   • A player may use any ability equal to their place or higher in the trick.
   • For example, a player who came in 3rd place may use the 3rd place ability or the 2nd place ability.
   • If a player chooses to use an ability that replaces the Lifer, the abilities are also discarded and replaced. This happens immediately.
8. Leading the Next Trick
   • The winner of the trick leads the next trick.
9. End of Round
   • Play continues until all players are out of cards in hand.

Scoring

Scoring is done at the end of each round. The cumulative score after three rounds determines the winner.

1. Assigning Birds to Flocks:
   • When adding a bird to your yard, you must assign it to a flock or create a new flock.
   • Each bird can only belong to one flock.
   • Once placed, a bird's flock cannot be changed unless using a specific ability.
2. Solo Birds:
   • Solo birds in your yard at the end of the round are worth zero points. They fly away!
3. Flock Types:
   • To make scoring easy, every valid flock with 2 birds is worth 1 point.
   • A flock can also only be a single type. You can't score a flock in multiple categories.
   • You may also have multiple flocks of the same type.
   • After that, there are four types of flocks:

   • Color Flocks: Made of birds of the same suit.

     # Birds	1	2	3	4	5	6+
     Points	0	1	2	3	5	7

   • Species Flocks: Made of birds of the same species.

     # Birds	1	2	3	4	5
     Points	0	1	4	6	8

   • Equal Number Flocks: Made of birds with identical numbers.

     # Birds	1	2	3	4+
     Points	0	1	5	10

   • Sequential Flocks: Made of birds with a sequence of numbers, ascending or descending, with no gaps.

     # Birds	1	2	3	4	5	6+
     Points	0	1	3	5	8	11