I’ve always been a big fan of word games, I find them really enjoyable, challenging, and immersive which is why they appeal to me. I especially enjoy Scrabble and Wordscapes, whilst I rarely play them nowadays I would still get a lot of enjoyment from them now, so when I first loaded up Birdigo which had similar elements to both I knew this game would be right up my street which it definitely was, it was fun and addicting, but the one thing that ruined it for me was the difficulty.
And boy was it challenging and grueling…
The ever increasing difficulty was its biggest issue.
Now I’m not one to shy away from games which are challenging, as a matter of fact I enjoy them a lot, I like having to plan ahead and think carefully on my next move, it makes completing a game feel so much more satisfying being rewarded for your perseverance and planned out strategies. With that said it can be frustrating when it feels like no matter what new ideas you come up with or what different approaches you take, beating the game feels next to impossible, which is exactly how I felt after playing Birdigo for hours.
I failed at my first few attempts which I expected, so I didn’t think much of it at first, I was learning how the game worked so I knew that eventually I would get the hang of it and beat the first route which I did, but little did I know that was the furthest I would reach…
There are six different routes to beat, with each one having different amounts of stops (levels essentially). Each level has a specific distance requirement, so in order to progress to the next stop you had to reach the required amount. What I noticed quickly was that the requirement between one level and the next was very high, to the point where beating the stop seemed extremely difficult, which shouldn’t be the case if the previous level was somewhat beatable, so why did the requirement increase so much?
To make it challenging, of course. Which is absolutely understandable since a game which is too easy sometimes doesn’t feel worth playing, but the same goes for a game which is too challenging especially when it doesn’t have a difficulty setting. So as you can imagine I was slightly disappointed upon learning this, I really wanted to clear all the routes but it was just too hard. The first route as previously said I beat, it only had 14 stops and the last one required 1200 points, which mind you is still incredibly difficult, but because of the feathers and songs I got (I’ll explain more about those later) it was much easier.
Now the second route which had 27 stops is where the requirements became ridiculous, the furthest I got was around halfway and that was because I needed 3000 points to reach level 15. I only needed 1200 points for the last level on the first route and 3000 points midway through the second route? Yeah, that seems like a pretty unrealistic and extremely big jump in score, and for those wondering your score doesn’t carry over from the first route, so you have to start from zero each time. To make matters worse, if you fail a stop you have to start all the way from the beginning of the route. So as you can imagine, this game isn’t very forgiving.
There’s also another mode called daily migration which is just a new route every single day, it’s essentially an endless mode, but don’t be mistaken it’s still as hard as the main mode, albeit slightly more doable. That’s because there are only around 14-16 stops each day but the score requirements still increase dramatically which still makes it quite challenging. You only have two feathers to help you from stop two to seven, which at first seems fine but you need 400 points to pass the seventh stop and if the choices of feathers you got were bad then you may as well give up. As I said earlier, I’ll talk more about them and songs later, since they’re the key to helping you progress.
Despite the challenge, it was still fun and addictive.
Ignoring the mildly frustrating difficulty of Birdigo for one moment, I still thought it was an addictive and enjoyable game. Each time I failed a stop/route I would instantly want to go back to and beat it, it was one of those games that despite failing multiple times you couldn’t help but want to jump straight back in to get a new personal best or completely clear the level. It wasn’t just the addictive aspect that kept me playing though, I really liked the art style, and the whole concept of beating stops to help birds migrate across different countries. It was a really calm game.
The word calm isn’t often associated with many video games nowadays, and that’s purely because most of them are competitive, tense, and require lots of concentration, so playing a game which has no expectations is always enjoyable for me, which is why I really enjoy word and puzzle games, they’re very relaxing, immersive, fun, and addictive which is exactly what Birdigo was.
The power-ups were very luck dependent and determined whether or not you would complete a route.
I’ve mentioned feathers and notes a couple of times before since they’re extremely important, essentially they’re the power-ups you receive to help you gain more points and progress. Unfortunately though they are very luck based, some playthroughs you’ll get some of the best and most effective feathers and notes, but other times you’ll get the worst ones possible, which rarely benefit you. It does kind of suck that completing a route entirely depends on the feathers and notes you get to choose from, that paired with the extremely demanding score requirements each stop makes it very challenging and does ruin the gameplay.
Now to give you some more insight into feathers and notes, you can have a maximum of five feathers and two notes each route, both of which are and do different things. Feathers don’t have a one-time use, they last throughout the whole route and either increase your power or flaps which is how the points system works (flaps X power). Some are much better than others and have a bigger impact on your score, allowing you to build around specific lengths of words. During my playthrough I always went with the one which increased your power if you played three letter words, along with the one which also increased your power if the number of letters in your words were odd, those two paired together made for some really high scoring words, making it easier to progress.
Of course I also had other feathers on top of that which helped a lot and made meeting the score requirement much easier. There were a couple of ones which were high-risk high-reward, but being able to meet their conditions increased your score massively. I always chose the one when available, which added 30+ flaps if the word played ended in an “ING” simply because if I managed to get those specific letters I would be able to get a score of around 1000, which put me in a great position to progress. Of course I didn’t always get those specific letters because again, luck played a part in letters I would receive from discards.
Sticking on the topic of discards, you started with four each route and it allowed you to replace all of the letters in your hand with new ones. You could increase the amount of discards you had to five, but that depended on if you found that specific feather in the shop or after completing a specific stop which gives you the choice between three feathers as a reward. Of course it was a risk in itself, there were many times when I used a discard only to get 1 vowel and worse letters than I already had, which put me in a much worse position.
It’s also worth mentioning that you start with only being able to play four words each stop, that however just like discards can be increased to five if you manage to get said feather. Being able to get those two in a playthrough along with other strong feathers massively increases the chances of success, you do have to get lucky enough to be able to get them, though.
Notes have a one time use each route, you attain them as a reward for completing a stop or by buying them at a shop using seeds, which you can gain depending on the amount of words you had left available to play after completing a stop. Like feathers, there are some which are much better than others and luck of course plays a part in it, the one which allows you to reset words available to play is extremely beneficial and is probably the best one, having that note helps you with stops that have an extremely demanding score requirement. But you could also be unfortunate enough to get the note which turns some letters into speckled ones, which is one of the weaker ones.
For context there are four different types of letters, normal, speckled, gold, and platinum. Each one gives you different points when played and also meets requirements of specific feathers. You can buy upgraded letters from the shop and get them as a reward after specific stops. I felt like I’ve said this word so many times but yes luck does play a part in if you get gold and platinum letters in your starting hand or after discards.
