Piepmatz

A beautiful sunrise lights the garden and the bird feeder in golden light. The birds in the trees around start to wake up and sing their song. A Chaffinch takes wing and carefully flies towards the feeder. A Sparrow and a Bullfinch peacfully add him company...
But Blackbird, Greenfinch and Yellowhammer are also hungry! And suddenly there is a fight about the best spaces on the feeder. Smaller birds join forces to drive away bigger ones, only to start fighting each other immediately after. They are picking and hacking and completely forget about the danger from the woods: Squirrels and Crows also know where the feeder stands...

Piepmatz - Little Songbirds is a small card game with astonishing strategic depth. Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback created a game for 2 - 4 players age 10 and up, which fits our line "big games in small boxes". The players use their hand cards in order to take part in the fight at the bird feeder and try to gather seed cards, bird couples and ass many birds of one kind as possible. At the same time they try to avoid squirrel and crow cards as they eat their seeds or chase off their little birds.

Piepmatz - Little Songbirds utilizes an interesting chain mechanic to keep things interesting. Each player uses their hand cards by placing birds into the queues at the bird feeder. If the strength value of all birds in the queue is higher than the value from the bird which is currently at front, the bird at front is chased off and takes a seed card with him. Bird and seed card go into the collection of the active player. Afterwards the strongest bird from the ones in the queue gets the place at the feeder... but if the birds in the queue are still stronger then him the chain reaction starts as this bird is also chaised off and takes another seed card with him. That way it is possible to gain several bird and seed cards with just one move. But be aware that this chain reaction might also cause the unpleasent surprise of a crow or squirrel card you weren't planning to get!

The game ends after about 30 minutes. Collected seed cards, couples of birds (female and male of the same kind and strength value) and having the majority of birds of one kind yield points and the player with most of them wins the game.