Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Corvids is a set collection game, ideally played with tweezers. The tweezers are not mandatory, the rules make it clear that you can use your fingers, but the tweezers do add a certain je ne sais caw to the experience. You play as members of the family Corvidae, pecking and picking at a pile of refuse, working to assemble a collection of paperclips, bottle caps, buttons, crumpled up ticket stubs, and the like. While Corvids did not ultimately leave much of an impression, using those tweezers to pick through the detritus on the player board is its own kind of magic.
The board is covered with white cards bearing pencil illustrations of the various bits and bobs that attract the interest of birds such as yourself. It’s easy to see why you’re drawn to them. The bright-white cards are striking against the matte-black cloth mat, and the juxtaposition helps to beautifully emphasize those illustrations. The first thing you do every turn is Peck at those cards, grabbing any card—covered or not—and flipping it over. This will often, should often, create a chain reaction, sending other cards flying.
Why do we Peck the cards? Well, besides for fun, you mean? Most of the cards in Corvids are double-sided, and the ones that aren’t are worth more when you pick them up face-down. You flip cards to gain information, to deny other people the cards they want, and to cover or uncover the nests that surround the border of the board. The boarder? Anyway.
Each player is assigned a corvid at the start of the game, which gives you a scoring bonus and corresponds to one of those nests. If your nest is ever completely uncovered, you reveal your bird, and your trove of treasures becomes susceptible to theft. As players pick up cards, they may also gather feathers, which can be spent to steal cards from vulnerable nests. The game ends when the board is empty, which…definitely takes too long. Maybe you should be less afraid of chucking things over the edges, which removes them from the game.
I’m not sure that would help. All said and done, Corvids never quite manages to take flight. It can get close, as you Peck your way through the start of each turn, but you have to really get into the spirit of the thing. Flick the wrist just right. Flip the cards not with precision—the player in my group who enjoyed Corvids least was the one who flipped every card like it was the control sample in a lab experiment—but with gusto. You have to be the bird, you know? Be the bird.
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