Birdigo review for PC

I’ll say this right off the bat: if you’re a fan of word games, you need to play Birdigo.

In fact, I’ll take that a few steps further. Birdigo isn’t just for people who like games like Scrabble and Wordle – though being fans of those definitely helps. It’s also worth investigating if you’re a fan of deckbuilders, be they Balatro or Slay the Spire.

Seeing as I’m a huge fan of all of those games (in Scrabble’s case, for almost literally my entire life), you can imagine how much I love Birdigo. As a word game aficionado, it’s rare for me to find a word game that really clicks with me, but in this case, it hits all the right notes in wordy, nerdy perfection.

What makes it work is that it applies the formula of games like Balatro and Slay the Spire to Scrabble. You don’t just draw new tiles and spell words, you draw tiles that have different values depending on the type of tile – speckled letters are worth more than plain, whole gold, diamond and platinum are worth more still. On top of that, you can add on cards that make your hand more powerful, multiplying your point values several times over.

Is it hard? Absolutely. The overarching theme of Birdigo – as its name suggests – is birds, and you need to help them follow migratory patterns north to south. The further south you get, the larger the point values you need per round. You also only have a limited number of words and letter discards each round, and at a certain point the game becomes insanely difficult. You really need to think ahead and plan out your words, and see how you can maximize your point totals round by round.

But the difficulty is why I love it so much. As long as you know how to spell, you can play Birdigo – but if you want to really be challenged in your vocabulary (and in your ability to maximize the power of your deck, à la StS or Balatro), you need to dig deep into your brain and plan things out. Birdigo definitely isn’t going to be for everyone, but it’s unquestionably made for someone like me.

GameTeam6 Studio provided us with a Birdigo PC code for review purposes.