Corey Martin is a seasoned puzzle developer known for games like Bonfire Peaks, Pipe Push Paradise and Hiding Spot, and he's trying his hand at a deckbuilder next: form words and build combos with your letter cards in the demo for Birdigo.
The premise looks simple, in a pleasant way: every card in your deck has a letter on it, and you draw a hand of them and try to form the longest words you can for points. As you'd expect in a roguelike-deckbuilder-type setup, there are cute little shops you can purchase new cards from, upgrading your letters and switching them out, as well as upgrades called Feathers that grant specific synergies or bonuses for playing words in a specific way.
I'm familiar with a few tabletop deckbuilders using similar ideas, perhaps the best of them being Paperback and its various sequels, and it turns out Birdigo was inspired by a physical game too: working on the game with Corey Martin are some of the makers of AlphaBirds, a small-box card game that looks like it shares lots of design DNA (and cute, simple aesthetic) with the upcoming digital game.
There's one big aspect I haven't really touched on yet: the birds! Just from trailers and screenshots alone it's not 100% clear to me why exactly these round and colorful avians care so much about assembling lengthy English phrases, but it is all pretty charming. There's a world map tracking your flight across the continents, each leg of the journey requiring higher points thresholds to complete. I'm also getting a sense there may be an element of Wingspan-esque real-world bird facts and learning present, such as species names and specific migration path information.
Birdigo is planned for release sometime this year, and the demo has had a few updates over the last month, including allowing unlimited rounds of play and newly added Egg Hunts: "challenging (optional) side quests that gives you a significant permanent upgrade". You can grab the demo and wishlist the game on Steam.
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