Flock Together

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The species
3. Setup
4. Playing a turn
5. End of a round
6. Winning the game
7. Tips for beginners
8. Variants
9. Differences from the model game

Overview

In Flock Together the cards are birds, and each species of bird is a rank or a pair of ranks. Four rows of birds sit in the middle of the table like birds on a fence. On your turn you lay all your birds of one species at the end of a row. If that closes a gap between two birds of the same species, you catch every card in between and take it into your hand. Once you hold enough birds of one species, you can fly a flock: you keep one or two of them in your collection in front of you and give up the rest.

The first player whose collection holds 7 different species, or 2 species with at least 3 cards each, wins at once.

• Players: 2–5.
• You need: two standard 52-card decks without jokers (104 cards).

Flock Together is our own adaptation for ordinary cards, inspired by CuBirds (Stefan Alexander, Catch Up Games, 2018). The original has 110 cards in eight species of different sizes; ours has 104 cards in eight species of two sizes, with flock sizes to match (see "Differences from the model game"). It has not been playtested yet.

The species

Shuffle both decks together. Suits never matter. There are 8 species:

So the face cards are three rare species with 8 cards each, and the number cards form five common species in pairs of ranks: a 3 and a 4 are the same bird, a 9 and a 10 are the same bird. The rare species need smaller flocks.

Setup

1. Choose a dealer. The dealer shuffles all 104 cards.
2. Rows: deal 4 rows of 3 cards face up in the middle. The three cards of a row must be three different species. If a row gets a second card of a species that is already in it, put that card on the discard pile (a face-up pile next to the draw pile) and deal another, until each row has three different species.
3. Hands: deal 8 cards face down to each player. Look at them and keep them secret.
4. Collections: deal each player one card face up. It is the first bird of their collection – the cards that count for winning. Lay your collection in front of you, sorted by species, so that everybody can see it.
5. The rest of the cards is the face-down draw pile.

The dealer takes the first turn; then play goes clockwise.

Playing a turn

Your turn has two steps: first you must play cards, then you may fly one flock.

1. Play cards (required)

• Choose one species in your hand and play all your cards of that species – you may not keep some back. If you choose the 3–4 species, you play every 3 and every 4 you hold.
• Lay them side by side at the left or the right end of one row. You may choose any row, whatever species it already holds.
• Catching: if the row already holds a card of the same species, look for the nearest one on the other side of your new cards. Every card between your cards and that card is caught: take all of them into your hand. Then push the row together so that it has no gap.
• Nothing caught? If the row had no card of your species, or no card between (it sat right next to your new cards), you catch nothing. Then you may, if you like, draw the top 2 cards of the draw pile into your hand.
• Refilling a row: if a row holds cards of only one species right after a catch, turn up cards from the draw pile one at a time and add each at either end of that row, until it holds two different species.

Example: A row shows 4♥ K♠ 9♦ 7♣. Anna holds a 3♦ and a 4♣, both of the 3–4 species, so she has to play both. She lays them at the right end. The nearest 3–4 bird on the other side is the 4♥, so she catches the K♠, the 9♦ and the 7♣ and takes them into her hand. Now the row holds only 3–4 birds (4♥ 3♦ 4♣). A card is turned up from the draw pile: 3♥ – still only one species. The next card is Q♣; now there are two species and the refilling stops. The row is 4♥ 3♦ 4♣ 3♥ Q♣.

2. Fly a flock (optional)

A flock is a group of cards of one species in your hand. The table above shows two sizes for each species: a small flock and a big flock.

• To fly a flock, show all your cards of one species.
• If you show at least as many as the small flock needs, put 1 of them into your collection.
• If you show at least as many as the big flock needs, put 2 of them into your collection.
• All the other cards you showed go on the discard pile.
• You may fly only one flock per turn, and you never have to. You can't show a species if you don't have enough cards of it for a small flock.

Cards in your collection stay there until the end of the game; they never go back into your hand.

Example: Ben holds six cards of the 7–8 species (7♠ 7♦ 8♣ 8♥ 8♠ 7♥). That's a small flock (5 or more), but not a big one (7 or more). He can fly it now and put one 7 into his collection, discarding the other five. Or he can wait a turn or two and hope to catch a seventh bird for a big flock – but then he has to hope nobody forces him to lay them out first. Remember: if he later chooses to play the 7–8 species in step 1, he has to play all six.

End of a round

A round ends as soon as a player has no cards left in their hand – after playing cards in step 1 or after flying a flock in step 2.

• All other players put their hand cards on the discard pile. The rows in the middle stay as they are.
• The player who emptied their hand becomes the new dealer. They deal 8 new cards to every player from the draw pile and take the first turn of the new round.

Empty draw pile: whenever you need a card and the draw pile is empty, shuffle the discard pile and use it as the new draw pile.

Winning the game

Check at the end of each turn: if the player whose turn it was now has in their collection

• 7 different species (at least one card each), or
• 2 species with at least 3 cards each,

they win the game at once.

Example: Carla's collection holds Q Q (2 Queens), 5 5 6 (3 birds of the 5–6 species) and a J. She flies a small flock of Queens and adds a third Queen. Now she has two species with three cards each – she wins.

If the game gets stuck: if the new dealer can't deal 8 cards to every player, even after shuffling the discard pile into a new draw pile, the game ends at once. The player with the most cards in their collection wins; on a tie, those players share the win. Nobody is ever out of the game before it ends.

Tips for beginners

• Look at the rows before you play: a row whose ends hold two different species often lets you catch a lot with the right card. Catching many cards fills your hand for later flocks.
• Think about what you leave behind. After your turn, the next player may catch the cards you just laid out – laying out one card at the end of a long row can be a gift.
• The rare face-card species need only 2 or 3 cards for a flock, so they are the quickest way to the "7 species" goal. The common number species need 5 or 7, but a big flock of them gives you 2 cards at once – good for the "two species with 3" goal.
• Your hand is also a risk: if another player empties their hand, all your cards are discarded. Don't wait too long with a flock you can already fly.
• Watch the other collections. If someone needs only one more species, avoid leaving them an easy catch in that species.

Variants

• Rarer rare birds: use small flock 3 and big flock 4 for Jacks, Queens and Kings. Flocks of face cards become much harder, and the game gets longer.
• Quick game: win with 6 different species or 2 species with 3 cards each.

Differences from the model game

• The cards: CuBirds has 110 cards in eight species of 7, 10, 10, 13, 13, 17, 20 and 20 cards. Two decks cannot give eight species of those sizes, so we use three species of 8 cards (J, Q, K) and five species of 16 cards (pairs of number ranks) – 104 cards in all. The species are about as big on average as in the original (13 against 13.75 cards).
• The flock sizes: in the original, a species needs fewer birds for a flock the rarer it is. We gave each of our species the flock sizes of the original species closest to it in size: our 8-card species use those of the 7-card species (2 and 3), our 16-card species those of the 17-card species (5 and 7). This keeps the original's proportions: to get 3 cards of one species into your collection with one small and one big flock, you have to gather 5 of the 8 cards of a face-card species or 12 of the 16 cards of a number species. In the original it takes 5 of 7 up to 15 of 20.
• Empty draw pile: the original rules say to shuffle the discard pile when the draw pile runs out while dealing. We do the same whenever a card is needed.
• Everything else follows the model game.