Perch – Not Quite as Peaceful as It Looks

Don’t let the cosy farm setting fool you. Perch looks like something you’d play on a quiet Sunday with tea and biscuits. I mean, it has trees, nests, little birds. It looks completely harmless. And then five minutes later you’re cancelling someone’s points on purpose and arguing about who gets control of a fox.

For us, that contrast is the hook. It’s an area control game about majority and timing, but with a twist that forces you to handle other people’s birds. Not cards. Not tokens. Their actual birds. You will place them in spots that are… let’s say, less helpful. And they’ll do the same to you.

What starts as a peaceful countryside turns into a small turf war with feathers. Sorry. I had to.

👥 2-5 players, ages 14+
⌛ Playing time: 45-60 minutes
📝 Designer: Douglas Hettrick
🎨 Artwork: Ari Oliver

🏢 Publisher: Inside Up Games (review copy provided)

Quick note: the Kickstarter for the reprint and the Birds of Play expansion launches on 24 February.

Gameplay overview

A game of Perch lasts five rounds. Each round follows the same structure. First migration, then recruiting, then placing birds, then scoring and upkeep. It’s very structured. Easy to teach. The difficulty comes from what the players do, not from the rulebook.

At the start of each round every player removes two birds from their flock in the roost and drops them into a shared migration bag. Some location tiles can force extra birds into that bag. If you don’t have enough birds left, you just add what you can.

And here’s the thing. Those birds are about to come back out, but not necessarily to you.

During recruiting, players shake the bag and, in turn order, each draw two birds from it. Then they take two of their own birds from the roost. So you always place four birds per round. Two are yours for sure. Two might belong to anyone at the table.

I know, it sounds simple. It is simple. But that forced mixing changes how you think. When I draw someone else’s colour, I’m already thinking, where can I put this so it doesn’t help them too much… but also doesn’t become a problem for me later?

Then comes the placing. In turn order, everyone places one bird at a time onto the location tiles. You can’t place birds directly onto the fountain. Locations can hold as many birds as you want, but each stack can only be one colour. If you want to contest a space, you build your own stack next to someone else’s.

Some locations have nests. A nest gives a plus one strength bonus to the flock sitting on it, and that bonus counts for everything. Scoring, creature effects, all of it. If a nest is empty, you can move your stack onto it when you place a bird there.

Once per turn while placing, you can take one bonus action. If you control a creature, you can activate it. In rounds four and five, you can place a birdhouse. In round five, you can use lightning.

Birdhouses are strong. When you place one on a stack, that stack is locked. No birds can be added or removed. Creatures and lightning can’t touch it. The birdhouse itself counts as plus one bird for all purposes, no matter who placed it. So yes, you can technically help someone by locking their stack, although usually you won’t. Round four often feels like the moment people say, okay, this is mine now.

Lightning comes in round five. You remove one bird from any location tile and the affected player places it onto the fountain. You can even zap an unoccupied nest and remove it from the game. It’s mean, but at that point of the game, everyone expects it. Lightning can’t touch a protected stack though.

Creatures are tied to specific home locations. During upkeep, whoever has the most birds on that home tile takes control of the creature for the next round. It doesn’t matter who had it before. It doesn’t matter where the creature currently stands. Only majority on its home tile counts. If there’s a tie, nobody gets it.

Scoring happens every round. You score the locations column by column, from left to right and top to bottom. Most birds get the top value, second gets the middle, third gets the bottom. Birds stay on the board after scoring. Nothing resets unless an effect says so.

The tie system is not friendly. Ties cancel positions. If two players tie for most, nobody gets first or second place points there. Sometimes third still scores. If several players tie for most, nobody scores at all on that location. That means you’re often not playing to win a spot, but to stop someone else from scoring it cleanly.

After scoring, turn order changes. The player with the most points becomes first next round. If there’s a tie in score, whoever reached that number first stays ahead. Being first is good. It’s also a bit of a spotlight. The table tends to notice who’s leading.

When birds are removed by effects or lightning, they go to the fountain. The player whose bird it was decides where it goes, following support rules. You can’t place a bird higher up unless the connected spots below are filled. If the fountain is full, birds go to the plaza instead. At the end of the game, birds in the plaza are worth one point each. Fountain birds score depending on their height.

After round five upkeep, you move any birds left in the migration bag to the plaza. Then you score ten points for the single largest flock on one location. If there’s a tie, nobody gets those ten points. You score three points per creature you control. Fountain and plaza birds score. And if you’re using objectives, you check those too. Highest score wins.

For two players, there’s a neutral bird-brained flock. It doesn’t score, but it adds birds to the migration bag and can mess with ties. It’s simple to run, but it does change the feel a bit.

Artwork and components

Let’s take a moment to talk about the look of it.

The artwork is warm and very countryside. Trees, barns, cornfields. It feels like a children’s book, but not in a childish way. Just friendly. I guess that’s why the interaction hits harder than you expect.

The bird pieces are chunky and stack well. When stacks get tall, it looks great on the table. There are clear bases included to stabilise high stacks, which is practical and appreciated. Nothing kills the mood like a tower of birds falling over.

The fountain board in the middle doubles as the scoring track and the place where removed birds go. It has printed perch spots at different levels, and birds have to be placed following support rules.

The roost insert that holds all the birds is useful during play, not just storage. That’s always nice to see. Creature standees are clear and readable. The iconography is consistent. You rarely need to guess what something means.

Our experience

The structure is clear. Five rounds, four birds each, score every round. Easy to follow. By round three though, the table starts to feel crowded. There’s no reset, so every early decision stays on the table.

The migration bag is the core of it. That’s what makes Perch interesting. You’re constantly deciding where to place birds, and half the time they’re not even yours. Do you drop them somewhere neutral, or do you actively slow someone down? It’s rarely explosive, but it’s constant.

The tie system is harsher than it looks. You can feel good when you cancel someone’s score. You can also feel slightly annoyed when it happens to you.

Late game turns can slow down. Only four placements per round sounds light, but every placement has ownership questions, scoring math, creature timing and endgame implications attached to it. In groups prone to analysis paralysis, round five can stretch.

At higher player counts, the game feels more alive. More ties, more contested spaces, more unpredictable bag draws. With fewer players, it’s tighter and a bit more controlled. Not worse, just different.

Emotionally, it’s sharper than it looks. You will block. You will zap. You will build a stack and dare others to touch it. The birds are cute, but they are not peaceful.

Our thoughts

For us, the most interesting part is that forced ownership mixing. Many area control games are about your pieces versus mine. Here, you’re physically placing mine for me sometimes. That creates unusual decisions that you don’t see that often. Outside of that twist, the framework is familiar. Majority scoring, disruptive powers, late game escalation.

The modular setup helps. Different combinations of basic, special and creature home tiles change the feel of the map.

The ten point largest flock bonus is significant. If you ignore it, you’ll probably lose close games. It encourages one tall stack somewhere. But that also makes you a target. There’s a risk there that we enjoyed.

This is not a game for people who dislike interference. You will have your plans interrupted. You will be forced into ties. If that frustrates you more than it excites you, this might not land.

Perch sits in that space where rules are simple but decisions aren’t. It looks gentle. It plays competitive. It’s not perfect. It can slow down. The tie system can feel harsh. But when the table leans into it and accepts that feathers will be ruffled, it becomes a really satisfying contest.

📝 We received a copy of the game from Inside Up Games.

🗓 Small note: the Kickstarter for the Perch reprint and the new Birds of Play expansion launches on 24 February. It includes a reprint of the base game plus three mix-and-match mini expansions you can combine as you like.