Flutter

Pollinators are more than just bees. Ladybugs, moths, butterflies, dragonflies, and hummingbirds all do their part in spreading the pollen that helps plants make seeds. In the board game Flutter, you plant a pollinator garden specifically designed to attract these lovely creatures.

Flutter is a game for 2-5 players by Matthew Bahntge. It’s for ages 8 and up, and it is published by Phase Shift Games.

Setup

Place the rainbow-colored bee tile in the middle of the play area. Form a stack for each shape of meadow tile (with the number of each as per player count in the manual) in a circle and place the sun token on the ladybug (diamond) stack.  Place the triangular pond tokens in the middle of the circle, and pollen point tokens nearby.

Each player takes a petal player board, one petal of each color, and a bee token. Each player will place their color petals point at the “0” spot on their game board. The first player is “who most recently marveled at the wonders of nature”.

Gameplay

To start each turn, the active player moves the sun token to the next stack of meadow tiles. Then they select a tile. They can take the next tile clockwise from the sun for free, or they can pay petals to skip ahead: one petal matching the color of the pollinator on the skipped tile, two petals to skip the next tile, and so on.

Then the player places their drafted tile, adding to the meadow and its flowers. Every time you place a meadow tile, it has to share at least one side with a tile already placed.

Each new meadow tile must also grow (add to) at least one flower – using the petals of a flower on the tile’s corners or along its sides. It’s best to match the flower petal colors, when possible.

Lastly, the player may place their wooden bee token on any tile that does not have a bee on it and is not currently enclosed. Once a bee is placed, it cannot be moved until the chosen tile is enclosed.

Scoring

Each time a tile is placed, it is immediately scored, in multiple steps:

1. Grow Flower(s)

Flower petals on the new tile that line up with petals a previous tile are either matching or mismatched. If one or more of the petals on the new tile match at least one in the old tile (on the same flower), this is a matching flower and these are grown first.  One matching petal point per petal in the flower grown.

Mismatched flowers are grown second. If none of the old petals match any of the new petals within a flower, you lose a matching petal point for every single petal on the newly grown flower.

2. Fill in any Pollen Ponds

If the player used their new tile to finish enclosing an empty space, they have made a pollen pond! They fill the pond space with face-up water tiles. Each water tile may have a reward – colored petals, any-color petals, or pollen points.

3. Score Enclosed Meadow Tiles

If the tile placement caused one or more meadow tiles to be fully enclosed, these are scored next. Note the number of sparkles surrounding the pollinator on the enclosed tile. The player pays this cost in petals matching the pollinator’s color. Then they gain pollen points (these are victory points) equal to the number of sparkles.

If the player doesn’t have enough petals to pay the cost, every other player gets two pollen points, and the current player gets no points for this tile.

If there is a bee token on the newly enclosed tile, the player who placed the bee there immediately gains two pollen points. Then they can choose to immediately place their bee on another legal meadow tile or keep it to place on a later turn.

Game End

When one of the stacks of meadow tiles is empty, players finish the round. Then each player converts where their petal trackers are on their player boards to pollen points, and total all their pollen points together. The player with the most pollen points wins!

Impressions

Flutter is a beautiful game. The pollinators on the meadow tiles are well done, and all of the colors are vivid. It’s a fun, open-ended puzzle. And visually, it reminds me of tangram puzzles. If tangram puzzles are like a kid’s Lunchable, Flutter feels like a charcuterie board: grown-up and beautiful.

Finicky Flowers

Unfortunately, Flutter has several drawbacks. The petal tracker is finicky, even for adults. The petals can move up or down any number of spots on a given turn, and you can even be moving multiple petals on the same turn. Anyone could easily bump their board and send the petals scattering like a flower girl at a wedding, but it’s especially hard for an eight-year-old kid.

The same goes for the meadow tiles. Every time someone plays a tile, it’s incredibly easy to skew the assembled tiles with just a small bump.

Does it ruin the game? No. But if you’re you’re playing with kids under 12, be prepared to spend a lot of time fixing both the meadow and any child’s board.

Multi-Step Scoring

The delicacy of the placements is echoed by the complexity of tracking each turn’s scoring: first the matching flowers add petals (a flower can have both matching AND non-matching petals, but any matching petals make it a matching flower), then non-matching flowers subtract petals, and only after that can a player (possibly) score points. You’re allowed to check how a tile fits before committing to taking it, but this can lead to a lot of test-placements that slow down the game.

Flutter is a beautiful, thematic game. But the petal tracking and some of the complexities set the experience back. It’s a fun puzzle, but I would wait to bring it to the table until the kids are a little older and have better fine motor control.

If you’d like to build a beautiful but delicate pollinator garden, you can buy Flutter from Phase Shift Games, find it on Amazon, or ask for it at your local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Flutter from Phase Shift Games for this review.

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