Birdigo Review
Wordle and Balatro had a love child, and its name is Wordigo.
Birdigo. Credit: John August / Corey Martin / GameTeam6
Balatro is a sensational, addictive roguelite card game built around poker rules that has been massively successful. Wordigo from John August, Corey Martin, and GameTeam6 isn’t the first game to draw inspiration from that trend-setting indie game, but it's the latest I’ve had the privilege to review. I had been eager to play it since learning about it in the Thinky Direct showcase earlier this year.
Birdigo has a structure and gameplay loop that are similar to Balatro. You start with a deck of cards. Unlike Balatro’s playing cards, here each card represents a single letter, except for the wild asterisk card and one combining the letters Q, X, and Z. Cards are worth points, with extra points for upgraded cards—speckled, gold, platinum, etc. Each round, you have a limited number of words you must form to reach a threshold of points; fail to meet the required number, and you lose the run.
Birdigo. Credit: John August / Corey Martin / GameTeam6
You can hold up to five feather cards, which provide bonus points or multipliers based on specific conditions—extras for three-letter words, words that start with W, and the like. These are crucial to reaching higher scores, as you will need to increasingly rely on the multipliers and create words that allow you to make combos out of multiple feather cards. This works identically to Balatro’s Joker cards. The two single-use melody cards you can hold function just like Balatro’s tarot cards.
Birdigo has a bird theme, as you might have guessed from its title. Each of the runs you do is based on a specific bird migration path, represented on a map. Runs get more difficult as you go; I completed two. There are also multiple letter decks you can unlock as you meet certain goals.
The game’s graphics are charming, done in a colorful but not garish 3D cel-shaded style. Cute, exaggeratedly proportioned birds bring the game to life as their numbers increase over runs. The world the birds migrate through has a scale model-like quality to it, contributing to the playful quality of the visuals. The art is a large part of what makes the game feel so accessible and friendly.
While Birdigo is fun, it lacks the spark of the game it’s channeling. Part of what makes Balatro so good is its tactile nature. The way cards react when you handle them. The sounds that accompany every action and effect. The subtle animations that make the screen feel alive. The other side of it is the joy of simply watching numbers go up. Balatro shows you building up your score more frequently and with more visually rewarding animations, and the numbers can get impressively huge. Balatro gives you a steady drip of little rewards that always make you want more. Birdigo just doesn’t have this, opting for a more laid-back and friendly but blander style.
Birdigo. Credit: John August / Corey Martin / GameTeam6
Birdigo obviously isn’t Balatro, even though it borrows so liberally from it. It scratches a different puzzle-solving, strategic itch, the same one that games like Wordle satisfy. I just wish it had a little more pizzazz. Right now, the game is only on PC, but I can see it doing gangbusters on mobile and would be shocked if it didn’t get a release on those platforms.
Birdigo is available now on Steam.
Overall Score: 7/10
Played on: Steam Deck
