Flutter

• Designer: Matt Bahntge
• Publisher: Phase Shift Games / Asmodee
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gVlMQo
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Immerse yourself in the wonder of nature and create a vibrant meadow bursting with flowers to attract the most vital creatures of the ecosystem – graceful Hummingbirds, swift Dragonflies, flittering Moths, delicate Butterflies, dancing Ladybugs, and revered Bees, the king of all pollinators.

With each turn, you will place uniquely shaped tiles, aiming to match petals and grow flowers. But it doesn’t end there – it’s about nurturing the ecosystem by providing the right flowers to each fluttering critter, spreading their rich pollen throughout the meadow. You will accomplish this by strategically enclosing tiles, boosted by clever use of your bee token.

Don’t take too long to make your move though – the supply rondel is running low, and once a single stack of tiles is emptied, the game comes to an end. The player with the most pollen at the end of the game will be crowned the winner and earn the admiration of all the pollinators in the meadow!

Flutter is a strategic tile-laying strategy game for 2 to 5 players, ages 8 and up, and it takes about 30 minutes to play. Players take turns laying tiles of varying shapes, earning petal tokens for matching flower petals in each corner. As the game progresses, players will spend those petal tokens when they enclose a previously laid tile, supplying the tile’s pollinator with all the flowers it needs, earning pollen. Once a single stack of tiles in the supply rondel has been emptied, the player with the most pollen is the winner!

The starting rainbee tile (rainbow + bee) is placed in the center of the table and a rondel of meadow tiles is made off to the side with the triangular blue water tiles in the center.  The sun token is placed on one of the stacks.  Each player gets a petal tracker board and places one token of each color on the 0 space of their board.

Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player takes a turn consisting of the following steps:

Step 1: Rotate the Sun – move the sun token to the next stack clockwise on the rondel 

Step 2: Select a Tile – take the tile on top of the stack just after sun token or pay sequentially increasing number of petals shown of the color shown on top of the skipped tile.  (Thus, if you want to go all the way around the rondel to place the tile which is UNDER the sun token, you must pay 10 petals: 1+2+3+4)

Step 3: Place a Tile – place the tile onto the table, making sure that at least one side touches a previously placed tile and that you grow at least one flower.  If you cannot legally place any tile, discard the free tile and gain one petal of each color.

Step 4: Grow Flowers.  If you Grow Matching Flowers (at least one of your petals on your tile matches one already placed), then you gain petals equal to all of that flower’s matching color petals. Do this for all matching flowers you grew this turn.  There is a maximum of 21 petals of each color.  If you Grow Mismatched Flowers (where none of your petals match the color of their adjacent neighbors), you lose petals for every petal in a flower grown by your tile this turn.  You must be able to pay the entire penalty or you cannot place your tile in that location.

Step 5: Pollinate the Meadow – If there are any amounts of enclosed empty space after placing your tile, fill in that space with water tiles and gain any rewards seen on the water tiles that you place.  Then check to see if any Meadow tiles are newly enclosed.  Pay a number of petals equal to the number of white sparkles, in the color of the pollinator of the enclosed tile.  Then gain pollen equal to the number of white sparkles. If you cannot pay the petal cost, all your opponents gain 2 pollen instead and you get nothing.  If there was a bee token on the enclosed tile, the owner gets 2 pollen points.

Step 6: Place Your Bee – if your bee is not already in the meadow, you can place it on any non-starter, non-enclosed tile that doesn’t already have a bee on it.  Once placed, your bee cannot be removed until it is returned to you when its tile is enclosed. 

 Game end

The game end triggers when the last tile of any stack in the rondel is placed in the meadow.  That player finishes his turn and then all other players get one more turn.  Players then gain pollen based on their unused petals, and then the player with the most points wins. Ties broken in favor of the player with the most petals left.

My thoughts on the game

Flutter is a multi-layered tile laying game.  You are trying to grow flowers with your tiles in order to gain the colored petals.  You are also trying to enclose in tiles or areas for VP rewards.  Of course, you must time things correctly as you need to have gained enough petals beforehand in order to gain the VPs from enclosing things – and you definitely don’t want to give all of your opponents 4 VPs each when you can’t pay for the enclosed tile!  You also need to have enough petals in your supply to allow you to move around the rondel to choose the tiles that you want the most.  Of course, you don’t want to spend too much on tile choice as those petals will also convert to victory points at the end of the game!

As you play the game, you’ll have to decondition your gaming brain from the usual tile-laying game rules.  You don’t necessarily have to place your tile adjacent to another tile – you just have to make sure that you grow at least one flower!  You’ll likely want to do this in a matching way (so that you gain petals); the costs for unmatched flowers can be quite high! 

As the joint meadow grows on the table, it definitely is a sight to see.  The colorful flowers and pollinators make a vibrant tableau, and the ever changing shape of the meadow spreads on the playing surface.  I wish the bees were smaller or maybe transparent.  Especially on the smaller tiles, the bees inhibit you from seeing the information on the tile underneath.  I also wish that the player boards were a bit larger.  There is barely enough space for one petal on a scoring space  – and there are times in the game where you might have 3 or 4 on the same space, and they can be easily jostled or moved.

Though the game looks family friendly, it is a bit more complicated than it looks, and I don’t really know if this is one I’d let the children play on their own.  The rules for the matching/mismatching petals are complicated as is the scoring.  If you like spatial puzzles with a hefty bit of optimizing, this is definitely for you.  

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4gVlMQo

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral. Dale, John P
• Not for me… Steph