Flock Around Review: A Charming Birdwatching Collectathon With Real Heart

A Small Birdwatching Game With a Surprising Amount of Heart

Reviewed on PC.Score: 8/10

In my own free time, I actually enjoy casual birdwatching at local wildlife preserves around my home state. It is a relaxing and fun way to feel closer to nature without doing much besides using binoculars and getting that small sense of joy when you spot a “rare” bird like an eagle or an owl.

I never imagined someone could create a similar experience in a video game until Secret Plan Games released Flock Around on April 24.

Admittedly, birdwatching can be boring, but that is part of the chill nature of the hobby. Turning it into a game seems like a tall task if you want it to be engaging beyond a simple walking simulator with birds to look at. However, Flock Around gave me a real sense of wonder that I was not expecting, delivering on all things birds and watching them.

The game’s simple visual style works best when the environments feel calm and inviting.

Flock Around

Release: April 24, 2026

Genre: Casual, Indie

Developer / Publisher: Secret Plan Games / Secret Plan Games, Outersloth

Platforms: Steam

Making Digital Birdwatching Work

The game is pretty simple. Armed with a camera and binoculars, your goal is to take pictures of birds and earn scores based on their poses, how close your shot is, and how well the bird is centered in the camera.

With a small starting area and new areas unlocked through the stars you earn from good pictures, the game pushes you to fill your scrapbook with 3-star photos and fully clear each location. You are not just looking for one picture of every bird. You are trying to catch them from the front, back, side, and in flight.

Tracking birds by sight and sound becomes the heart of the experience.

Explaining it that technically loses some of why the game is fun, though. At first glance, I thought the simplistic art style might be too simple for something like birdwatching, but the birds are distinct and detailed enough to tell apart from a distance. That matters when you suddenly realize you are looking at the Bushtit you have been trying to photograph for 30 minutes.

The Sound Design Is Where Flock Around Really Shines

What the game truly masters is sound design. The first time I learned about Flock Around, I saw the development shorts on YouTube where the developers described the process of making the bird chirps and caws.

Because professionally recorded bird noises can be expensive, they chose to recreate the sounds using their own voices, matching slowed-down versions of tweets and chirps, then tweaking the audio until it fit each bird.

Right when you open the game, you can tell they nailed it. The distant cawing is beautiful, and it immediately put me in the mindset of being at one of those wildlife preserves. The trill of a hummingbird’s wings, the long off-caw of a crow, the sharp knocking of a woodpecker; all of these sounds work together to pull you closer to the nature in the game.

They also guide you. A sound in the distance can lead you toward a bird you have not photographed yet. That created a sensation I honestly did not expect from a game like this: getting genuinely excited when I heard a bird call I did not recognize and followed it until I found something new for my journal.

Shoot Them All With a Camera, Of Course

The journal mechanic does get a little repetitive. Photographing each bird in four different poses can start to feel samey, especially once you have upgraded your equipment and are hunting down the last few missing shots to squeeze out enough 3-star photos for the next location.

But Flock Around is not only a solo game about tracking birds. It also supports multiplayer for up to 10 players, and that changes the whole feel of the experience.

Flock Around turns birdwatching into a playful multiplayer outing.

With even one friend, it starts to feel like a virtual outing. You can walk around together, goof off, jump around the map, and stumble into special locations. It moves from a slow, somewhat faithful recreation of real birdwatching into a funny shared space where you are laughing, taking pictures of each other, and reacting when a bird lands on someone’s head.

That does not mean single-player is weak. Both ways of playing work. Alone, the game can still deliver those quiet moments where you stop, listen, and take everything in. With friends, it becomes more playful and silly without losing the core charm.

A Love Letter to Birdwatching

Flock Around feels like a love letter to birdwatching. There is so much effort put into making it feel like you are actually watching birds, not just checking boxes in a collectathon.

It is a game best experienced with a little patience. You need to take in the sound, walk around, listen, and let yourself get pulled into the simple act of searching for birds. That slower pace will not be for everyone, but when it clicks, it really works.

The game is a bit short, and it can start to feel repetitive near the end. But for only $4.99, if you have a few friends or if you are a bird lover, this is a cheap and genuinely charming experience. If you like collectathons, the scrapbook system gives you a simple but encouraging reason to keep going.

For me, Flock Around earns a solid 8/10. It set out to deliver a birdwatching experience, and I watched a lot of birds.

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