Look To The Birds is a quiet, absorbing game. It’s meant to be played slowly and contemplatively. There’s no need to rush. Take your time and enjoy nature.
The Backstory of Look To The Birds
Look To The Birds begins with me and my parents near the family car in a wooded area. It’s obvious that my parents are real nature lovers, and they wanted me to get out, enjoy the scenery and take some pictures of the birds I spotted. Based on the look of the cars, I’d say the game takes place in the 1970’s. Mom and Dad encouraged me to take my time, enjoy the peaceful surroundings and get some nice photographs.
The Look and Feel of Look To The Birds
The demo takes place in one small location, but the full game version of Look To The Birds will take place in 5 different environments, all within New England and Atlantic Canada. The scenery in the demo is lovely, serene and handcrafted. I expect the full game to be the same. There is a quiet, peaceful soundtrack with a lot of piano and many, many authentic bird calls. The demo had 7 birds in it; the full game will have over 30.
From time to time I would hear a distant car drive somewhere nearby, but I never saw one on the quiet road where we stopped. As time passed, the light would change, shadows would grow larger, and sunlight dappled through the trees. It was all very calm, serene and immersive.
The Gameplay in Look To The Birds
The game began with a short but very comprehensive and intuitive tutorial. I learned how to walk and move about, how to use my camera and also my journal. The photos I took were saved in my journal as well as records of the birds I saw. Look To The Birds was not an overly complicated game, which is fine with me. There were no goals beyond taking some nice photographs; there were no timers and no need to rush.
In the demo, there were 7 birds I could find. It only took me about 25 minutes to find them, and that just wasn’t long enough in that beautiful environment for me! So I played the demo two more times, just because it was so enjoyable. During my first playthrough, it wasn’t easy for me to find all the birds. However, I found that as I played again, it was easier to find them. I played for a total of 2 hours. The game has 3 save slots, and I used them all.
In the full game, after finding a certain number of birds in a level, I will be able to choose to move on to the next level. I could come back to the uncompleted levels with fresh eyes when I felt like it. I thought that was a really nice way to play.
I enabled hints, but I could have chosen not to. One of the hints made my camera viewfinder turn red when there was a bird nearby but not close enough to photograph. That clue told me to slow down, zoom in and see if I could find the bird. There was also a hint that presented as circles radiating out from a singing bird, which helped me to find it. I like that players have the option to turn these hints off, but I did appreciate having them.
Final Thoughts
Look To The Birds reminded me of Alba, another game I really enjoyed. Unlike Alba, this game is all about photographing birds; there is no other plot. And that’s just fine. Sometimes a relaxing game is exactly what I need and want. It also reminded me a bit of a hidden object game, except the hidden objects are living birds!
After playing the demo, I had a few questions, so I reached out to the dev on Discord. I received a reply pretty quickly. I’m always impressed with game devs who are very responsive to players. To me, it indicates that they are committed to developing an excellent game and want to make sure the players have the best possible experience with it. So Bravo to Jason, the game dev for Look To The Birds.
Jason is a solo dev living in Atlantic Canada with his young family. He told me he enjoyed birds before but making this game really made him aware of how amazing they are.
This is not a game to rush through; it’s more of a meditative experience to savor. The demo is available now on Steam; the full game should be released in September 2026. I look forward to playing all the levels and encourage you to try the demo.
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