Flight of Pollen

When a tree is old enough, it starts to make flowers. The flower is a message from the tree to you, the pollinators. Calling you to come by day and by night – to drink its nectar, to pick up its pollen grains, and to transport these to another tree of the same species. Because it’s ready to breed.

Flight of Pollen is a semi-cooperative game where you pollinate as many trees as possible by visiting them with a variety of different New Zealand pollinators, with different pollinators being more successful under different weather conditions. Rounds are split into day and night segments, with different pollinators active during the day versus the night. Each pollinator must move from one plant to the next of the same species, moving pollen between them until all of the plants of the target species are pollinated- if any are missed, the game is lost. One or more different native New Zealand plant are the focus for each of the four rounds, and as the rounds progress more pollinator species are added, as well as more plant species with more challenging pollination requirements. If all of the required plants have been pollinated, then the team that collected the most berries wins the game.

Over each of the four levels different trees send out differing messages in their flowers. You’ll need to work together to complete each level, moving as the elements allow.

As flowers pollinated by you (or the wind) become seeds or berries, teams can collect the resulting berries.

Locally made, with recycled materials and FSC card