Bird Pairs — Sonic Lab

Bird Pairs — How to Play

Welcome to Bird Pairs, an immersive audio-puzzle game! At its core, it plays just like the classic “Memory” (or Match-Match) game you already know, but with a unique twist: your ears are your greatest guide. Listen closely, match the unique songs, and clear the board.

Here is everything you need to know to play and win.

Before you begin, customize your match on the welcome screen:

Match Length: Choose a quick game of one round, or a longer, more competitive match playing to 3 Wins.
Players: Play Solo to beat your high score, challenge a friend in 2-Players, or test your skills against the CPU.
Game Mode:
- CLASSIC (Grid): A traditional memory grid. Paired birds here share the exact same song and exact same audio position, meaning they sound identical in your headphones.
- MAP (Spatial Audio): A free-form layout featuring 3D audio panning, where birds are scattered across a physical map at different distances (Close, Medium, and Far).

If you know how to play traditional Memory, you are already prepared for Bird Pairs!

Listen & Memorize: On your turn, tap any card (Classic) or circle (Map) to hear its bird song. Tap a second one to attempt a match.
Find a Match, Keep Playing: If you successfully match two identical bird songs, the pair is cleared from the board, you score points, and you get to keep playing! You can keep taking turns as long as you keep finding matches.
Mismatch & Pass: If the two songs do not match, they flip back over, and your turn immediately ends. Play passes to your opponent (or the CPU).
Whose Turn Is It?: The screen's colors will tell you who is in command. Player 1 plays on a soft cream background with amber highlights. When play passes to Player 2 or the CPU, the entire screen flips to a dark sienna and orange theme.

In Map Mode, you must use both your eyes and your ears. Paired birds sing the same song, but their audio position might be completely different depending on where they are on the map.

Visual Clues:

Close birds: Found at the bottom of the map, represented by a large circle.
Medium birds: Found in the middle of the map, represented by a medium circle.
Far-away birds: Found at the top of the map, represented by a small circle.

The Audio Twist:

Example: If Bird A1 is close to you on your left, and Bird A2 is far away on your right, they will sing the exact same melody. However, A1 will sound loud and panned left, while A2 will sound quiet, distant, and panned right.

The Distance Bonus: Because finding pairs that sound so different requires keen auditory tracking, the game rewards you for it. Matching a pair that is widely separated on the map (like matching a “Close” bird with a “Far” bird) awards you a Distance Bonus, yielding extra glowing stars and a massive score boost!

Every round hides two unique wildcards on the board that can easily swing the game in (or out of) your favor:

The Dove Pair (Bonus): There is one pair of Doves hidden in every round. Doves have a very distinct, easy-to-identify song. Finding them gives you easy extra points and helps you clear the board faster.
The Dog Card (Penalty): There is only one Dog hidden on the board. If you reveal it, it barks, and your turn immediately ends.

Warning: Unlike matched birds, the Dog card does not disappear. It stays in the exact same spot until the end of the round and can be accidentally revealed several times. Memorize its location so you don't click it again!

The round ends when all bird pairs have been cleared from the board. Check the Result Screen for a detailed score breakdown, a visual replay of your map, and your overall star rating!

Synth Mode is a playground. No matching, no scoring, no rounds — just birds, sounds, and space to play. Perfect for building your own forest chorus, imagining a soundscape, or just enjoying the samples.

Colored pairs. Each pair of birds shares a color. Same color = same bird, singing the same phrase from two different spots in the space.

Tapping cards. Every card plays its bird's phrase when tapped. You can tap several cards at once — they'll all sing together as a chorus.

NEW BIRDS. Press 'NEW' to rebuild the map with a fresh set of birds, new positions, and new pair colors.

NEW SOUNDSCAPE. Fades in a new ambient background — wind, streams, distant crickets — over the current one.

VOL and TUNE knobs. Two knobs per section. VOL sets the loudness, TUNE shifts the pitch up or down by up to an octave.

MOVE. Press MOVE to rearrange the cards and compose your own scene. In MOVE mode the cards glow yellow and won't play — you can drag them freely around the space. When you turn MOVE off, each card sounds from its new position: horizontal = left/right in the stereo field, vertical = near or far (with matching reverb).

MOVE, REC and PLAY are mutually exclusive: only one can be on at a time.

REC and PLAY. Press REC to record your taps — up to 60 seconds. Press REC again to stop (or to clear a previous recording and start over). Press PLAY to hear your performance loop. You can tap more cards on top of a playing loop to layer new ideas. Changing NEW BIRDS or NEW SOUNDSCAPE during playback is allowed — the recording continues, triggering whichever cards are currently on screen.

Volume, pitch, and card changes are not recorded — only your taps.

EXPORT. Once you've recorded something, an EXPORT button appears. Choose MP3 (small, shareable) or WAV (24-bit / 48 kHz, studio quality) and download. The exported audio captures whatever the piece sounds like right now — soundscape, volumes, pitches, and card positions all included — with a smooth 3-second fade in and out.

Have fun playing the forest.

Created by Julien Tauban for Loops de la Crème.

The audio engine and the audio samples are based on the Kontakt library Songbird Virtuoso.

Have questions or want to share your feedback? Get in touch.