Wingspan the board game
Designed by Elizabeth Hargrave
Illustrated by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria, Martinez Jasamillo and Beth Sobel
Publisher Stonemaier Games
Players: 1-5 Ages 10+ Time to play 40-70minutes
With Christmas fast approaching I thought it would be good this month to do some reviews which may help with that Christmas shopping. The original Wingspan I bought pre-Christmas many years ago, but the expansions have been kindly bought for me in the following Christmases and how delighted have I been to get them. Unboxing a game is exciting—just search "unboxing board games" on YouTube to see its popularity.
Wingspan is a North American bird game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games. Players act as bird enthusiasts aiming to attract birds to their wildlife preserve. There are three habitats on each player’s board: forest, grassland and wetland. Each bird has a unique power, and adding birds to your preserve improves future actions and your score over time. The aim of the game is to score points from the combined value of each bird, number of eggs, cached food, tucked cards, end of round and bonus goals. The more birds you play the more points you gain. There are four rounds, and within each round several turns, decreasing in number from 8 in the first to 5 in the last. The more productive you are at gaining resources to play more birds the more likely you are to achieve goals and more points.
Having first played it at a local board gaming café and enjoyed it very much, Wingspan became a must needed purchase. It won the equivalent of an Oscar in the board gaming world, winning the top award at the Kennerspiel des Jahres event in Berlin, Germany 2019. It had sold 1 million copies by September 2021, according to the publisher Stonemaier games. It has since continued to sell with further expansions released each adding extra birds (from Europe, Oceania and Asia) and introducing new mechanics along the way. It has become my favourite game; I have the original and all the expansions in my collection and since July 2021 the digital version created by Monster Couch and all its iterations.
The game comes with an easy-to-read manual that will help you set up and guide you step by step through the first few rounds. There are starter pack birds if you are a newbie to board games, teaching you the mechanics with easy-to-follow instructions. The game also come with a self-assemble bird feeder kit, see below. Once built you use this bird feeder to shake and roll the 5 dice, which is a superb interactive feature.
The game first attracted me because it was about birds, plain and simple. I have been a birdwatcher since I was young, something my mum got me into for which I am ever so grateful. I am not a twitcher, but I love being out in nature and spotting bird’s and this led me on to spotting hoverflies. Each card gives the birds wingspan, thus the namesake of the game, along with the nest type (cavity, platform, cup(bowl), ground nesting) both of which could be important for certain end of round and end game scoring. Each bird comes with a food cost to play it, which habitats it can be played in and a coloured power which is activated at certain times within the game. I have fact checked a lot of the cards and they do seem accurate, along with the interesting factoid at the bottom of the card. So, there is much educational value to be gained.
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| These cards are from the European version which is the first expansion to the original game. |
However each bird has an egg capacity, which might not necessarily reflect the clutch size of the actual bird. It is a nice touch that the cuckoo can lay eggs only in another bird’s nest, when certain conditions are met; this represents the ecological niche they occupy. I would imagine the egg capacity of each bird is a design choice as is the number of points you can receive from playing each bird. Most board games are in the end just ‘point salads’ (describes a game with numerous often disconnected ways to score points) and it wouldn’t work if some birds were too powerful and others were too weak. To ensure a game plays well and is balanced it goes through rigorous testing, I believe this game did as the scores of all opponents at the end of the game are often close, so it is difficult to tell who is winning during the game.
The game also has an element of push your luck and chance, as not all birds are available every game. This simulates the pleasure in going to a nature reserve, you never know what birds you might find/see. The strategies one can play ensure re-playability as you search for that combination of birds that synergise well together. But it might be a bit of a stretch to suggest that in deciding how best to place your birds into the ecosystem that you are learning the importance of biodiversity and conservation as I am not sure that this game goes anywhere near teaching those concepts. Maybe we will find those concepts in other nature themed games.
Summary
What keeps me coming back to it time and time again, is the theme, would I be so interested in it if it was based on cars probably not. There are now versions based on fish (Finspan) and dragons (Wyrmspan) which I would love to give a try. But it’s the birdwatcher in me that brings me back, it’s like visiting a nature reserve, the hope of spotting something spectacular. In America it inspired a Wingspan bird guidebook encouraging new birders to the hobby, I love that connectivity. It’s a relaxing non-competitive fun game and there is much to be learnt about each of the different birds. It doesn’t replace the thrill of that natural experience like earlier this year going out with friends on an evening to see Nightjars displaying and hunting for food. But it does allow me to appreciate all the different birds in the world something I am unlikely to see.
Who would it appeal to:
- Anyone interested in nature, especially birds, and enjoys playing games.
- Those that don’t particularly like competitive games. Elisabeth Hargrave is quoted as saying she wanted to create a game that was not competitive.
- People who like to play with other people, around a table.
Downsides of the game:
- It can take a little while to grasp the mechanics, especially if you haven’t played this type of game before.
- Until you get a grasp of the mechanics the first few playthroughs might feel a bit long.
- It is not a competitive game, sometimes it can feel like you are playing solo. I have often found games remarkably close in scoring, so unless you are keeping tabs on your opponents as you go along, you might not know who has won until the end.
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