Wingspan

Join us as we run through a how-to, basic strategy and PC review for Wingspan! Designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games, Wingspan features 170 beautifully illustrated cards, numerous wooden pieces, and great replayability.

Wingspan is a card-centric engine builder where you play combinations of cards that reinforce one another and improve their overall impact on your ability to collect and consume resources. Ultimately this leads to point generation and victory. There are a lot of components to the game which makes the first few playthroughs a learning experience. Once you have the basics down, the depth of play keeps things fresh.

Each player gets a mat that has three habitats: Forest, Grassland and Wetland. This mat is where one of four actions can be taken: Play a bird, Gain food, Lay eggs, or Draw additional bird cards. As more birds are played, gaining resources becomes easier and the pace of the game increases. Early on, players normally focus on establishing the resource portion of their game.

Food tokens are the basic currency of the game along with eggs. There are five food types: Seed, Fish, Rodents, Fruit and Invertebrates. Food is used to play birds from your hand to your mat as a one-time cost. Depending on where the birds are played the mat will indicate whether 0, 1 or 2 eggs are also required as a one-time cost.

Bird cards show the habitat(s) they can be played in along with the food resources required. The + symbol is read as AND while a / is read as OR. Wild symbols mean that any food token can be used. Birds have a nest type shown as an image along with a maximum number of eggs that can be placed on the card once in play. Next to the feather is the points a player can claim at the end of the game for having that bird in play. A wingspan is listed for interaction with other game features, and some cards have activtaion or special abilities listed.

Each game has four rounds with a randomly assigned goal at the beginning of the game. For example, total number of birds played in the wetlands habitat. Up to 5 points can be earned each round for a given goal. Players are also given 8 action cubes to use at the beginning of the game. During a players turn, they place an action cube on their mat to indicate the action they are taking. At the end of the round when players have used all of their action cubes they are used as markers on the goal board. In this way, each round has one less action that can be taken. All players have 26 actions across the 4 rounds of the game.

At the end of the game players tally points across 6 categories: Birds, Bonus Cards, End-of-Round Goals, Eggs, Food on Cards and Tucked Cards. For Birds the points are printed on the cards. Some bonus cards are distributed at the beginning of the game and others can be earned along the way. They present different criteria for earning defined points and are only revealed to other players at the end of the game. End-of-Round goals are the summation of cube positions on the goal board (20 points maximum). Eggs in play on birds at the end of the game are worth 1-point each. Some birds can cache food tokens on themselves, for example rodents or fish from hunting. Only food cached on birds is counted awarding 1-point for each token. Finally some birds are able to tuck cards behind them which are worth 1-point each. The player with the most points wins!

Wingspan ships with a number of wooden game pieces which give a premium feel. The cardboard birdfeeder dice tower seems a bit cheap when you roll the premium custom dice in it, but there are aftermarket alternatives.

We know some others who have Wingspan and were a bit turned off by the initial complexity. Once you understand the mechanics, Wingspan offers incredible replayability even without the available expansions. It is a 1-2+ hour commitment when you take it off the shelf, and keeps you thinking every step of the way. Some players may take a long time during their turn evaluating and optimizing their limited actions. There is also quite a bit of dwell with 4+ players as you wait for your turn. Overall it is a solid game that we look forward to playing for years to come. Worth the price of admission!