In Wingspan, players compete to attract the most birds to their wildlife preserves and habitats. And the game is expanding with new species this year.
In Wingspan, you are a bird enthusiast. You research birds, watch birds, or may even be an ornithologist. And your goal is to attract the most and the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. This year adds a new expansion that explores the birds of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean – an incredibly biodiverse region. Along with new species, the expansion adds a card with a new twist. It includes 111 bird cards, 40 hummingbird cards, 15 egg minis, and much more. You can read more about the Americas Expansion – that has a focus on hummingbirds – here.
Wingspan Overview
| Quick Guide | |
|---|---|
| Mechanics | Dice Rolling, Set Collection, Drafting |
| Players | 1 -5 Players, Ages 10+ |
| Playing Time | 40 – 70 Minutes |
| Similar Games | Earth, Everdell, Wyrmspan, Finspan |
| Publisher | Stonemaier Games |
Wingspan is a game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave. As an amateur birder she made this game because there were already so many games about “castles and space, and not enough games about things I’m interested in.” And since 2019, Wingspan has been nominated for or won more wards than I can realistically list here. So if there’s something that you want to make you think may be a little to niche or strange for anyone else to enjoy, just do it already.
In Wingspan, players compete to attract more birds to their various habitats. Food will bring birds in, but there are also eggs to lay, the habitat to improve, cards to draw, and a few special abilities that birds will activate throughout the game.
Wingspan has received praise for its artwork, gameplay, and accuracy. And over the years it has inspired an European Expansion, an Oceania Expansion, an Asian Expansion, and most recently an Americas Expansion. There are also options for solo play, a variant for two players called Duet Mode, and Flock Mode for games with up to seven players.
How to Play Wingspan
To set up a game of Wingspan, players must set out the cards, food tokens, the bird feeder dice tower and dice, and select which goal board they will be using. The different goal boards will determine which scoring objective players are trying to achieve. Each player will get their own player board and action cubes.
Games of Wingspan are played in four rounds. In each round, there are a different number of turns per player—the first has eight, the second has seven, and the third and fourth each have five.
During turns, players can play bird cards by paying a certain amount of food in tokens. They can also get more bird cards, collect additional food tokens, or lay eggs. The round ends when everyone has used their action cubes and taken their turns, and the game ends when four rounds have been completed.
Wingspan is scored by totaling up the birds various point values, egg bonuses, fulfilled goals, and food tokens. The player with the highest score has attracted the most birds to their nature reserve and wins.
Should I Buy This Game?
Wingspan is a massively popular game. If you haven’t played it, you probably know someone who owns it. Maybe you don’t need to buy a copy for yourself right away, but you should definitely try to make Wingspan the subject of your next game night.
This game may seem like it’s for the birds, but it has so much going for it. It’s a strategy game with many different ways to strategize and play. There is so much detail and love in the art and theming. And there are so many ways to play that it’s nearly impossible to get bored no matter how many times you take the box off the shelf.
The core game is 15% off right now!
Please note that BoLS may earn a commission when you purchase through links on our site.
Don’t Miss:
Read more at this site