Wingspan (board game)

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Wingspan
3d-wingspan-768x752.png
DesignersElizabeth Hargrave
IllustratorsAna Maria Martinez Jaramillo, Natalia Rojas, Beth Sobel
PublishersStonemaier Games
Publication2019
Players1-5
Playing time40-70 minutes
Websitewww.stonemaiergames.com

Wingspan is a board game for 1 to 5 players designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. It is a card-driven, engine-building board game in which players compete to attract birds to their wildlife reserves.[1] Wingspan has been met with critical and commercial acclaim for its gameplay, accurate theme and artwork.[2]The game also won numerous awards including the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres for best connoisseur game of the year.[3]

Gameplay[]

In Wingspan, players assign birds, which are represented by 170 individually illustrated cards,[4] to forest, grassland, and wetland habitats.[5] Over the course of four rounds, players put birds in the three different habitats, which are represented by rows on each player's board with space for five birds each.[6]

Players can take a limited number of four types of action each round: drawing new birds, placing birds from their hand into their habitat, collecting food, and laying eggs, which have to be spent in order to play the birds.[7] The strength of each action depends on how many cards are already in that habitat, and additional bonus actions are activated by the birds which are already in the habitat which represents that action.

Birdfeeder dice tower, a component for Wingspan.

In addition to putting birds into their habitats, players score points for objectives achieved during each round and throughout the whole game, eggs accumulated, and food and cards stored on other cards, which represent food collection and predation by a player's birds.[6]

Background and theme[]

The game was inspired by Hargrave's visits to Lake Artemesia close to where she lives in Maryland, where she would create personal charts of the birds she observed there,[8] with the size of the dataset reaching almost 600 rows by 100 columns.[9] The special powers afforded by the birds in the game closely resemble the unique characteristics of the real birds documented by Hargrave's efforts.[10][1] During the early stages of the design, Wingspan was initially described as a game in which players are placing and drawing birds with the objective of being the first to place eight birds, but the engine building mechanism was added due to that the designer found that "there was no arc to the gameplay".[11]

Awards and nominations[]

Year Game Award Category Result
2019 Wingspan Board Game Quest Game of the Year Won [12]
2019 Wingspan Diamond Climber Award Game of the Year Won [13]
2019 Wingspan The Dice Tower Award Game of the Year Won [14]
2019 Wingspan Deutscher Spiele Preis Game of the Year Won [15]
2019 Wingspan Golden Geek Award Board Game of the Year, Artwork Presentation, Card Game, Family Game, Innovative, Solo Game, Strategy Game Won [16]
2019 Wingspan Golden Geek Award Expansion of the Year Won [16]
2019 Wingspan Spiel des Jahres Kennerspiel des Jahres (Connoisseur-gamer game of the year) Won [17]
2020 Wingspan American Tabletop Awards Strategy Games of the Year Won [18][19]
2020 Wingspan Oceania Expansion Golden Geek Award Expansion of the Year Won[20]
2019 Wingspan International Gamers Award General Strategy: Multi-player Nominated [21]
2019 Wingspan Nederlandse Spellenprijs Best Expert Game Nominated [22]

Reception[]

Critical Reviews[]

Wingspan received widespread acclaim upon release.[23] The game's action system was praised by Matt Thrower from IGN, who described it as "an excruciating balance between adding birds, feeding them and scoring points" despite the limited selection of only four in total. The review also positively commented on the replayability due to that each bird card is unique.[24] Nature agreed, noting the replay value of each game due to the unique powers of bird cards and bonus cards. In addition, the strategic decisions for the game was also praised.[25] The diverse interconnections of the bird abilities was commented by Slate, which stated that the birds were "knitted together into a web of complex, mutually beneficial relationships" as the game progresses.[26] New Scientist listed Wingspan as one of the nine the best science-themed board games and described the game containing "hundreds of beautifully illustrated bird cards with special abilities that synergise as they inhabit a range of environments".[27]

Wingspan's accessibility was strongly praised, with Said Al-Azzawi of the Los Angeles Times also stated that the game's accessibility, stating that it "strikes the perfect balance between strategy and ease". [28] The Guardian, in a review of STEM-based games, noted the game's accessibility, stating that "it deserves to be a hit".[29] The game's theme is also positively received as increasing accessibility, with Slate noting its appeal with a wide variety of demographics.[26] Similarly, Nature also praised the game's accessibility.[25]

The component quality of Wingspan and its theme were also well received. Nature described it as "an obvious labour of love", stating that the egg components were "dainty, pastel-hued" and that the bird cards were "superbly drawn". [25] Vox also praised the quality, describing the art as "field guide-caliber illustrations" and praised the "tactile elements" of the birdfeeder.[30] Ars Technica agreed, praising the components and artwork as "lavishly produced".[7] The game's theme was also described to "flow elegantly from the biology" by Nature and "committed to scientific integrity" by Vox, which also commented on the game's use from well-known bird guides and the database from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.[31] The New York Times also wrote on the "scientific integrity" of the game.[32]

Sales[]

Wingspan was positively received commercially and sold 44,000 copies worldwide over three printings in its first two months of release,[5] with the publisher issuing a public apology for not having more copies available.[33] The game had sold around 200,000 copies worldwide by the end of 2019.[34] By March 2021, sales of Wingspan had reached 600,000[35] and 1.3 million by September, 2021, which is the highest amount of copies sold for Stonemaier Games.[36][37]

Expansions[]

Wingspan European Expansion, the first expansion for Wingspan, was published in 2019 and added 81 new and unique bird cards to the total pool of available bird cards, 10 new end of round goals, and 5 bonus cards.[38] This expansion also included new mechanisms and bird powers, such as birds which benefit from extra food and powers which trigger at the end of the round.[39][40] Wingspan European Expansion won the 2019 Golden Geek award for best expansion.[41]

The second expansion, Wingspan Oceania Expansion, was published in late 2020. The Emu was the first confirmed bird from the Oceania Expansion.[42] The Oceania Expansion included 95 bird cards, 8 end of round goals, 5 new player mats, and a new food type called nectar.[43] It won the Golden Geek 2020 award for best expansion.[41][44]

Beginning with its seventh printing (version STM910), the Wingspan game box features the Swift-Start Promo Pack, a previous promotional package which serves as early walkthrough guides and also includes ten added bird cards, with a goal of helping new players.[45][46]

Digital Versions[]

The first digital version of the game was released on January 4, 2019 on Tabletopia.[47] Later on February 27, 2019, the game was also released on Steam.[48] According to Slate, Wingspan has sold 125,000 combined copies of digital editions on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and iOS.[49] On December 13, 2019, Wingspan European Expansion was also released on Tabletopia and later became available on Steam on January 8, 2020.[50][51] PC Gamer praised the visuals of the digital adaptation and described the soundtrack as "a lovely ambient soundscape of birdsong, nature sounds, and classical guitar".[52]

References[]

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  18. ^ "The American Tabletop Awards: Strategy Games". AmericanTableTopAwards.com. Archived from the original on August 22, 2021. Retrieved August 21, 2021. Winner – Wingspan: Build up a feathery engine by getting a variety of birds to visit your wildlife preserves in this beautifully illustrated and strategic title.
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