Stonemaier Games: Wingspan (Base Game) by Elizabeth Hargrave | A Relaxing, Award-Winning Strategy Board Game About Birds for Adults and Family | 1-5 Players, 70 Mins, Ages 14+

The artwork on every piece in this game is truly remarkable. The level of detail in this is incredible and it’s obvious how much effort went into crafting this. The game is definitely complex and hard to pick up at first but their are game cards that walk you through the first few plays and it made it a lot easier to get started. The variety of birds to play with is super fun and as a birder, it has been a great addition to our family’s game collection. I like the ability to play multiple rounds and gives you the ability to modify how long you want to play for, could be a short game or long game depending on time. The wooden egg pieces feel great and overall quality of all the components is very well designed and crafted. I highly recommend this to birders, nature enthusiasts, or even just seasoned board game players.

Background: I've played a ton of board/card games in my life, enough to call myself a board game enthusiast.First of all let me say that this game is beautiful. Everything from the gorgeous bird artwork on the cards to the box itself is stunning. If you're like me, you'll probably be gawking at at least some of the artwork when you play for the first time (and long after that too).Wingspan oozes theme. The board is made up of three different habitats that birds commonly live in, and you're placing birds in the specific habitat that they belong in. The actual bird cards themselves, while being beautiful, also have an interesting fact about the bird, along with their wingspan in cm. I'm definitely not a bird person, but this game really pulled me with the bird theme, and I love it. Every time I drew a new card I would say things like "Oooo would you just look at that bird!?" or "Damn, that's a nice bird right there", and would look forward to reading it's little factoid. Drawing a new bird was just as exciting as making a strategic move to gain an advantage.I won't go into the gameplay much (you can look up a how-to-play on YouTube for that), but I will say that literally every facet of it works, and exceptionally well at that. You only have a few things you can do each turn, so typically turns don't take too long, as long as you're planning ahead when others are playing. This is GOOD, as you won't be sitting for 10 minutes waiting for your next turn (at least once everyone has played once). You'll be drawing birds, playing birds on your habitats, collecting resources, and laying eggs. Your birds have effects that can be triggered in future turns, doing cool things like getting free eggs or swallowing another bird for a victory point as long as it's wingspan is small enough to fit down your gullet. You can get a bit of an "engine" going later in the game, where you can trigger a ton of effects back to back, doing a bunch of awesome bird stuff at once. There is some player interaction with some of these effects, so it pays to pay attention when it's other players' turns!This is a "point salad" kind of game, meaning you have a ton of different ways to score victory points at the end of the game. It's great because you're always looking ahead at what you think will be the most efficient way to earn points at the end, and your options are going to be different each game depending on your starting birds or playstyle. There's also different universal goals and secret individual goals that you're working on that are different every game, which greatly adds to replicability. If you're secret goal one game is to play a bunch of birds with wingspans under 40cm, you'll probably be biased towards playing a bunch of tiny birds in your habitat, which effects differ greatly from most larger birds.I would say this game has a moderate learning curve. About halfway through your first game you'll start to get the feel for what you should be doing, and by the end you feel pretty good about it. It's really not too difficult to learn, but it definitely takes plenty of time and strategy to master.Quality of game pieces is exceptional. Even the game manual is made of a thick textured (vinyl?) material that feels amazing to flip through.Overall this bird game is well worth the money. If you enjoy board games and birds, you need to own this. If you enjoy board games and don't care about birds, you should still probably own this, it's just that good.PS If you do end up enjoying this game, I would highly recommend "Parks" from Keymaster Games (a Barnes and Noble exclusive in the US). It's gameplay is different, but it has equally beautiful artwork/design and the strategies you'll employ are very similar to Wingspan.

Wingspan is a beautifully designed game. The 170 unique bird cards have great illustrations as well as facts about each bird. The general idea of the game is to earn points by placing birds in the appropriate habitat, laying eggs in the bird nests, competing with mini challenges while playing 4 rounds. Plus you need to gain specific food to play each bird, draw new bird cards and there are activations which give you special advantages. There is a bird feeder dice tower with a ramp to roll the food dice into. You also have individual playing boards, food tokens and wooden eggs. A combination of planning and luck are needed to win this game. If one strategy isn't working, you'll want to change your focus.Wingspan has quickly become a favorite game of ours. We usually play with 2 or 3 players, but it can be played with 1 to 5. Great for teens and adults, plus I think younger kids who are good at strategic games could pick this up. There is a bit of a learning curve, but the instructions are detailed to help with that. I like watching someone set up and explain new games on youtube, then you can just refer to the directions when you have a question. After you play a couple of rounds, the game moves along faster. It usually takes us about 60-75 minutes to set up and play a game. We play a bit leisurely, so it might go faster for you. We've been playing this most weekends since we got it. I love playing engine building games like Scythe and Terraformimg Mars. This one is easier to learn and play, and you're mostly focused on building your own aviary and accumulating points. You aren't attacking opponents and you have no idea how many bonus points they might have. So, until you add up all of the points at the end, no one really knows who's winning.A great value for a game you'll play over and over. The pieces are sturdy and should last. I highly recommend adding Wingspan to your collection.

This is an incredibly produced, designed, and illustrated game, and has probably become my overall favorite board game to play. I have a moderate collection of modern boardgames (about 10) and almost every other game has sat on the shelf since we unpacked this one.The rules are simple (One review said multiple post-grad people couldn't figure it out... Were they getting their PhD in finger painting?) - If you really need help, watch the "Watch it played" video on Youtube.The construction is great. Durable cards & well made components ensure it will last.Fun: 10/10Value 10/10Construction 10/10