Wingspan – We Compare The Real Thing Vs Digital

Wingspan

Details

Description

Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game from Stonemaier Games. It’s designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and features over 170 birds illustrated by Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez.

Wingspan Physical Edition

“You dream, you dare and you fly.”

Israelmore Ayivor

The game has 4 rounds. During each round, you play a number of turns. In the first round it’s 8 turns, then 7, then 6, then 5. In the physical game, there’s a little central board that tracks this, along with a player board for each player showing rows for the available habitats. To play a bird from your hand is always an action that can be performed, provided you have the resources needed to do so. On the card is printed the kinds of food this bird eats. This is the payment to play that card. The spot it takes up on the board may also indicate a certain requirement to play a card there.

Each habitat has an action that can be performed there, consuming a turn, but as the game progresses you can unlock more things to do during that action by filling sections of the habitat. A bird will indicate where it can be played, i.e. Forest, Grasslands or Wetlands. The Forest is for collecting resources, the Grasslands for laying eggs (which is used for scoring and paying for things) and the Wetlands are about drawing or claiming new bird cards to play later.

End of Round One

For each of the four rounds of the game, there’s a randomly drawn bonus objective that scores at the end of that round. It’s normally structured as either “player with the most” or “number of something”. In the case of the former, if there’s a tie the players divide the points, but having even one more than the others garners all the points. A player would want to build their short-term strategy around how easy it would be to get their current game state to that requirement. If it seems too difficult, it might be best to spend the turns working towards the next round’s bonus objective or even one of the Goal cards in your hand if you have any.

Devil in the Detail

The cards have the standard layout of most card games. At the top is the title of the card, in this case, the name of the bird in both its common name and Latin name. The top left is the habitat where it can be played and the food that needs to be paid to play them. In the case of the Falcon here, it’s what our group calls “mousies.”

The card art in this game is absolutely stunning. I’ve half a mind to order prints and put them all over my house. Next to the beautiful picture is a feather denoting victory points simply for having this bird in your reserve (on your player board). Below that is the type of nest and the number of eggs it can hold. Nests do nothing besides scoring conditions, eggs are used to pay for things as the game progresses, so that’s actually a little important.

The bottom half of the card is the ability of this bird. It can be something that happens when the card is played; when the card is sitting in the habitat that’s being played (when activated). It can be something that happens when another card activates. For instance, there’s a vulture that gets food when another player’s predator activates. Get it? Carrion? I thought that was very thematic…

Lastly trivia! A game that’s this passionate about its subject matter would be remiss if they didn’t share their love of ornithology with interesting facts about the birds you’re seeing.

Oh this is nice…

Food for the birds are gathered in the forest by rolling dice with pretty icons on them. The physical game has an actual bird feeder that functions as a dice tower. At first, I considered this a gimmick and would’ve preferred if the game was a little less expensive with the feeder tower available as a separate item, but I realized that a very big part of Wingspan and why everyone is raving about the game, is the aesthetics. The game wouldn’t be the same without that feeder. Seeing that we’re going that way, a nicer card tray than the vacuform slotted tray that looks like the plastic thing that keeps a child’s toy upright in the box would’ve probably helped, but you take what you can get I guess.

And it all comes together

Certain cards can store resources or cards on them as the game progresses. This is all worth points at the end, as well as those green cards with the leaves on the back. Those are the Goal cards I keep mentioning. They offer an objective you can work towards. Usually there’s a game state that needs to exist by the end of the game, like a certain number of birds of a type. However unlike Ticket to Ride, if the goal isn’t met by the end of the game there’s no negative consequences. Just holding the card will make your opponents wonder whether you’ve got another 4-6 points stored up there, ready to swoop in and claim the victory (see what I did there?).

Wingspan Steam Edition

Same-same, but different.

First of all, this game is beautiful. The opening screen with the logo and the music swelling already creates an experience of calm. I could just leave this menu to play a soothing ambiance while I work. Let’s jump into the tutorial.

Teach me the ways…

Each habitat is a screen on its own with the camera moving from habitat to habitat, but the icons that appear are the same as the player board so it should easily translate between the digital game and the board game.

It was at this point that I noticed Robin ^(hehe) that’s teaching me the game, is not a static sprite. She’s blinking and looking around. There’s also a dragonfly that comes past every so often, or is that specific to the fact that I’m in the wetlands at the moment?

Robin is explaining to me the layout of a card. In the Steam version, they’ve considered the fact that they don’t need to stick to the proportions of a printed card, so the top part with the picture and the icons is slightly larger than the part with the text. The text is still plenty legible, even at a distance, so playing this with a controller leaning back would be the ultimate in relaxation. It seems every detail has been considered. Even the typeface on the cards is the same as the real game, appearing almost hand-lettered as if someone filled in a bird watcher’s journal with careful handwriting.

Into the thick of it

The Steam game only shows the information relevant to the specific habitat you’re looking at. For instance, the food in the bird feeder (which is now a little feeder off in the distance on a tree if you look carefully) is only visible while in the Forest habitat, which is where you get food. This does mean a bit of switching back and forth and the animation of zooming back and forth might trigger someone’s motion sickness, but it can be turned off in the settings if this is a concern.

When I play a Bird card, it makes the sound of the bird! That’s sort of like Pokémon that cry out their name when they are summoned… The first time a bird is played there’s also a little trivia about it that is read aloud. It’s a nice touch, but if you’ve been playing on your own listening to the game’s music and suddenly there’s a voice that says the name of the card you just played… Not gonna lie, I got a pretty big fright. You can turn this off, or set it to play every time a card is played.

Wait, what was I doing?

So in Wingspan for Steam when a card is ready to activate, it has feathers pouring out behind it. This is a great visual indicator for where your attention should be, but what I didn’t notice until now, is that the feathers pouring out behind the card match the feathers of the bird on the card! Not only are the birds on the cards animated, which to be honest I would’ve just been happy with the gorgeous artwork, but they move in a way not too dissimilar to how the bird would move! I mean of course it does, it would be weird if it didn’t, but the attention to detail is astounding!

There’s a button at the bottom of the screen that at any time allows you to move the interface out of the way so you can see your player board. It’s like a button for the IRL action of peeking over the cards in your hand.

As with most digital adaptations, when a card can be activated (especially by other players’ actions) the game will inform you of this. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy learning a game with the digital versions, especially if they are this close to the actual game. In the physical game, a player may have too much to pay attention to and potentially miss an activation like that. It could be missed opportunities or even missed points, but it’s something that keeps a player engaged even when it’s not their turn. The struggle to prevent someone from checking their phone and mentally checking out of the game, is real.

Learn to Fly

Now that the tutorial is done, I can finish out the game on my own. So much pressure! Until now I’ve been following prompts and the game was doing the thinking for me! This will take a few minutes of scrolling around and re-reading cards to come up with a game plan. Luckily the last thing the tutorial showed me, was hitting Tab to get an overview of everything that’s visible on the table; Well, not my opponents’ player boards, but everything I can interact with. That’s very useful. As a matter of fact, as nice as this overview is, it could’ve actually been the whole game like this. It would be a little more difficult to follow but it would play much the same. I’m constantly surprised by the extra effort and polish in this game!

Between the bonus points every round, the Goal card I picked up earlier, and the action combinations available to me, there’s no shortage of things I can do during each turn. But it doesn’t feel overwhelming. I did find myself thinking out loud, which when playing with others could give away my strategy a bit (remember to mute!) but the game seems easy to grasp now that I understand how everything interlinks and I have no shortage of ways to earn points if the cards don’t go my way.

Endgame scoring

A lot of lighter engine builder games are designed to end before you feel that your engine is fully operational. This prevents a player from min-maxing (building the perfect engine) and forces you to compromise on your decisions for the most points later in the game, rather than the engine that would generate the most points over the course of several future turns. I believe this is called an action economy?

Anyway, when all is said and done, we get the same set of animated scrollbars that slowly go up as points are tallied, the way Ticket to Ride and other virtual games build tension. It’s exciting to see the points tallied that weren’t open information during the game, revealing the final winner.

Final Thoughts

I was aware of the community’s obsession with Wingspan when the third shipment sold out almost immediately. Because I wasn’t sure about the theme I was a little late to the game with this one. Now that I’ve played a game or two, I understand the appeal. There are only really four things a player can do on each turn, making it easy to decide what action to perform, but there’s a whole multitude of ways that cards and abilities can interact to give a player extra actions on those limited turns. Only once during the games I played, did I have to skip a card’s activation because I was unable to pay the required resource. This tells me I had the information I needed when I needed it, in a way where I knew what to do with it.

Regarding the Steam implementation of the game, there’s no other way to say this, it’s absolutely breathtaking. There was clearly a lot of time, patience and love poured into this game from day one. It runs as smooth as butter on minimal hardware, every option is clearly marked without being garish, nothing feels overwhelming despite the amount of information displayed… It’s just a joy to play. The tutorial is very well designed and gets you to grips with the game in a way that would also translate to the physical game if you were to pick up a copy. If you enjoy playing card games on PC, if you enjoy puzzle games, even if you just like a soothing experience with beautiful visuals, this is a must-buy. It’s also very well priced.

Wingspan Edition Comparisons

In the physical game, there are two versions. The original, First Edition of Wingspan had a few typo’s on the cards but the game was functionally the same. When the Revised Edition was released, they included a scorepad and a set of 10 quick-start cards. It’s a $5 difference so get the Revised Edition but if you can get the First Edition at a steal and you don’t mind occasionally having to read betweeen the lines.

FAQ

Is wingspan a good game?

Yes. Next question please.

Is wingspan hard to play?

A little bit. It’s a light engine builder, which is like saying a sauce has a little chili in it. I mean if you don’t like chili, any amount of chili is too much chili, you know what I mean? It’s that nice in betweeen where if someone is willing to try a game more complicated than Monopoly or Scrabble, you can probably convince them to try this, yet it still has enough engine building and combo setups that board game veterans would enjoy it.

Is wingspan good for 2 players?

Actually yes. You’re much more aware of what the other player is doing, especially around the Round Bonus points. There’s more back-and-forth between players and more discussion. Even though this game is competitive, it lends itself to a light, fun atmosphere.

Which bird has the largest wingspan?

Technically Pelagornis Chilensis, but they died so we’ll go with the Wandering Albatross.

Can you play wingspan alone?

Yes. Wingspan comes with Automa. An Automa is an automated opponent that was specifically designed with solo play in mind. The option to play against this opponent is available in the steam game too.

How long does it take to play wingspan?

If it’s your first time playing, I’d give it 2 hours. Once you’ve got the rules down, probably just over an hour. This is based on a 4 player game.

How much does wingspan cost?

MSRP is $60 but you can often get it a little bit more affordably. Really not a bad price for a game like this. In Saffa money, you’re looking at ZAR 1200-1300 depending on where you buy.

Is there a hand limit in wingspan?

No hand limit.

What bird is on the cover of wingspan?

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. The in-game card, when activated, gives all players a “wormie” food token.

How do you win a wingspan?

What we in the business call Victory Point Salad. There’s no single way to earn points in the game, but you can earn points based on:

• The birds you play during the game
• Bonus objectives at the end of each of the four rounds
• Goal cards that you collect during the game
• Bird cards or food tokens “cached” with the bird cards in play

Who goes first in wingspan?

Just pick someone. Everyone gets an equal number of turns in each round so it doesn’t matter. We used to recommend Chwazi Finger Chooser (iPhone, Android) but then COVID happened.

What is a good score in wingspan?

Usually somewhere between 60 and 90, but it can go either way.

Does Wingspan Digital work on Linux?

Wingspan has a Gold rating on ProtonDB, which means it works 95% of the time. There are only 2 reported bugs; Sometimes the text gets replaced by little grey blocks. Very occasionally with certain setups it simply won’t start at all. If you’re unsure whether it’ll work, just buy it and try running it. If it fails to start you can request a refund.

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