Who doesn’t love Wingspan? It has won so many awards, and has been a fan favourite since the day it was released.
It really is fair to say Wingspan took the board gaming world by storm. A combination of hype and solid gameplay to back it up and excellent components. Coming from first time designer Elizabeth Hargrave it is a stunningly confident debut.
The game sees you collecting various birds and playing them to one of three habitats on your player board. Birds are represented by a huge stack of cards each of which is unique in terms of bird and art. The powers are quite varied too, but some are different takes on the same idea. On your turn you can either activate on of the three habitats and potentially all the birds in it, or playing a new bird.
Playing a bird will cost food and potentially eggs, and in someways is the most essential yet boring turn you can take. That is because the real joy of Wingspan is in the combinations you can string together in each of your three habitats. As you add birds to these habitats the base action of that habitat becomes more powerful. When you take that action (feed, lay eggs, or draw more birds) you also activate every bird in that habitat, making for delicious combos!
As the game progresses and you combos get bigger, you will have less actions to activate these combos making gameplay quicker than most other engine building games. The Oceania expansion adds in new yellow eggs, 95 more birds that can be shuffled in with all your other birds, more bonus cards and new player boards for even more variety. With this and the European Expansion you Wingspan games will never play out the same way twice!
The Oceania expansion adds that little something that you never really knew you needed.
Player Count: 1-5 players
Time: 40-70 mins
Age: 10+
