Stats:
No. of players: 1-5
Amount of time to play: 40-70 min
Age requirements: 10+
Set-up time: 5 min

Wingspan is a card-driven board game about collecting birds into your wildlife preserve. But to do that you’ll need food, eggs and birds.

Wingspan Rules Description:

Wingspan is an engine building game where you need to manage your resources to meet goals and score the most VPs over four rounds.

You start the game with eight action cubes, two bonus cards, five bird cards and five food token (one of each type). The first thing you do is decide which birds and bonus card you want keep. For each bird card you keep, you must discard one of the starting food tokens you received. You must also discard one of the bonus cards.

On your turn you can take one of four actions; place a bird, gain food, lay eggs, or draw bird cards. You have a player mat with three rows of terrain; forest, fields and water and five columns. In order to place a bird you must pay its food cost and put it into the left-most spot of its preferred terrain. When you place a bird into the second or third column it also costs you one egg. And placing a bird into the fourth and fifth columns costs two eggs in addition to its food cost.

Though placing a bird costs you food (and sometimes eggs), the rest of the actions get you something. These actions are more powerful the more birds you have in that row. For example, with no birds in the forest row you can gain one food. But having two birds in the forest lets you gain two food. You can discard cards, food, or eggs to make these actions even better at certain intervals. If you have three birds in the forest you get two food and can discard a card to take one more.

After taking the gain food, lay eggs, or draw card actions you may also activate the powers on your birds in that respective row. If I took the gain food action with a Mourning Dove and Red Crossbill in that row, I’d gain two food from the birdfeeder, then place an egg on the Dove and the Crossbill would let one wheat token from the supply.

The bonus card you keep gives you a personal goal to strive for and there are four public goals that you are after and check at the end of each round. In order to track these VPs you put one of your action cubes on the score tracker. That means you have one less action each round of the game. After the fourth round, you gain VPs for the goals, your birds, and your bonus card plus each egg, food on a bird or tucked card is worth a VP.

Quick Review of Wingspan:

Wingspan is an excellent, medium-weight board game. It is beautiful, easy to explain and fun to play. You will find yourself wanting to play it again and again to get better and keep up with your competition.

The components for this game are fantastic. Everything is beautiful, and the game looks great on the table. The birdfeeder is a nice addition and the rules are easy to follow and understand. You can even watch this tutorial video and then read the rules and you’d be good to go.

There are a variety of ways to win Wingspan. The route you choose will probably depend on your opening hand and bonus cards. But it doesn’t have to. I have done well in games totally ignoring my bonus cards and the same can be said when I have ignored the end-of-round goals. You are not tied into any specific strategy.

This game has a ton of replay value. The 170 different bird cards, combined with the different bonus cards and goals makes each game unique. Some games have lots of birds that help other players and resources are flowing. While others contain less generous birds and it takes more effort to get birds on your board.

If you want a lot of player interaction and direct conflict Wingspan is probably not for you. You mainly can only impede your opponents’ plans by taking food they want from the feeder or drawing a bird they want. And usually you do that unknowingly not as a response to block them.

I really enjoy Wingspan. It is beautiful, easy to teach, fun and fairly quick. I have played it with all player counts (including solo) and enjoyed it every time. I know it is a game that will hit my table often.

Score and synopsis: (Click here for an explanation of these review categories.)
Strategy 4 out of 6
Luck 4 out of 6
Player Interaction 2 out of 6
Replay Value 6 out of 6
Complexity 3 out of 6
Fun 6 out of 6
Overall 6 out of 6