If someone told me that I would play a game based on birds and that I would really enjoy it I would have told them to go suck an egg. However they would have been right! Who would have knew? I sure didn't.
Wingspan is a bird collecting, watching? Actually I am not sure what you are doing with these birds, hold on one sec..... Right you basically love birds and will do what you can to attract them to your preserves and score Victory Points (VP) to win the game! Now we know what we are lets look at the game basics;
Players: 1 - 5
Age: 10+
Time: 40 - 70 minutes
Now we have that covered lets look at what we get in this box, yes the art work is phenomenal.
What is in this box?
It may come to no one surprise that you get what you need to play the game! Also you get 1 single player rule book to make it easier for loners like me and a section designed for your first game giving you cards to use and tips to get you started!
I am going to point out we ignored the starter suggestions because this game is very easy to learn you do not need them! You might as well jump head first into the game because the rules are simple to follow! Now I have waffled on as per, let us see what we get inside this box;
1 Rulebook
1 Appendix
1 Double-sided goal board 1 Bird tray
5 Player mats 1 Birdfeeder dice tower 1 Scorepad 170 Bird cards (all with amazing illustrations on)
26 Bonus cards 75 Egg miniatures 5 Wooden dice 40 Wooden action cubes (8 per player)
103 Food tokens (5 types) 8 Double-sided goal tiles 1 First player token Does not sound a lot but when you have them all out there is quite a bit to this game!
Setting up the game!
Okay setting up the game is pretty easy and we are going to cover that now! Firstly the cards with the gears and the other non bonus or bird cards need to go back into the box as this is only covering multiplayer set up. Find the blue bird cards and green objective cards (see image below) and shuffle these separately creating two draw decks, place these on the table in a easy to reach location (you can use the blue tray provided to store them too).
above you can see the blue card with feathers entwined this is the bird card back and the green card with leaves, this is the bonus card back.
In the clear containers (I used bottoms and lids) place the food supply tokens and the eggs in a easy to reach space for all players, please note that the egg colours make no difference in this game.
Place the birdfeed dice tower and feed the dice into the back opening so they roll out of the front, this is the first food supply dice roll.
Pick a side you wish to play on the goal board;
Blue = Less competitive
Green = Competitive!
We went for the green side and we will continue from the green side.
Now shuffle all the goal tiles and place 4 at random on the round 1,2,3 and 4 markers on the goal board, these will tell you who scores where in each round for hitting the goal! Now we need each player to do the following;
Take 1 player mat
Take 8 action cubes of the same colour
Take 2 random bonus cards (look at them and keep 1 and discard the other)
Take 5 food tokens (1 of each type)
Take 5 bird cards (you can keep has many as you like, however for each 1 you keep you must discard 1 food token from your starting 5)
You are allowed to keep your hand private or public in this game, the choice is yours! Finally now flip the top 3 bird cards over and place them on the holder like in the photo below.
We have now set up the game! That was super easy wasn't it? I was thought it would be more complicated but nope dead simple! Now it is worth mentioning here about the starting bird cards, here are some tips;
Check out the brown powers on the cards and go for ones that get you food tokens early in the game.
Check out the cards and see which ones are easy to place.
Do not use food tokens you will need to place the cards when you discard 1! Think about the round bonus and which cards will help you! That is it now let us know what the goal of the game is and how to win!
What is the point? How do I win?!
Okay, in this game you only have 4 rounds! However the first round will let each player have 8 turns, the 2nd round will allow you to have 7 turns, the 3rd round only 6 turns and finally the 4th and final round only 5 turns. During this time you will score VP for birds, eggs, cards in a flock, round goals, bonus cards and I think that is all, at the end of the game this is all added together and the player with the most VP wins!
How do we play this then? Hmmmmm?!
Like I have mentioned this game is played over 4 rounds but each round will contain a number of turns, on your turn you will use 1 action cube to perform an action and then resources to complete that action. Simple enough... Right?!
On your turn you can take 1 of 4 actions and these are;
Play a bird from your hand
Gain food and activate forest bird powers (the brown power on the bird card we talked about during set up)
Lay eggs and activate grassland bird powers
Draw bird cards and activate wetland bird powers They are the basic descriptions of the actions but we are going to go in depth into each one next, this will give you a better understanding of how the game plays.
1 = Play a bird from your hand:
When you want to play a bird from your hand you look at your player mat and see if there is a bird already in that area. The areas are the forest (top row), the grasslands (middle row) and finally the wetlands (bottom row). Each row contains 5 spaces for birds, if a space is taken you then need to use the next one in that row but it will cost you.
The first bird you play in a row will cost you only the food that it needs, there is no extra cost however for each bird you play in that row after the cost increases;
2nd spot = 1 egg and bird food cost
3rd spot = 1 egg and bird food cost
4th spot = 2 eggs and bird food cost
5th spot = 2 eggs and bird food cost If you have a bird in your 1st wetlands spot but want to play one in the 1st forest spot you only pay the food cost for that bird because the 1st spot is still available in that row.
Each bird card shows you information about that bird, starting in the left-hand corner we have the location the bird can go to (the area), some birds can go into any area or even 2 this means you pick which one you want to use, under this is the food tokens needed to place the bird, this can be one, two, sometimes more, it can also ask you to pick 1 of 2 tokens to place the bird. In the image below we can see that the bird can go into the wetlands or grasslands and costs one seed food token to place, it is worth 2 VP (the feather symbol and number), it is a bowl nest bird, it can have a maximum of 3 eggs on the card, it's wingspan is 33cm (this can be important fact), we can see it does have a brown power and that it is a red-winged blackbird.
In this case if we wanted to play this card into our 3rd wetlands slot we would pay 2 eggs (long as our birds have some or we can not play this card) and 1 seed food token.
When we go to play a bird from our hand we first place an action cube on the top section of the play mat above the column we plan to place the bird, we pay the cost for the bird and then we move the token to the far left of the board. If you notice on the pay for a bird there is what looks like a pie chart symbol, this means we can spend any two food tokens to pick 1 different food token, this means if we wanted to play the red-winged blackbird but only had a fruit and fish food token we could pay both of these to play this card as we would cash them two in for 1 seed token. Okay hopefully you are understanding all of this! It is simple just hard to explain. Now the pie chart food token symbol on a bird card and the board is called a wild token and it means any, some birds have this as the cost, you can play any food token to place them, also some birds have a no cost and this is shown with the no cost symbol (I call it the no entry symbol as that is what it looks like to me). Now if the bird you played as the famous WHEN PLAYED power you need to action this soon as you have played the card. That covers the first action, there is a lot to this to write out but when you play a few cards it becomes second nature. 2 = Gain food: Top row action (forest area)
Food is a key element to playing birds and you are going to need them tokens! The gain food action is the easiest way to gain some food to try and attract some birds to your player mat. You first take your token and place it on the 1st space that does not contain a bird, if all 5 slots are taken you place it on the small edge on the far-right of the board.
Each space will allow you to do something a little different from the last one;
1st slot = gain 1 food from 1 dice
2nd slot = gain 1 food from 1 dice and if you wish discard a card to do the same again
3rd slot = gain 2 food from 2 dice
4th slot = gain 2 food from 2 dice and if you wish discard a card to gain 1 food from 1 dice
5th slot = gain 3 food from 3 dice
Edge = gain 3 food from 3 dice and if you wish discard a card to gain 1 food from 1 dice
How does this work? Okay so let us say there are 5 dice in the bird feeder and they show the fish, seed, seed, fruit and rodent symbols and the first slot we have that does not have a bird in is the 2nd slot. We can now take 1 dice and collect that token, we take the rodent and collect 1 rodent food token and put it in our play area. We have a bird we do not want and we discard that from our hand (never the player mat) and we take the fruit dice to collect 1 fruit food token, this means the next player can not take them and is left with seed, seed and fish tokens only. However if there was 3 left and they were all seeds we can collect all the dice and roll them again, the rules are;
If there is 1 dice left and you do not want it you can roll all 5 again.
If there are multiple dice left all showing the same symbol we can roll all 5 again.
If there are no dice left we need to roll them.
Now this is where the bird powers come in to play! You now play from right to left moving your action cube on to each bird in that row and you action its bird power! If you had placed the action cube in the 4th slot and all 3 birds had a brown bird power (WHEN ACTIVATED) you would then move it on to the bird in the 3rd slot and perform its power, then into the 2nd slot and perform its power and finally the first slot and perform its power! This is where chaining powers in a row that really benefit you is a must! It is worth mentioning that there is a pink bird power and this can happen only once per turn (NOT ROUND) on another players turn. This can be a power like gain an egg when a wetland bird in another's players area gains an egg. If two players did this on the same turn you would only get this bonus the once! This is how you gain food, simple again, nothing to it, writing it out makes it sound more complicated then it is! 3 = Lay eggs: Middle row action (grassland area)
We talked about how in the game we need eggs later on so we can play more birds in the same row to help us gain more resources well if we need eggs we are going to have to do this action. It is the same as the one above however there are a few differences.
Just like the gain food action we place the cube in the first space that does not contain a bird and we gain the following depending on the space;
1st slot = 2 eggs
2nd slot = 2 eggs and if you wish discard a food token to do the same again
3rd slot = 3 eggs
4th slot = 3 eggs and if you wish discard a food token to gain 1 more egg
5th slot = 4 eggs
Edge = 4 eggs and if you wish discard a food token to gain 1 more egg
The eggs must be placed on a bird card in any area and the bird card can not exceed the maximum number of eggs that they can have.
You then just like the gain food action would move through the row and activate each bird power (the brown powers) one after the other.
Now we talked earlier about the nest type on the card and there are 5 nest types;
Platform (symbol looks like a typical bird nest)
Bowl (Looks like a bowl)
Cavity (a hole in a shape (reminds me of an xbox))
Ground (looks like loads of small stones (or even eggs))
Star (any of the above)
These are important for round goals and bonus cards so pay attention to this when you are playing bird cards or putting out your eggs. 4 = Draw bird cards: Bottom row action (wetlands area)
This is how we can gain more cards to our hands, there can be at times where you have no cards in your hand and you will need to take this action! It is very similar to the ones above! Place the action cube in the first space in this row that does not contain a bird;
1st slot = 1 card
2nd slot = 1 card and if you wish discard an egg to do the same again
3rd slot = 2 cards
4th slot = 2 cards and if you wish discard an egg for 1 more card
5th slot = 3 cards
Edge = 3 cards and if you wish discard an egg for 1 more card
The like any other row you will move your action cube from bird to bird activating any brown powers that bird may have.
When you draw a card you can take one (or more) from the face up birds that everyone can see or from the top of the draw deck, this is up to you, you can mix and match this action also! However you can not take one and then draw one and then take that one, if you take one of the face up cards the space is left unfilled until the start of the next players turn. If at any time you run out of cards you collect all the discarded birds and shuffle them to create a new deck! That is all of the 4 actions! Once a player as finished their action it moves to the next player in a clockwise order, once all players have used their action cubes it is the end of the round! END OF THE ROUND:
Once there are no more action cubes left for all players it is the end of the round, we now have a few things we need to do.
1 = Discard all the birds that are face up and draw 3 new ones
2 = Check the end of the round goal tile and see what positions players came
3 = What position you finished in place 1 of your action cubes
4 = Pass the first player token to the next player to the last first players right
That is it, we then do this 3 more times until all the rounds are played and we end the game!
Here are some tips;
a) Keep an eye on your bonus card and try to complete it
b) At the end of the game eggs, and cards tucked under other birds are worth 1 point each
c) Always try to come first on a goal tile, if you know you cant start playing for the next one
d) You do not have to use a birds brown power you can skip it if you wish
END OF THE GAME:
Once all the rounds are over you need to use the score pad to work out the final score for each player! 1 Total bird VP = Add up all the points for each bird you played
2 Bonus card = Work out where you scored on your bonus card
3 End of round bonuses = Add all your places VP together
4 Eggs = Count all the eggs you have on birds and gain 1 VP for each
5 Food on cards = Some birds cache food tokens, count these and score 1 VP for each
6 Tucked cards = Find all your tucked cards, count these and score 1 VP for each
Then total up the VP and see who won the game!
I am not going to cover all the bird powers and bonus cards as you will discover them while you play the game and that is the magic.
Final Thoughts
What a game! Yes I really did enjoy this game and unlike a certain game (cough "Scythe") this game really did live up to the hype for me.
Now I want to start by saying the game is really well illustrated and you should take the time to appreciate the art work in this game. With that said I now want to say how well the game pieces are made and the over quality apart from the bird feeder! The piece is easy to build if it fitted together properly and the cardboard did not bend and snap easily, in the end I gave up and used no more nails on the bugger, this is now built for all time and sits in my room away from the game, yes this one little thing did bug me because other then that its a really well made game! I like how the game comes packed away to allow you to easily start your first game or a solo game that was a nice touch, I like the extra bits that it comes with to store the game components and the box management for this game is pretty decent, not the best but good enough.
The rules are easy to follow and written out to the point, there are lots of pictures to help you understand and the appendix comes in handy to explain anything you are unclear on which is hard in this game as the rule book is spot on. It is really hard to pick a fault with this game other then the fact the bird feeder dice tower was a flimsy.
At the core it is just another resource management game but it really does not feel like one while you are playing it. I love how educational this game can be also, it gives you facts on the cards and the rulebook and you can learn a little about these birds while you play the game. All 3 of us really got into this game and none of us had anything really bad to say and we all thought that it was worth a ...
9/10 however due to that bloody birdfeeder and having to glue it I am saying 8/10 because to me this matters!
8/10
