Wingspan is one of my favorite board games in real life. The mechanics, from an artistic point of view and the knowledge of birds you gain just from playing it. You have so many ways to strategize and use special cards to your needs. However, bringing a board game to the digital world isn’t an easy task as history learned us that weird controls, buggy programming, and the absence of friends in your surroundings can easily debunk the funk of a superb board game. Even though I started to play this digital version of the game with some doubts, I can quickly say that the digital board game might be better than the original game. Let’s talk!
Wingspan might not be known to the casual board game players but for the board game geeks out there, it was a fine change in the whole board game setting. Instead of a more fantasy approach, the developers wanted to learn the players something more about real-life birds and their way of living. Wingspan isn’t about your dragons or heroes from another realm, it’s all about collecting your birds, learning their characteristics, and use them to your own advantage. This is a game that’s easy to learn but takes a couple of attempts to truly find the perfect way of winning. Wingspan has received multiple awards over the years and if you haven’t even heard from it to this day, now is the time to get into it.
Mechanically speaking, it’s all about creating a system full of different combos that automize the gaining of birds and eggs. Only by thinking ahead, build your system step by step, and optimize it to the fullest will ultimately give you the win. It’s not about quick responses or chance but more about tactics and optimizing.
The way you play the game consists out of different actions. The first one is placing a bird on one of the 3 terrains: wetlands, forest, or plain fields. Depending on the bird, you’ll be able to place the birds in one of these 3 terrains. To play a bird, you need resources and these resources can consist out of eggs or food. This is where options 2 and 3 come along. Option 2 allows you to take food from the food deposit. This deposit is a pool of dice that represents the food with a certain icon. The taken food is placed into your own food section and you’ll need different kinds of food to “pay” for the bird you’re willing to place.
The third option is about another resource namely eggs. Some birds require you to get a certain amount of eggs before you can place them on the board. Depending on the number of birds you placed in a certain area, will either make the egg cost to place the bird expensive or cheap. The more birds in a certain area, the more expensive the cost becomes.
“Get them while they’re hot!”
Eventually, option 4 helps us to gather bird cards from the deck. This option allows you to either pick a face-down card from the deck or choose one of the 3 face-up birds that are on the board on the selection area. You’ll have to keep an eye on your opponents as these face-up cards are shared with you and the other players. Get them while they’re hot!
These are the basic actions that can help you with your reign of birds but what I’m about to tell next, is where things become a bit more interesting. Each action you take “triggers” the terrain your birds inhabit. Drawing cards will trigger the wetlands, eggs trigger the plain lands, and food triggers the forest. The moment a terrain is being triggered, the birds that inhabit these terrains will activate their ability. These abilities range from gathering extra eggs or drawing multiple cards from the deck to power up a bird. These abilities work coherently with the terrain and the game’s mechanics. If you populated a terrain with one or more birds, you’ll definitely see the advantages from your placed birds in the end.
You can probably already tell that the game is all about “slow and steady” and making thoughtful choices because Wingspan’s end game is where it’s at. You gather points by the strength of your birds but there are also some extra “rules” that can give you a bit more than just the strength of your birds. The game gives you a point for every bird eaten, as there are birds that prey on smaller birds, eggs in a nest can also give you some points extra as well as the birds that have the same color in their names. Each round awards you with points, so it’s important to think ahead and optimize your system that’ll generate a decent amount of points that could get you that win. In other words, everything you do can get you some extra points!
Now, what makes the digital board game a bit better than the physical edition: counting points happens automatically so you don’t have to count on your opponents’ honesty to come to a conclusion, less time consuming as the rounds are happening synchronized, great AI for a decent solo experience and last but not least, the game offers a mode where you can play against friends without being online at the same moment. This mode allows the player to make a move and send it to another player. This player can wait days before making a responsive action. It’s great to play Wingspan during the week when it’s more difficult to meet up with your friends online or locally.
“Wingspan, the digital board game is a very good port of an award-winning board game every person should at least play once.”
The multiplayer component is decent even though a board game is meant to play with others physically to give your fun a boost, the developers did a decent job to make the multiplayer digital experience of Wingspan worth a try. The game mode is easy to boot up and they even give you some options to alter the rules for your digital session. The settings can be altered to shorten the lengths per round and even more. There are even daily or weekly challenges to achieve. These are great to lure in veteran players.
Graphically speaking, the game looks great and the game offers a simple but neat presentation of its game that it’s very keen on the eyes. Every bird that’s being placed on the terrain also gives out a call and they also move a bit on your cards so these 2 things are a big plus for immersion. The developers also made sure that the game can be played decent with an Xbox controller. The button mapping feels intuitive and thought-out. The game also offers a decent achievement system that will push you to play with different cards you normally won’t use. It can be a true challenge to play the board game with a certain achievement in the back of the head.
Conclusion
Wingspan, the digital board game is a very good port of an award-winning board game every person should at least play once. Due to all the options to make the game a bit more personal or to play with friends over a certain period of time, are decent options to make an owner of the physical edition buy the digital version as well. Also because of the challenging scenarios and weekly/ dailies that make veteran players come back around after a decent period of time. If you haven’t played Wingspan yet and you’re willing to try the game for a much cheaper price before actually buying the physical edition, this is the time to start!
