Practice Planning and Strategies with Wingspan

Image credit Connell

Photo of Wingspan and the Wingspan Oceana and Asia expansion sets

Wingspan, designed by Elizabeth Hargrave, and published by Stone Maier Games is a widely popular game about birding. In this game you entice birds to one of your three areas, the forrest, the field or the wetlands. Each player will have their own sets of goals that award them points at the end of the game.

The game is played in four rounds, each round a bit shorter than the one previous. During the game you collect food, have the birds lay eggs, and get more birds to play to your area. As you play some of your birds will have abilities that activate and can help you with gathering resources or collecting points.

There are several ways to score points to win the game and often while you play it is not clear who the winner will be. You often want to try and strategize on how to get birds that can work well together. You also need to pay attention to communal goals for each round of the game to score extra points.

The expansions to Wingspan add birds from around the world and add different play strategies. In addition to being an excellent game the cards teach you a bit about the birds they represent. Additionally the game has a solo mode to allow you to play when others are not available.

As the game has multiple paths to victory it helps build skills around planning and strategic thinking. As noted above there are many ways to earn points to win the game and following just one strategy often is not enough. Playing where you focus on two or even three different methods often is the better path towards victory.

For those that can struggle with planning a game such as Wingspan can be very helpful as the game is usually finished in about 45 to 70 minuets. This allows for one to practice planning in a shortened timespan so that they can experience reinforcement of their planning goals.

There is also a lot of re-playability in Wingspan as there are so many different cards, goals, and methods of winning, even without adding any of the expansions into the mix. It is a great game to add to one’s collection. You can easily find it in stores where games are sold.

Opinions from this peace are my own and this is not a paid endorsement I just truly love this game.