tabletopgaming.co.uk 27and the concept that an action in the game would
be associated with one of the habitats in the game,”
Hargrave says.
“Because the turns are so simple at the beginning
of the game, it makes it pretty easy for people to
pick up but then by the end of the game it’s this very
satisfying, meaty turn.”FEED THE BIRDS
Completing Wingspan’s pastoral look are dozens
of miniature eggs and a three-dimensional dice
tower decorated as a birdfeeder that holds the
handful of wooden food dice rolled to randomly
generate the pickings.
“Food originally started out as being on cards,”
Hargrave says. “You could sort of draft them the same
way you draft the bird cards. It went through a couple
of di erent iterations before we landed on the dice.
But I think that ended up creating some interesting
dynamics in terms of player iteration.”
Although the dice inject a small element of luck into
the gameplay, two unwanted food can be used as a
wild, stopping any player’s birds from going hungry.
“I would say more randomness than straight up
luck,” Hargrave retorts. “ ere are a few bird powers,
actually, where it’s literally like ‘roll one of the dice
that’s not in the bird feeder right now and see what you
get’. So that’s pure luck, but it’s an extra food for you
which is almost always good. I tried to design enough
stu around the dice that sort of mitigates the luck and
gives you choices.
“ ere’s a little bit of luck involved but also quite
a bit of planning you can do about when the dice
get rolled and when you choose to take food based
on what’s available. So I was pretty happy with the
progression of that part of the game, as well.”
Hargrave says the thematic dice tower emerged
from an earlier version of the game where players
had to re-roll any used dice at the end of their
turn, but kept forgetting: “A friend of mine
said, ‘What you need is some thing thatTerraforming Mars – though stresses that, true
to its name, Wingspan is a lighter experience
- and reveals that she began with a much
smaller scope in mind.
“When I started Wingspan it was 50 birds
or something,” she says. “I was not ambitious at
the beginning. Jamey [Stegmaier, Stonemaier co-
founder] said that’s something that could really make
this game unique: to really push the number of cards
and really just make the gameplay so di erent every
time because you’re seeing di erent birds every time.”
Players’ growing aviaries gradually expand the
ability of each habitat. Activate the grasslands at the
start of the game and you’ll gather a few eggs; trigger
its full row of cards later on and it might produce a
wealth of natural treasures.
“Sometimes you’ve got really elegant combos and
sometimes it’s just stu that’s not
exactly working together but
they’re all good for you. at sort
of emerged during development
with Jamey. I had some cards
that had powers on them,
but we really amped
that up over time
that’s not in the bird feeder right now and see what youThe birds in the base
game are all native to
North America