Wingspan

Someone at the table is sketching a bird onto the card they just drew. Someone else is rolling custom dice into a little wooden birdhouse. Nobody is checking their phone. That is the Wingspan effect.

Wingspan is a competitive, card-driven engine builder for 1 to 5 players from Stonemaier Games, designed by Elizabeth Hargrave. You are a bird enthusiast, and over four rounds you play birds into three habitats (forest, grassland, wetland) where they chain together powerful abilities. You gain food via custom dice rolled through a birdfeeder dice tower, lay eggs with pastel egg miniatures, and draw from a deck of 170 beautifully illustrated bird cards.

The special thing about Wingspan is how much it respects both the theme and the reader. Every bird card is a real species with real facts on the back. The mechanics never strain to be clever. This is a game that trusts birds to be interesting, and they are.

We recommend Wingspan to more kinds of players than any other game in the store. It works for the couple that wants something better than Netflix, the family that finally wants to replace Catan, and the experienced gamer who needs a lighter change of pace. It also plays well solo with a full Automa opponent.

Wingspan has sold over a million copies, won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2019, and is the game most often recommended as a first modern board game. At 40 to 70 minutes and with a very gentle learning curve, it earns every bit of that reputation.