We're all flocking to play the popular Wingspan board game—save 27% today
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Once you start to notice birds, it's easy to fall in love with the feathered beings that inhabit the trees, grasses and wetlands around us. But not all of us think of them as something like characters in a game—something to obsessively admire and collect. That is, until we find Wingspan.
Wingspan isn't only a board game for bird nuts, it might turn you into one. Ever wondered what those crazy ornithologist bird watchers are seeing when they line up with their binoculars in the park? Play Wingspan from Stonemaier Games and find out.
$47.33 at Amazon (Save $17.67)
I fell in love with Wingspan well over a year ago. I was introduced by my retired parents, who have become so taken with it that they play a game of Wingspan (whether digital or physical) six out of seven days of the week.
This deep strategy board game about avian ecological symbiosis is a bird collecting game with limitless replay.
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At its game-mechanics core, Wingspan is a one to five player engine-building game. Players draw cards and compete for limited resources to play those cards. Cards played unlock new opportunities to gather more resources, count for points and offer new ways to score points.
The player with the most points wins, but, with vast diversity among card powers, there are many, many strategies players can take to get there. In fact, the game reliably forces you to come up with new strategies each play through—especially when you add expansions.
As you draw cards and pick your birds, you're forced to think in complex multi-dimensional ways.
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Play birds in the forest to score more food, play birds in the grass to acquire eggs and play birds in the wetlands for better access to more birds.
You'll find yourself playing flocking birds and birds of prey to tuck cards for points, and playing birds that are threatened or endangered to gain access to special bonus cards with additional ways to score points.
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In the end, the beauty of Wingspan goes well beyond rich game mechanics and a challenging action-packed economy.
The game is also full of lavish illustrations of beautiful birds, like the purple gallinule and the Baltimore oriole.
Each bird card also has something to teach you: the bird's wingspan, a fact about the bird's habits or conservation status and a set of powers and requirements that thoughtfully stem from the way that bird navigates the real world.
Pick up a copy of Wingspan and you'll find yourself paying special heed to the coots paddling around the lake, noticing the bushtits in your backyard and spotting kestrels where before you'd only have seen a flicker of motion.
$47.33 at Amazon (Save $17.67)
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