Wingspan

Wingspan is a board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. It is a card-driven, board game in which players compete to attract birds to their wildlife reserves. During the game's development process, Hargrave constructed personal charts of birds observed in Maryland, with statistics sourced from various biological databases; the special powers of birds were also selected to resemble real-life characteristics. Upon its release, Wingspan received critical and commercial acclaim for its gameplay, accurate thematic elements, and artwork. The game also won numerous awards, including the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres. Several expansions and a digital edition have been subsequently published. Gameplay In Wingspan, players spend food resources to add birds, which are represented by 170 individually illustrated cards, to the forest, prairie, and wetland habitats on their player boards. Each habitat is associated with a different player action: gaining food resources to pay for birds, laying eggs on birds, or drawing cards. Over the course of four rounds, players take turns activating the habitats on their player boards or adding new birds. As birds are added to a habitat, the basic action of gaining food, laying eggs, or drawing cards associated with that habitat is improved. Additionally, some birds have special abilities that are activated when a player uses their habitat. At the end of the game, players score points for the birds on their board, objectives achieved during each round and throughout the game, eggs accumulated, food stored on cards, and cards stored under cards. The player with the most points wins. Development Wingspan was designed by Elizabeth Hargrave, a health consultant in Silver Spring, an amateur birder, and a former policy analyst for NORC at the University of Chicago. The game was inspired by Hargrave's visits to Lake Artemesia near her home in Maryland. Hargrave stated that she selected the theme because "there were too many games about castles and space, and not enough games about things I'm interested in". During her visits, she would create personal charts of the birds she observed there, with the size of the dataset reaching 596 rows by 100 columns.