Dawn and I are bird watchers. Especially Dawn. I forget the names, but Dawn remembers every bird, the name, where you can find them, and sometimes what it sounds like. This game, Wingspan, came out a few years ago, and got great reviews. I bought it a few months ago, but it’s been in the closet since then. 

So, Dave and Wendy and Dawn and I finally sat down and played. We watched a “how to play” video that I said was 8 minutes long, but it was actually about 16. Dave said you always have to multiply any of my time estimates by two. That’s probably right. 

We used the game’s “quick start” method, which is a feature I’ve never seen before. We each got a handout that tells us what to do on each of our first few turns. Our initial birds were from a subset of the huge selection of birds you’d normally start with. Going through these preset turns, along with some explanation on our cards, gave us a nice overview of the actions you can take. 

After those initial turns, some of the usual patterns from our games appeared. Dave took a long time thinking, then took some decisive turns in which he started making and spending a ton of eggs, and getting actions that allowed him to “tuck” bird cards under certain of his played birds. He didn’t win, but he nearly did with the points from those tucked birds. Dawn became uninterested, but I think she got into the game towards the end, when she realized she was doing well. I had some ideas for strategy, but they didn’t really pan out. And I think Wendy was doing fine, but it was hard for me to tell if she was getting what she wanted from whatever strategy she had. 

One of the interesting things about this game is that there’s not a lot of interaction between players. You just take your actions and slowly accumulate the birds and actions you want. Unlock in most competitive games, where you can block other players or directly attack them. 

So, Dawn ended up winning through shear number of eggs she’d accumulated. Overall, it was pretty fun. We might be able to convince Dawn to play again. And Cheddar.