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Welcome to the First Player Token Podcast, a short podcast for folks who enjoy playing board games with family and friends.
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I'm your host, Derek Bruff.
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In this episode, I have another recommendation for a great game for couples, Wingspan.
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Wingspan is a game about birds.
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Players take on the role of bird enthusiasts of some kind, birdwatchers, maybe ornithologists, trying to collect the best birds for their wildlife preserves.
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It has rapidly become a favorite late-night game for my wife Emily and me.
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Wingspan was published in 2019 by Stonemaier Games.
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It was designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and features art by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez-Jaramillo, and Beth Sobel.
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Most board games you'll find on the shelves of Target or Barnes & Noble are designed and illustrated by men, but Wingspan is part of a much-needed shift toward diversity in the board game industry.
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Back in 2014, Hargrave and her husband had recently started birdwatching.
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Around that time, she also started playing more board games and became interested in designing her own game.
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She's been quoted as saying, "...there were too many games about castles and space and not enough games about the things I'm interested in, so I decided to make a game about something I cared about." Wingspan was the result, and it's been a hit in the board game world, selling out three print runs in its first two months of release in 2019, and going on to win multiple awards, including the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres, Germany's Game of the Year award.
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A game about birdwatching is pretty unusual, and it garnered some mainstream press.
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I remember Elizabeth Hargrave's excited tweet when she and her game were covered in the New York Times.
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To be clear, I am not a birdwatcher.
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All I really know about birds is that the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal in the world.
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Its attack dives can reach 242 miles per hour, straight down of course.
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I know this because I did a poster project on peregrine falcons back in elementary school.
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But thanks to Wingspan, I'm learning a lot more about birds these days.
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So how does a board game about birds work?
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Well, the heart of the game is a deck of 170 cards, each featuring a different bird found in North America.
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You'll find a painting of the bird, a small map of the world showing its territory, its wingspan in centimeters, and an interesting fact about the bird, like that thing about peregrine falcons.
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The bird cards also contain some game mechanics, what food is required to collect the bird, which of the three habitats can house the bird, how many in-game points the bird is worth, how many eggs it can store, and finally, what special power the bird has.
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If that sounds like a lot going on, well, it is.
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But Wingspan is actually fairly easy to learn.
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One reason is that everything in the game is really thematic.
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That is, all the mechanics of the game make sense in the context of birdwatching.
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You need food of certain types to collect specific birds.
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The belted kingfisher, for instance, requires fish.
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The yellow-bellied sapsucker eats berries and bugs.
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The peregrine falcon eats rodents.
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And the common raven eats just about anything.
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Similarly, each bird can live in one of three habitats, and those make sense too.
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The Carolina chickadee lives in forests.
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The great egret lives in wetlands.
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And the prairie chicken lives in grasslands.
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Then there are those special bird powers.
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and each bird has a power that relates somehow to the bird's actual behavior.
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The common raven is known in real life for eating the eggs of other birds.
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In the game, its power lets you discard an egg from one of your birds to gain a food from the supply.
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The Carolina chickadee stores extra food to save for later, so in the game, its power lets you gain an extra wheat from the food supply worth a point at the end of the game.
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The peregrine falcon is a hunter in real life.
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In the game, when you activate it, you draw a random card from the bird deck, and if its wingspan is less than 100 centimeters, you tuck it away for a bonus point.
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The hunt was successful.
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That is totally my favorite bird power in the whole game.
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The gameplay itself is thematic as well.
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On your turn, you can take one of four actions.
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Option one is to play a bird from your hand onto the playmat in front of you, paying its costs in food.
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Option two is to gain food to help pay for birds.
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Wingspan comes with this awesome cardboard bird feeder that doubles as a place to roll the food dice.
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You pop the dice in the top of the back of the bird feeder, and they tumble down into the tray at the bottom.
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It is the most satisfying way to roll dice.
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We have an upgraded bird feeder that you'll hear about later.
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Option three on your turn is to lay eggs, which are needed to add birds to your habitat as your collection grows.
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And option four is to draw bird cards to your hand, giving you more options for birds to collect.
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Three of these actions, gaining food, laying eggs, and drawing birds, are associated with different habitats on your play mat.
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And this is where the game gets really interesting.
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Whenever you take one of those actions, you activate the special powers of all the birds you've collected so far in that habitat.
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So if you take the lay eggs action, you'll activate all your birds in the grassland.
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This means that you're not just collecting birds to score in-game points, but you're trying to find birds whose powers will play well with each other and give you resources or points along the way.
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There's more to the game, but since I've covered the basics, let's hear some color commentary from my wife, Emily.
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She finds the game beautiful, and she has some thoughts on why this is such a great game for couples.
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Welcome back to the podcast, Emily.
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Thanks.
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So we're looking at Wingspan, which is one of our favorite games.
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Yes.
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Tell me about the look of this
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The birds are phenomenally illustrated.
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Yes.
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It looks like you have opened up a birder book.
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And there's all of these really neat, clever icons.
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It's one of my favorite things because a lot of the time icons in games will try to be clever, but they don't actually make a whole lot of sense and I have to talk myself into liking them.
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But these icons actually pertain to what...
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the bird eats.
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So it's super easy to learn and you learn something about nature.
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You know.
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Can you give me an example?
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I'm trying to find one that I can say.
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White-faced ibis?
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Is that how you say that?
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Ibis?
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Ibis?
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well this guy has a really long beak beautiful wings long neck long legs and apparently he eats fish and worms because that's the tokens that you have to get in order to get that particular card and there's an illustration of the world on every card and it highlights where the bird is from and it has a little illustration of wings with how many centimeters the wingspan is, hence, you know, the game is called Wingspan.
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And then there's all of these beautiful wooden eggs, which are so colorful and fun.
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But I do have one little complaint about the color scheme.
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You almost think that you're on an Easter egg hunt with these.
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And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
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And while I love the teal color of the eggs, I feel like it was a hugely missed opportunity.
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Why, if you're gonna have blue eggs in the bird game, do you not have robin's egg blue?
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This is like a bright teal right in the middle of white and pale yellow and pale green and pale pink.
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It makes no sense.
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You would have done a paler version of blue.
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A paler blue.
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But frankly, Wingspan people, I would have done the speckled robin's egg.
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Come on, man.
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That would have been my favorite.
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That would have been so great.
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And I realize it was probably more expensive, but I would have paid for that upgrade.
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But at the very least, you could have gone in the same value family.
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But that's my only beef with this game.
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The rest of it's very pretty.
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What about this bird feeder we have in front of us?
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This bird feeder is the best, and everyone listening will be super jealous.
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Because our friend, Jeff Leegonn, made it just for us.
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And it's wooden, and it's beautiful, and it has an imprint of the Wingspan logo on it.
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It's incredible.
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He has one of those laser...
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machines i'm sorry, Jeff, i don't know what that thing is called.
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Laser machine.
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This doubles as the dice roller so you get to stick your dice in the back which is so much fun and they all come out and then you have your fish or your mice or your berries or your wheat or your worms Or bugs, like you call them.
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But they're clearly worms, so I don't know why you call them bugs.
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So.
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Why is this a good game for couples?
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I don't know a lot about birds.
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And so it's really fun to kind of learn about birds.
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And then I love hiking.
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And so I've actually learned a lot about birds.
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Going out hiking with you is one of my favorite things to do.
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And so sometimes it actually makes me feel like we've been on a hike looking at birds. It's that transporting piece, where I get to explore with you even when we're not able to leave the house or go exploring because, you know, the kids are asleep or whatever. ...
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Right.
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Also, I learned what a blue heron was from my birder friends, but first I recognized it from this game, and then I was able to WhatsApp my friend the birders, and they told me what the name of it was, and then when we played it again, I was like, yep, that was the guy we saw.
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That's the blue heron.
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You've also mentioned that...
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the powers that the birds have, the actions they can take, are nicely thematic.
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Yes.
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It makes sense given what the bird actually does in their life, and that helps the game make sense.
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Yes.
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I really hate arbitrary rules.
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It's the worst.
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Yes.
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I have a terrible memory, but if it makes sense and if it's thematic enough that it tells a story, even if it's a nature story...
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You know, it's really fun.
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Also, if I might say, one of my favorite memories of this game is packing it in a duffel bag to carry to Africa to my friends, the birders, who live in Africa, in Angola.
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It was really great.
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Thank you so much.
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You're welcome.
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Those friends of ours that Emily mentioned, the birders we know in Angola, who asked Emily to bring them a copy of Wingspan, well, I figure they might have some unique insight into the game.
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Their names are Robert and Teague, and I called them up to ask them what they like about Wingspan and what it's like to play the game as a birdwatcher.
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Robert, Teague, it's good to see you.
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Good to have you on the podcast.
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Yeah, thanks.
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Thanks.
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thanks for thanks for calling in from Angola.
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glad to
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so you guys You guys live very far away from me, and I understand that getting new board games in Angola is a bit of a challenge.
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Yeah, someone has to carry them in a suitcase to us.
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Right, right.
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And my wife and your friend Emily did that with Wingspan.
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She did.
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So why did you ask for Wingspan?
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You could have asked for a lot of different board games.
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Why did you ask for Wingspan?
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So one reason why we are interested in Wingspan is because...
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We like to go birding and so here in Angola we can see lots of different birds and wildlife and we've also gotten into it a little bit in other places that we've traveled to so we like the idea of a game based on a hobby that we enjoy.
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It comes with the added bonus of having gotten such great reviews so it kind of blended two of our worlds.
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Our two big hobbies are board games and bird watching and wow here they both are in a box
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right yes in a game as you say that was very well reviewed yeah um how many times do you think you've played wingspan since you got it?
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i just looked it up on the board game geek app and it was it's 84 times
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84 times! wow Wow.
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I don't know that I have any game I've played that much.
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That's impressive.
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What keeps you coming back to Wingspan?
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It is simple.
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We love the simplicity of the game, but at the same time, there are multiple paths to victory, which is one of the things that I really appreciate in any game.
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So you can start out thinking that you're going to shoot for one type of victory and then you go a completely different direction which keeps it interesting so we find it doesn't ever feel like it's getting stale
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I also like it because it doesn't feel super competitive so it's a pretty good couple game so we don't have to end the night with a big loss.
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You can just as much as you can compete in each game with the person you're playing with or the people you're playing with, you can also kind of compete against your previous high score and feel like you're succeeding in that way too.
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We avoid the cutthroat games.
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We just figured out early on in our marriage that those are a little bit more difficult with two players for everybody to go to bed happy.
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Because are you two fairly competitive people in general?
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I am.
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Teague is.
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Teague is, okay.
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Something else that we like about it is once you learn the basic mechanics of the game, we can play three games in an hour.
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And so, you know...
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Wow, that's pretty speedy.
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Yeah, we come home tired like everybody, and it's easier to turn on the TV, but with Wingspan, it's like, well, we could play a game of Wingspan in 20-ish minutes or a couple games in about the time of a TV show.
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So it ends up meaning we know we don't want to turn the TV on, but we don't have a whole lot of energy for one of the games that takes 30 minutes to set up.
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So we get out Wingspan.
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Emily and I are not quite that fast, but we are, we are pretty leisurely game players as we've found.
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There's lots of conversation and getting up to get coffee and such.
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Okay.
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So you mentioned you guys are birders.
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What does that mean for you guys?
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And how does that.
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How does that kind of color your playing of Wingspan?
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So any chance that we get, we like to get out into nature.
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So we go hiking and we go camping.
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And we don't drive...
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we know some people who will drive absurd distances to see that one rare bird.
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Birding just ends up being a hobby for us that we can take anywhere we go.
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But we've learned to appreciate the variety that we see.
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in nature and so for us it's fun to find some of the cards in Wingspan that are birds that we've seen before or you know it's something familiar and the artwork is very well done.
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We appreciate the artwork and all of that so it just kind of gives it a wrinkle that just adds a layer of enjoyment for us.
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Our enjoyment of birding and our knowledge of birds we can also see that in how the cards work together or why they would pick a certain ability for a certain bird in the game, which makes it kind of fun.
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You kind of understand why they would put a certain bird in a certain habitat or why that bird would lay eggs on other birds' cards or something like that.
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Our friend even used the game with her kids after doing a bird unit in homeschool.
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So like they could even talk about how the bird cards interact, but that game lasted three hours, and they didn't finish, so that would be a big undertaking for younger children.
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We kind of touched on this, but are there other reasons you would recommend Wingspan for couples?
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I do think it's nice to be able to see what the other person is doing on their board.
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So it helps you kind of keep up with the game and see how their cards are interacting.
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If you're playing with four people, I think things tend to get lost in the process of the game.
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You're focusing more on what you're doing than what the other people are doing.
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I hadn't thought about this, but, you know, the fact that you are keeping an eye on your opponent and what they're playing and that that might really change your strategy and that pretty much almost everything is out in the open.
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Yeah.
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As a kind of date night activity, it's actually you're paying attention to your partner.
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Yeah, that's true.
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It's not a game where you kind of live in your own world.
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And that's, I don't know, that's some version of romantic, I think.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So Wingspan has an expansion.
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I haven't tried it yet.
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It has European birds, right?
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The birds in the base game are they're all North American birds, although some of them live on other continents as well.
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And I can imagine that you two might be interested in an expansion with African birds.
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Oh, we are.
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We can't wait.
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So my question, though, is if there were an African expansion, what are a couple of birds you would love to see in Wingspan?
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Oh, good question.
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One of the birds that we really enjoy watching here is called a Turaco.
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And they are, they may have five or six different bright, brilliant colors somewhere on their plumage.
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So they're just fun to watch.
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And the kind of bird that if you hear it calling from a long way away, you'll go running in that direction.
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So there's a lot of beautiful birds that would just make attractive cards that would be fun to play with.
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I would pick the African Harrier Hawk, which has a nickname called Gymnogene.
00:19:37.453 --> 00:19:53.550
And it is a bird of prey, a very large bird of prey that has a really flexible head and neck and can like get his head and neck into other birds' nests, even if they're shaped kind of funky.
00:19:53.550 --> 00:20:03.652
And so I think that could add an interesting ability to the, to the cards, a bird that can eat other birds' eggs.
00:20:04.874 --> 00:20:06.195
Those are fantastic answers.
00:20:06.195 --> 00:20:07.758
Thank you.
00:20:07.758 --> 00:20:09.340
Well, those are all my questions.
00:20:09.340 --> 00:20:12.865
Thanks for being on the podcast and sharing a little bit about Wingspan.
00:20:12.965 --> 00:20:13.846
Thanks for inviting us.
00:20:14.048 --> 00:20:14.788
Yeah, glad to do it.
00:20:18.394 --> 00:20:22.780
I am looking at photos of the Turaco right now, and they are adorable.
00:20:22.780 --> 00:20:25.444
And those African Harrier hawks are pretty cool, too.
00:20:25.444 --> 00:20:31.028
Elizabeth Hargrave, if you're listening, Teague and Robert have some great ideas for an African expansion.
00:20:37.317 --> 00:20:40.121
That's it for this episode of the First Player Token Podcast.
00:20:40.121 --> 00:20:49.993
See the show notes for a link to my website, where you can find past episodes, see photos of Wingspan and that bird feeder that my friend Jeff made, and find me on Instagram and Twitter.
00:20:49.993 --> 00:20:55.481
If you have a minute, please rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen.
00:20:55.481 --> 00:20:57.768
I've been your host, Derek Bruff.
00:20:57.768 --> 00:20:58.755
Thanks for listening.
00:20:58.755 --> 00:21:00.828
Now it's time to play some games.
00:00:08.066 --> 00:00:14.913
Welcome to the First Player Token Podcast, a short podcast for folks who enjoy playing board games with family and friends.
00:00:14.913 --> 00:00:17.074
I'm your host, Derek Bruff.
00:00:17.074 --> 00:00:22.879
In this episode, I have another recommendation for a great game for couples, Wingspan.
00:00:31.609 --> 00:00:33.490
Wingspan is a game about birds.
00:00:33.490 --> 00:00:42.645
Players take on the role of bird enthusiasts of some kind, birdwatchers, maybe ornithologists, trying to collect the best birds for their wildlife preserves.
00:00:42.645 --> 00:00:47.091
It has rapidly become a favorite late-night game for my wife Emily and me.
00:00:47.091 --> 00:00:51.777
Wingspan was published in 2019 by Stonemaier Games.
00:00:51.777 --> 00:01:01.289
It was designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and features art by Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez-Jaramillo, and Beth Sobel.
00:01:01.289 --> 00:01:12.385
Most board games you'll find on the shelves of Target or Barnes & Noble are designed and illustrated by men, but Wingspan is part of a much-needed shift toward diversity in the board game industry.
00:01:13.328 --> 00:01:17.793
Back in 2014, Hargrave and her husband had recently started birdwatching.
00:01:17.793 --> 00:01:23.819
Around that time, she also started playing more board games and became interested in designing her own game.
00:01:23.819 --> 00:01:51.352
She's been quoted as saying, "...there were too many games about castles and space and not enough games about the things I'm interested in, so I decided to make a game about something I cared about." Wingspan was the result, and it's been a hit in the board game world, selling out three print runs in its first two months of release in 2019, and going on to win multiple awards, including the prestigious Kennerspiel des Jahres, Germany's Game of the Year award.
00:01:51.352 --> 00:01:56.662
A game about birdwatching is pretty unusual, and it garnered some mainstream press.
00:01:56.662 --> 00:02:02.692
I remember Elizabeth Hargrave's excited tweet when she and her game were covered in the New York Times.
00:02:03.674 --> 00:02:05.855
To be clear, I am not a birdwatcher.
00:02:05.855 --> 00:02:11.924
All I really know about birds is that the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal in the world.
00:02:11.924 --> 00:02:17.371
Its attack dives can reach 242 miles per hour, straight down of course.
00:02:17.371 --> 00:02:22.276
I know this because I did a poster project on peregrine falcons back in elementary school.
00:02:22.276 --> 00:02:25.901
But thanks to Wingspan, I'm learning a lot more about birds these days.
00:02:26.978 --> 00:02:28.780
So how does a board game about birds work?
00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:36.068
Well, the heart of the game is a deck of 170 cards, each featuring a different bird found in North America.
00:02:36.068 --> 00:02:47.520
You'll find a painting of the bird, a small map of the world showing its territory, its wingspan in centimeters, and an interesting fact about the bird, like that thing about peregrine falcons.
00:02:47.520 --> 00:03:04.975
The bird cards also contain some game mechanics, what food is required to collect the bird, which of the three habitats can house the bird, how many in-game points the bird is worth, how many eggs it can store, and finally, what special power the bird has.
00:03:04.996 --> 00:03:08.560
If that sounds like a lot going on, well, it is.
00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:11.263
But Wingspan is actually fairly easy to learn.
00:03:11.263 --> 00:03:14.627
One reason is that everything in the game is really thematic.
00:03:14.627 --> 00:03:19.272
That is, all the mechanics of the game make sense in the context of birdwatching.
00:03:19.272 --> 00:03:22.877
You need food of certain types to collect specific birds.
00:03:22.877 --> 00:03:26.633
The belted kingfisher, for instance, requires fish.
00:03:26.633 --> 00:03:30.198
The yellow-bellied sapsucker eats berries and bugs.
00:03:30.198 --> 00:03:32.800
The peregrine falcon eats rodents.
00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:35.723
And the common raven eats just about anything.
00:03:35.723 --> 00:03:41.310
Similarly, each bird can live in one of three habitats, and those make sense too.
00:03:41.310 --> 00:03:43.652
The Carolina chickadee lives in forests.
00:03:43.652 --> 00:03:46.075
The great egret lives in wetlands.
00:03:46.075 --> 00:03:48.618
And the prairie chicken lives in grasslands.
00:03:49.400 --> 00:03:51.162
Then there are those special bird powers.
00:03:51.162 --> 00:03:55.187
and each bird has a power that relates somehow to the bird's actual behavior.
00:03:55.187 --> 00:03:59.614
The common raven is known in real life for eating the eggs of other birds.
00:03:59.614 --> 00:04:05.362
In the game, its power lets you discard an egg from one of your birds to gain a food from the supply.
00:04:05.362 --> 00:04:15.497
The Carolina chickadee stores extra food to save for later, so in the game, its power lets you gain an extra wheat from the food supply worth a point at the end of the game.
00:04:15.497 --> 00:04:18.920
The peregrine falcon is a hunter in real life.
00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:28.793
In the game, when you activate it, you draw a random card from the bird deck, and if its wingspan is less than 100 centimeters, you tuck it away for a bonus point.
00:04:28.793 --> 00:04:30.495
The hunt was successful.
00:04:30.495 --> 00:04:33.319
That is totally my favorite bird power in the whole game.
00:04:34.500 --> 00:04:36.302
The gameplay itself is thematic as well.
00:04:36.302 --> 00:04:38.605
On your turn, you can take one of four actions.
00:04:38.605 --> 00:04:44.814
Option one is to play a bird from your hand onto the playmat in front of you, paying its costs in food.
00:04:44.814 --> 00:04:48.110
Option two is to gain food to help pay for birds.
00:04:48.110 --> 00:04:55.004
Wingspan comes with this awesome cardboard bird feeder that doubles as a place to roll the food dice.
00:04:55.004 --> 00:05:00.315
You pop the dice in the top of the back of the bird feeder, and they tumble down into the tray at the bottom.
00:05:00.315 --> 00:05:03.341
It is the most satisfying way to roll dice.
00:05:03.341 --> 00:05:07.209
We have an upgraded bird feeder that you'll hear about later.
00:05:07.209 --> 00:05:14.204
Option three on your turn is to lay eggs, which are needed to add birds to your habitat as your collection grows.
00:05:14.204 --> 00:05:19.891
And option four is to draw bird cards to your hand, giving you more options for birds to collect.
00:05:21.333 --> 00:05:28.382
Three of these actions, gaining food, laying eggs, and drawing birds, are associated with different habitats on your play mat.
00:05:28.382 --> 00:05:31.625
And this is where the game gets really interesting.
00:05:31.625 --> 00:05:40.023
Whenever you take one of those actions, you activate the special powers of all the birds you've collected so far in that habitat.
00:05:40.023 --> 00:05:45.492
So if you take the lay eggs action, you'll activate all your birds in the grassland.
00:05:45.492 --> 00:05:55.990
This means that you're not just collecting birds to score in-game points, but you're trying to find birds whose powers will play well with each other and give you resources or points along the way.
00:05:57.122 --> 00:06:01.928
There's more to the game, but since I've covered the basics, let's hear some color commentary from my wife, Emily.
00:06:01.928 --> 00:06:07.336
She finds the game beautiful, and she has some thoughts on why this is such a great game for couples.
00:06:11.742 --> 00:06:12.923
Welcome back to the podcast, Emily.
00:06:13.324 --> 00:06:13.423
Thanks.
00:06:14.646 --> 00:06:18.750
So we're looking at Wingspan, which is one of our favorite games.
00:06:19.151 --> 00:06:19.853
Yes.
00:06:19.872 --> 00:06:20.874
Tell me about the look of this
00:06:22.036 --> 00:06:25.980
The birds are phenomenally illustrated.
00:06:26.401 --> 00:06:26.461
Yes.
00:06:26.593 --> 00:06:31.442
It looks like you have opened up a birder book.
00:06:31.442 --> 00:06:37.372
And there's all of these really neat, clever icons.
00:06:37.372 --> 00:06:49.071
It's one of my favorite things because a lot of the time icons in games will try to be clever, but they don't actually make a whole lot of sense and I have to talk myself into liking them.
00:06:49.071 --> 00:06:53.137
But these icons actually pertain to what...
00:06:53.137 --> 00:06:54.559
the bird eats.
00:06:54.559 --> 00:06:58.125
So it's super easy to learn and you learn something about nature.
00:06:58.125 --> 00:06:59.687
You know.
00:06:59.827 --> 00:07:00.449
Can you give me an example?
00:07:01.790 --> 00:07:03.694
I'm trying to find one that I can say.
00:07:03.694 --> 00:07:07.220
White-faced ibis?
00:07:07.220 --> 00:07:09.223
Is that how you say that?
00:07:09.223 --> 00:07:09.704
Ibis?
00:07:09.704 --> 00:07:10.625
Ibis?
00:07:10.625 --> 00:07:40.682
well this guy has a really long beak beautiful wings long neck long legs and apparently he eats fish and worms because that's the tokens that you have to get in order to get that particular card and there's an illustration of the world on every card and it highlights where the bird is from and it has a little illustration of wings with how many centimeters the wingspan is, hence, you know, the game is called Wingspan.
00:07:40.682 --> 00:07:46.875
And then there's all of these beautiful wooden eggs, which are so colorful and fun.
00:07:46.875 --> 00:07:51.964
But I do have one little complaint about the color scheme.
00:07:51.964 --> 00:07:57.194
You almost think that you're on an Easter egg hunt with these.
00:07:57.194 --> 00:07:59.740
And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:06.915
And while I love the teal color of the eggs, I feel like it was a hugely missed opportunity.
00:08:06.915 --> 00:08:13.925
Why, if you're gonna have blue eggs in the bird game, do you not have robin's egg blue?
00:08:13.925 --> 00:08:20.817
This is like a bright teal right in the middle of white and pale yellow and pale green and pale pink.
00:08:20.817 --> 00:08:22.319
It makes no sense.
00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:26.324
You would have done a paler version of blue.
00:08:26.345 --> 00:08:27.005
A paler blue.
00:08:27.005 --> 00:08:32.024
But frankly, Wingspan people, I would have done the speckled robin's egg.
00:08:32.024 --> 00:08:33.706
Come on, man.
00:08:33.706 --> 00:08:35.129
That would have been my favorite.
00:08:35.129 --> 00:08:36.350
That would have been so great.
00:08:36.350 --> 00:08:40.756
And I realize it was probably more expensive, but I would have paid for that upgrade.
00:08:40.756 --> 00:08:47.145
But at the very least, you could have gone in the same value family.
00:08:47.145 --> 00:08:49.611
But that's my only beef with this game.
00:08:49.611 --> 00:08:50.352
The rest of it's very pretty.
00:08:52.375 --> 00:08:54.236
What about this bird feeder we have in front of us?
00:08:54.837 --> 00:08:59.302
This bird feeder is the best, and everyone listening will be super jealous.
00:08:59.302 --> 00:09:04.729
Because our friend, Jeff Leegonn, made it just for us.
00:09:04.729 --> 00:09:12.116
And it's wooden, and it's beautiful, and it has an imprint of the Wingspan logo on it.
00:09:12.116 --> 00:09:13.958
It's incredible.
00:09:13.958 --> 00:09:16.721
He has one of those laser...
00:09:16.721 --> 00:09:21.471
machines i'm sorry, Jeff, i don't know what that thing is called.
00:09:23.173 --> 00:09:25.316
Laser machine.
00:09:27.078 --> 00:09:46.235
This doubles as the dice roller so you get to stick your dice in the back which is so much fun and they all come out and then you have your fish or your mice or your berries or your wheat or your worms Or bugs, like you call them.
00:09:46.235 --> 00:09:48.698
But they're clearly worms, so I don't know why you call them bugs.
00:09:48.698 --> 00:09:50.221
So.
00:09:50.821 --> 00:09:52.823
Why is this a good game for couples?
00:09:54.065 --> 00:09:55.346
I don't know a lot about birds.
00:09:55.346 --> 00:09:58.890
And so it's really fun to kind of learn about birds.
00:09:58.890 --> 00:10:01.354
And then I love hiking.
00:10:01.354 --> 00:10:03.777
And so I've actually learned a lot about birds.
00:10:03.777 --> 00:10:08.802
Going out hiking with you is one of my favorite things to do.
00:10:08.802 --> 00:10:10.565
And so sometimes it actually makes me feel like we've been on a hike looking at birds. It's that transporting piece, where I get to explore with you even when we're not able to leave the house or go exploring because, you know, the kids are asleep or whatever. ...
00:10:10.565 --> 00:10:12.532
Right.
00:10:12.532 --> 00:10:43.291
Also, I learned what a blue heron was from my birder friends, but first I recognized it from this game, and then I was able to WhatsApp my friend the birders, and they told me what the name of it was, and then when we played it again, I was like, yep, that was the guy we saw.
00:10:43.311 --> 00:10:44.453
That's the blue heron.
00:10:44.453 --> 00:10:47.681
You've also mentioned that...
00:10:47.681 --> 00:10:53.522
the powers that the birds have, the actions they can take, are nicely thematic.
00:10:53.522 --> 00:10:54.504
Yes.
00:10:54.504 --> 00:10:59.532
It makes sense given what the bird actually does in their life, and that helps the game make sense.
00:10:59.552 --> 00:10:59.892
Yes.
00:10:59.892 --> 00:11:02.456
I really hate arbitrary rules.
00:11:02.456 --> 00:11:05.642
It's the worst.
00:11:05.642 --> 00:11:07.884
Yes.
00:11:07.884 --> 00:11:15.356
I have a terrible memory, but if it makes sense and if it's thematic enough that it tells a story, even if it's a nature story...
00:11:15.356 --> 00:11:17.984
You know, it's really fun.
00:11:17.984 --> 00:11:31.903
Also, if I might say, one of my favorite memories of this game is packing it in a duffel bag to carry to Africa to my friends, the birders, who live in Africa, in Angola.
00:11:31.903 --> 00:11:32.504
It was really great.
00:11:33.686 --> 00:11:35.828
Thank you so much.
00:11:35.849 --> 00:11:35.989
You're welcome.
00:11:40.258 --> 00:11:50.210
Those friends of ours that Emily mentioned, the birders we know in Angola, who asked Emily to bring them a copy of Wingspan, well, I figure they might have some unique insight into the game.
00:11:50.210 --> 00:11:58.220
Their names are Robert and Teague, and I called them up to ask them what they like about Wingspan and what it's like to play the game as a birdwatcher.
00:11:58.220 --> 00:12:03.647
Robert, Teague, it's good to see you.
00:12:03.647 --> 00:12:04.668
Good to have you on the podcast.
00:12:04.828 --> 00:12:05.269
Yeah, thanks.
00:12:05.830 --> 00:12:05.950
Thanks.
00:12:06.241 --> 00:12:07.731
thanks for thanks for calling in from Angola.
00:12:08.900 --> 00:12:09.344
glad to
00:12:10.269 --> 00:12:19.155
so you guys You guys live very far away from me, and I understand that getting new board games in Angola is a bit of a challenge.
00:12:20.076 --> 00:12:23.140
Yeah, someone has to carry them in a suitcase to us.
00:12:24.582 --> 00:12:25.524
Right, right.
00:12:25.524 --> 00:12:28.889
And my wife and your friend Emily did that with Wingspan.
00:12:28.948 --> 00:12:29.350
She did.
00:12:29.629 --> 00:12:32.693
So why did you ask for Wingspan?
00:12:32.693 --> 00:12:34.355
You could have asked for a lot of different board games.
00:12:34.355 --> 00:12:35.096
Why did you ask for Wingspan?
00:12:36.259 --> 00:12:41.004
So one reason why we are interested in Wingspan is because...
00:12:41.004 --> 00:12:59.509
We like to go birding and so here in Angola we can see lots of different birds and wildlife and we've also gotten into it a little bit in other places that we've traveled to so we like the idea of a game based on a hobby that we enjoy.
00:13:01.131 --> 00:13:07.720
It comes with the added bonus of having gotten such great reviews so it kind of blended two of our worlds.
00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:15.331
Our two big hobbies are board games and bird watching and wow here they both are in a box
00:13:15.792 --> 00:13:22.923
right yes in a game as you say that was very well reviewed yeah um how many times do you think you've played wingspan since you got it?
00:13:22.943 --> 00:13:29.455
i just looked it up on the board game geek app and it was it's 84 times
00:13:29.455 --> 00:13:34.418
84 times! wow Wow.
00:13:34.418 --> 00:13:38.783
I don't know that I have any game I've played that much.
00:13:38.783 --> 00:13:39.624
That's impressive.
00:13:39.624 --> 00:13:41.966
What keeps you coming back to Wingspan?
00:13:42.707 --> 00:13:44.028
It is simple.
00:13:44.028 --> 00:13:54.539
We love the simplicity of the game, but at the same time, there are multiple paths to victory, which is one of the things that I really appreciate in any game.
00:13:54.539 --> 00:14:09.929
So you can start out thinking that you're going to shoot for one type of victory and then you go a completely different direction which keeps it interesting so we find it doesn't ever feel like it's getting stale
00:14:10.711 --> 00:14:21.384
I also like it because it doesn't feel super competitive so it's a pretty good couple game so we don't have to end the night with a big loss.
00:14:21.384 --> 00:14:36.792
You can just as much as you can compete in each game with the person you're playing with or the people you're playing with, you can also kind of compete against your previous high score and feel like you're succeeding in that way too.
00:14:37.673 --> 00:14:40.015
We avoid the cutthroat games.
00:14:40.015 --> 00:14:50.451
We just figured out early on in our marriage that those are a little bit more difficult with two players for everybody to go to bed happy.
00:14:52.956 --> 00:14:55.240
Because are you two fairly competitive people in general?
00:14:55.260 --> 00:14:55.280
I am.
00:14:56.423 --> 00:14:56.864
Teague is.
00:14:58.327 --> 00:14:58.528
Teague is, okay.
00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:08.548
Something else that we like about it is once you learn the basic mechanics of the game, we can play three games in an hour.
00:15:08.548 --> 00:15:10.695
And so, you know...
00:15:11.275 --> 00:15:13.097
Wow, that's pretty speedy.
00:15:13.158 --> 00:15:28.592
Yeah, we come home tired like everybody, and it's easier to turn on the TV, but with Wingspan, it's like, well, we could play a game of Wingspan in 20-ish minutes or a couple games in about the time of a TV show.
00:15:28.592 --> 00:15:38.062
So it ends up meaning we know we don't want to turn the TV on, but we don't have a whole lot of energy for one of the games that takes 30 minutes to set up.
00:15:38.062 --> 00:15:40.081
So we get out Wingspan.
00:15:40.902 --> 00:15:45.649
Emily and I are not quite that fast, but we are, we are pretty leisurely game players as we've found.
00:15:45.649 --> 00:15:48.796
There's lots of conversation and getting up to get coffee and such.
00:15:48.916 --> 00:15:49.177
Okay.
00:15:49.837 --> 00:15:51.259
So you mentioned you guys are birders.
00:15:51.259 --> 00:15:53.283
What does that mean for you guys?
00:15:53.283 --> 00:15:54.205
And how does that.
00:15:54.205 --> 00:15:56.948
How does that kind of color your playing of Wingspan?
00:15:59.130 --> 00:16:02.975
So any chance that we get, we like to get out into nature.
00:16:02.975 --> 00:16:05.438
So we go hiking and we go camping.
00:16:05.438 --> 00:16:08.623
And we don't drive...
00:16:08.623 --> 00:16:14.571
we know some people who will drive absurd distances to see that one rare bird.
00:16:14.571 --> 00:16:18.174
Birding just ends up being a hobby for us that we can take anywhere we go.
00:16:18.174 --> 00:16:23.041
But we've learned to appreciate the variety that we see.
00:16:23.041 --> 00:16:37.211
in nature and so for us it's fun to find some of the cards in Wingspan that are birds that we've seen before or you know it's something familiar and the artwork is very well done.
00:16:37.211 --> 00:16:45.461
We appreciate the artwork and all of that so it just kind of gives it a wrinkle that just adds a layer of enjoyment for us.
00:16:46.624 --> 00:17:01.086
Our enjoyment of birding and our knowledge of birds we can also see that in how the cards work together or why they would pick a certain ability for a certain bird in the game, which makes it kind of fun.
00:17:01.086 --> 00:17:09.778
You kind of understand why they would put a certain bird in a certain habitat or why that bird would lay eggs on other birds' cards or something like that.
00:17:09.778 --> 00:17:16.386
Our friend even used the game with her kids after doing a bird unit in homeschool.
00:17:16.386 --> 00:17:31.432
So like they could even talk about how the bird cards interact, but that game lasted three hours, and they didn't finish, so that would be a big undertaking for younger children.
00:17:32.453 --> 00:17:38.222
We kind of touched on this, but are there other reasons you would recommend Wingspan for couples?
00:17:39.585 --> 00:17:45.353
I do think it's nice to be able to see what the other person is doing on their board.
00:17:45.353 --> 00:17:52.160
So it helps you kind of keep up with the game and see how their cards are interacting.
00:17:52.160 --> 00:18:00.313
If you're playing with four people, I think things tend to get lost in the process of the game.
00:18:00.313 --> 00:18:05.060
You're focusing more on what you're doing than what the other people are doing.
00:18:06.114 --> 00:18:17.568
I hadn't thought about this, but, you know, the fact that you are keeping an eye on your opponent and what they're playing and that that might really change your strategy and that pretty much almost everything is out in the open.
00:18:17.568 --> 00:18:18.049
Yeah.
00:18:18.049 --> 00:18:23.477
As a kind of date night activity, it's actually you're paying attention to your partner.
00:18:23.537 --> 00:18:24.438
Yeah, that's true.
00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:27.461
It's not a game where you kind of live in your own world.
00:18:27.461 --> 00:18:31.607
And that's, I don't know, that's some version of romantic, I think.
00:18:31.607 --> 00:18:32.189
Yeah.
00:18:32.189 --> 00:18:33.150
Yeah.
00:18:33.150 --> 00:18:35.984
So Wingspan has an expansion.
00:18:35.984 --> 00:18:36.965
I haven't tried it yet.
00:18:36.965 --> 00:18:39.969
It has European birds, right?
00:18:39.969 --> 00:18:46.234
The birds in the base game are they're all North American birds, although some of them live on other continents as well.
00:18:46.234 --> 00:18:51.259
And I can imagine that you two might be interested in an expansion with African birds.
00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:52.601
Oh, we are.
00:18:52.601 --> 00:18:53.521
We can't wait.
00:18:54.522 --> 00:18:59.347
So my question, though, is if there were an African expansion, what are a couple of birds you would love to see in Wingspan?
00:19:00.128 --> 00:19:00.990
Oh, good question.
00:19:00.990 --> 00:19:06.378
One of the birds that we really enjoy watching here is called a Turaco.
00:19:06.378 --> 00:19:14.987
And they are, they may have five or six different bright, brilliant colors somewhere on their plumage.
00:19:14.987 --> 00:19:16.209
So they're just fun to watch.
00:19:16.209 --> 00:19:22.855
And the kind of bird that if you hear it calling from a long way away, you'll go running in that direction.
00:19:22.855 --> 00:19:29.221
So there's a lot of beautiful birds that would just make attractive cards that would be fun to play with.
00:19:30.306 --> 00:19:37.453
I would pick the African Harrier Hawk, which has a nickname called Gymnogene.
00:19:37.453 --> 00:19:53.550
And it is a bird of prey, a very large bird of prey that has a really flexible head and neck and can like get his head and neck into other birds' nests, even if they're shaped kind of funky.
00:19:53.550 --> 00:20:03.652
And so I think that could add an interesting ability to the, to the cards, a bird that can eat other birds' eggs.
00:20:04.874 --> 00:20:06.195
Those are fantastic answers.
00:20:06.195 --> 00:20:07.758
Thank you.
00:20:07.758 --> 00:20:09.340
Well, those are all my questions.
00:20:09.340 --> 00:20:12.865
Thanks for being on the podcast and sharing a little bit about Wingspan.
00:20:12.965 --> 00:20:13.846
Thanks for inviting us.
00:20:14.048 --> 00:20:14.788
Yeah, glad to do it.
00:20:18.394 --> 00:20:22.780
I am looking at photos of the Turaco right now, and they are adorable.
00:20:22.780 --> 00:20:25.444
And those African Harrier hawks are pretty cool, too.
00:20:25.444 --> 00:20:31.028
Elizabeth Hargrave, if you're listening, Teague and Robert have some great ideas for an African expansion.
00:20:37.317 --> 00:20:40.121
That's it for this episode of the First Player Token Podcast.
00:20:40.121 --> 00:20:49.993
See the show notes for a link to my website, where you can find past episodes, see photos of Wingspan and that bird feeder that my friend Jeff made, and find me on Instagram and Twitter.
00:20:49.993 --> 00:20:55.481
If you have a minute, please rate and review the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen.
00:20:55.481 --> 00:20:57.768
I've been your host, Derek Bruff.
00:20:57.768 --> 00:20:58.755
Thanks for listening.
00:20:58.755 --> 00:21:00.828
Now it's time to play some games.
