First Player Token
A board game review podcast for people who enjoy playing games with family and friends
First Player Token
65. Wingspan (2025)
In this episode, we grab our binoculars and our field guides to go birdwatching in Wingspan.
Wingspan is a 2019 game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games. Most days, if you ask me what my favorite board game is, I'll tell you it's Wingspan. It's my most played game, and it's the one that Emily and I are most likely to pull out and enjoy after the kids go to bed.
We first covered the game on the podcast back in 2020. That was five years ago! In this episode, Emily and I chat about what's changed in the world of Wingspan in the last five years (expansions! fan art! bird meeples!) and how our interest in birdwatching has grown in that time.
Episode Links:
Wingspan Fan Art Pack from Stonemaier Games
Wingspan component upgrades from Meeple Source
My photos from the High Island, TX, trip
Wingspan expansions from Stonemaier Games
Music:
"Open Road," "Sunbeam" by Purple Planet.
Podcast Links:
Order a First Player Token coffee mug.
Visit the First Player Token website.
Join the FPT Facebook group.
Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.
Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.
Welcome to the First Player Token Podcast, a short podcast for folks who enjoy playing board games with family and friends. I'm your host, Derek Brough. In this episode, we grab our binoculars and our field guides to go birdwatching in Wingspan. If you ask me what my favorite board game is, most days I'll tell you it's Wingspan. This 2019 game is my most played game, and it's the one that Emily and I are most likely to pull out and enjoy after the kids go to bed. Wingspan has been a smash hit for publisher Stonemaier Games, with at least 2 million copies sold worldwide. That is a ton of copies for a board game. And a mountain of awards. It's been so successful that designer Elizabeth Hargrave was able to quit her day job and become a full-time game designer. The theme of the game, discovering and attracting birds for a network of wildlife preserves, has drawn people in who would never consider themselves board gamers. We covered Wingspan on this podcast back in 2020. That is five years ago. A lot has changed in the world of Wingspan since then, including the release of not one, not two, but three expansions featuring birds from Europe, Oceania, and Asia. The original Wingspan covered North America. A lot has changed in our world, too. I listened to that 2020 episode again recently and was shocked to hear myself say, to be clear, I am not a birdwatcher. That has definitely changed. With birdwatching, I would say running neck and neck with board games as my favorite hobby. And Wingspan is a big reason for that, along with all the time I spent in 2020 working at my kitchen table looking at the beautiful birds stopping at our bird feeder. Wingspan Fan Art Pack Emily, welcome back on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. It
SPEAKER_02:has been almost five years since you were on the podcast to talk about Wingspan.
SPEAKER_00:That's bonkers. Isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So a lot has changed in the world of Wingspan since then, and in our world too, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:We have a whole new human.
SPEAKER_02:We do, yes. Yes, who has not yet played Wingspan, although he does like playing with the pieces. Yes. Let me start with our newest edition, which is the Fan Art Pack that we got recently. It features familiar wingspan birds from both the original game and the expansions with all new art contributed by fans from across the world. What do you think about all these new cards that we have in front of us?
SPEAKER_00:Well, as a former art teacher... this makes me so happy. Um, I love looking at all of the different iterations, the different mediums that were used, the different choices that the artists made, like having the male and the female represented on the card, which is so cute. Um, and I love the ages of, that are represented as well. So I think the youngest that I've seen come through so far is eight. And, you know, it's just really fun and it delights me to no end. I
SPEAKER_02:know we don't have all the cards in front of us, but what are some ones that you remember as being particularly interesting or striking?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, there's a lot that are done digitally, which is pretty cool. And I have a lot of respect for that because that's not something I'm gifted in. But I also really especially love the ones that are not digital just because that's where my heart is as an artist. I like the 3D ones that, you know, there was a cross stitch, there was a clay, a couple of different clay ones. Yeah. There were collages. So I don't know. Those are just especially fun. I
SPEAKER_02:didn't expect 3D art. I assumed it was all going to be paintings and drawings and digital art. But the fact that they were able to get the 3D art and photograph it well and have it part of the cards, I was very impressed.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, that is a next level kind of commitment by the... Whoever it was that was having to take all these scans and photographs and everything. That's just an extra level that I really appreciated. I think one that especially stood out to me was the Etch-A-Sketch.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Not only was it an Etch-A-Sketch, which I'm proud of myself for saying that word.
SPEAKER_02:It is hard to say.
SPEAKER_00:But it was a tiny one.
SPEAKER_02:Right. It was one of those little... very small
SPEAKER_00:edges. Yeah. Like a miniature. Yeah. So multiple levels of difficulty on that one. And it was just very creative. So, and then the other thing I would say I love about it, there are several cards that are full bleed, um, with taking over the entire card with the artwork, which is extra special. So,
SPEAKER_02:yes, I am. A big fan of the full-bleed ones, just because when you have them on your board, they just jump right out. And they add a lot of visual variety. Because, you know, the classic Wingspan cards is a bird, maybe a little bit of tree or shrubbery or something, but it's a white background. And several of these don't have that white background. They do something with that background. Yeah, I like those a lot.
SPEAKER_00:And, if I might say, nothing against the original game. However, with the full bleed, when you put it down on the board, it actually looks like the bird is in the habitat.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They just sort of blend in with the board and it makes it more fun to look at.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're right. I like that a lot. Yeah, I love the variety, the different styles and media and approaches. And you know, instead of the bird fact at the bottom of the card, there's a little something about the artist. So all the artists are named, and sometimes these little sayings are a little... But Casey cut this Abbott's booby from construction paper and toilet paper.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So sometimes they tell you the medium, or they sometimes say something funny, which I appreciate. I can't find one. Oh, here's an age seven.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_02:Red-shouldered hawk. Illustration by Julia Halley, age seven.
SPEAKER_00:Aw.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Somehow we missed the call for contributions. I know. I think that would have been a fun project for us.
SPEAKER_00:I think we had a newborn.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. That new human you mentioned. So the fan art pack, this is our newest upgrade to the game of Wingspan, but we've gotten some others along the way. We've got some new action cubes. We've got some new eggs. What do you make of these component upgrades that I've found for us?
SPEAKER_00:They're spectacular. First of all, our new meeples are different birds. So I have the chickadee because that's one of my favorite birds. Yes. And they just look like little chickadees sometimes. And yours is a tufted titmouse.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they're way more fun than little squares. Yeah. I have to say. The
SPEAKER_02:original game has the cubes and I don't think we ever... We had stopped using the cubes anyway because I had made some 3D printed birdhouses. That's right. That we use for actions, action cubes. And why is the chickadee one of your favorite birds?
SPEAKER_00:Well, my grandmother... Lady Claire. She had a group of friends, and they all assigned each other birds. And they called themselves the birds. And each of them were a different type of bird. And my grandmother was the chickadee. Is
SPEAKER_02:that because she was tiny?
SPEAKER_00:She was tiny and super playful and had a little attitude. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Just like the chickadees in our backyard.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, and I was at the Gen Con party. board game convention, and they had many different birds to pick from for these little action tokens. And I knew Chickadee was a favorite of yours. That was easy. And then I picked the Tufted Titmouse because we see them in our backyard all the time.
SPEAKER_00:And they're also adorable.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. When we talked in 2020, you had one big request for the publishers of Wingspan. Yes. Do you remember what that request was?
SPEAKER_00:Speckled eggs. It seemed like a huge oversight because when you think of a bird's egg, you immediately think of the blue speckled egg. Yeah. And there were no speckled eggs.
SPEAKER_02:No speckled eggs. But since then...
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Now we have speckled eggs. And
SPEAKER_02:this is... Is this robin egg blue? Yeah. Yeah. Because you also complained that the original eggs, they look like Easter eggs. Yes. They were very... pastel and colorful, but, but not like it was
SPEAKER_00:like all of them were pastel except the teal. And it's like the Robin's egg blue is right there. You couldn't do the Robin's egg instead of the teal. And I love teal anyway. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So we now have speckled eggs.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Makes you very happy. When we talked in 2020, Neither of us. I re-listened to the episode today. And I say at one point in the episode, I am not a birdwatcher. And I don't know who that person is who said that. Because I feel like so much has changed since then. Do you now consider yourself a birdwatcher? I
SPEAKER_00:am a... Bird observer. I feel like I can't claim the title bird watcher or a birder because I know to the extent what that implies about a person. However, I am definitely more of a bird watcher than I was in 2020. And I am a really good spotter for you to get the pictures with my binoculars. I would also say... and wager that you are very careful to claim expertise in something. And I feel like you were a birdwatcher, but you hadn't admitted it yet. Maybe you were in denial. I don't know. It was maybe not humility as much as denial.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe. I think it is easy to see people who spend a lot of time birdwatching and are very good at it. And to think I am nothing like that. So, but I recall now we had, um, a trip in 2023, our spring break trip, just you and me. Do you remember where we went?
SPEAKER_00:High Island
SPEAKER_02:in Texas. Yeah. And we drove all the way there from Nashville and we found a little Autobahn society park of some sort that had a rookery park.
SPEAKER_00:yes
SPEAKER_02:i was going to ask you but i think i knew the answer like like of your bird watching memories this has to be one of your favorites
SPEAKER_00:oh yeah because there was no effort involved whatsoever you just walked down the path and then there were enormous water birds flying right past your head and at least a hundred of them
SPEAKER_03:yeah
SPEAKER_00:the giant spoon bills and the big egrets and the... I mean, probably my favorite was when we drove our car onto the beach and then we saw that really rare plover.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, plover, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, amazing. That was thrilling.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. These were all birds we don't see in Nashville. Although, there are cormorants at the lake that we discovered the other day. But yeah, the rookery down in High Island was just spectacular. And we were talking to the Audubon... person there. I don't know if they call themselves park rangers or not, but it was a ranger type person. And he asked something, we had told him why we were there. And he asked us if we were birders and we were like, no, we're not birders. And then he said, didn't you just tell me you drove like 10 hours to look at birds?
SPEAKER_00:I think that might've been the moment that you finally decided to call
SPEAKER_02:yourself a birder. I think that's when I owned it. So what, how would you characterize birders? The role of Wingspan in our growing fondness for birdwatching. What's the relationship there between you as a birder and this game?
SPEAKER_00:I think it's just a lot of fun to learn all the facts. You know, one of my favorite things about Wingspan is how thematic it is. So, you know, the way that you play the birds on the board is, has to do with where they live and their habitat. And the type of nest that they have is actually the type of nest that they have. And their powers even are like, you know,
SPEAKER_03:what
SPEAKER_00:they do in nature. And so just learning all of these facts and where they live and just realizing how many millions of birds there are. I mean, I don't know if there's millions. It feels like there's
SPEAKER_02:millions. Yeah, there's a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm a curious person anyway, and so I just get thrilled when I see, it's exciting to see something that you've looked at a lot in a game out in the real world.
SPEAKER_02:And I would add vice versa, because we have, like, when we went to Ohio and Texas, we took Wingspan with us, and we would play it in our hotel room in the evenings. And to be able to play a bird card in the game that we had seen earlier that day for the first time in our lives, that was pretty exciting.
SPEAKER_00:It was very exciting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. As I've learned more about birds through bird watching, like, look, there's a cerulean warbler. I was on a hunt for one of those just a few weeks ago here in Nashville. And unsuccessful, I should add. But I know a little bit about that bird. And it's fun to see it in the game.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Now, we... When we talked in 2020, we only had the base game of Wingspan. And since then, we have all three expansions. Yes. Europe, Oceania, and Asia. It's added a lot of birds to the game, for sure. Yes. I think the original game had 170 birds. Yes. And now we're up to 400-some-odd with all the expansions. But the expansions have added some other dynamics to the game, and I think I know what your favorite one is, but I'm curious. Of the expansion elements, what are some of the elements that you really like?
SPEAKER_00:I really like the pink flower. The nectar? The nectar, yes. That adds a lot more fun and flexibility and... just options and it makes, um, it makes the game more fun, I think, because it goes faster. You're not like dragging into the first three birds, just trying to get that first part filled so you can get more than one bird or more than one food. Yeah. I think it, it speeds up the game in a nice way and it also gives you an extra, um, goal and it adds a lot of flexibility.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think I've been playing the base game every now and then online and they don't have the expansions there. And so you're really at the mercy of the dice rolls to get the food that you need. Whereas I feel like with the nectar, you start off with one extra food and it's a wild and there's a chance to get the nectar acts as a wild food. And so you can get it throughout the game. And so, yeah, it just, it kind of catalyzes the whole game and not that I don't mind the original, but having played it a lot, it's nice to jump in and round one and start to do really interesting things.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Cause I can normally play a bird right away and that's not always true in the base game.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also like some of the new round goals. I think that's also changed up the game a lot. The expansion's added new round goals like filled columns of birds or number of birds in one row or the cards you have left in hand or the food left over. There's a lot. The one we had the other night was which way the bird's beak is pointing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, that's a funny one.
SPEAKER_02:I like that, especially with the fan art pack because we had to I had to look at all these illustrations even more closely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there's a couple where I'm like, I don't know which way... Where's the beak on that one?
SPEAKER_02:There was that one owl that was clearly staring straight ahead.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:This is, by far, our most played game. Yes. We will often put the kids to bed and... take an hour and play a game of wingspan. Why do you think we keep coming back to this game?
SPEAKER_00:Probably because I like it so much. I mean, you're always up for any
SPEAKER_03:game,
SPEAKER_00:but I really like playing games that are thematic and adorable and a little competitive, but not cutthroat. And, um, that's different every time, um, but the strategies are similar. So it's never boring. It's always, um, I feel like I have played it enough now that I kind of, I know how to win and that's not true with every game. It takes me two or three times and I don't always want to play a game two or three times to get better because I don't like it as much or something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But, um, You know, and I love to travel, and this is sort of fun because it's like a tour of the world every time we play. Yeah, especially with
SPEAKER_02:the expansions. Because the North American birds, many of them were familiar to us, but we get to learn. The birds of Australia are bonkers. I don't know what happened over there, but they have some weird birds. But it's fun to imagine. I always like to, like, we'll see some, like, european robin which is almost a an american robin but not quite and i'm like if we just like traveled to france and walked around we would see so many new birds that are like parallel versions of our favorite birds
SPEAKER_00:well and i would like to point out that i've seen lots of birds in africa that are not represented in this game
SPEAKER_03:that is true
SPEAKER_00:and i don't know what they are you would have to ask teak and robert see episode whatever number that was um but I think the Africa version will be very exciting whenever that decides to come out. Just visiting another continent, I have no idea what the birds were that I saw, but they were really interesting, and it would be fun to be able to revisit them like we do with, you know, the West Coast birds that we see in the game.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yeah. That we've seen occasionally in person.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But... Yeah, yeah. I like that there are so many different bird cards. And so once you know how to play the game, there's still a ton of variety in which birds happen to come out and which birds you can play and what the round goals are. So I don't feel like it gets old. There's always kind of new things to figure out and explore. Are there any other bird watching memories you'd like to share?
SPEAKER_00:You know, one of our favorite family trips was to California, and we took that ferry to that city. national park island
SPEAKER_02:right channel islands
SPEAKER_00:and uh you got to see that bird that only i mean we all got to see it yeah but the reason we went to that particular national park was so that you could see that bird that only lives on that island
SPEAKER_03:yeah
SPEAKER_00:and so if you had not called yourself a birder before then everyone else does
SPEAKER_02:yes seeking out the island scrub jay only to be found on that one island in the entire world and you know it looked like a blue jay a little bit but
SPEAKER_00:but different but different and the kids could tell it was different and they felt special that and what was fun about that is that sometimes you go and you try to find this elusive bird and it takes forever and you know i'm looking in my binoculars and you're looking with your camera and then we'll finally find it and it's fun but the kids don't enjoy that
SPEAKER_03:right
SPEAKER_00:but with the channel islands they were like
SPEAKER_03:everywhere
SPEAKER_00:on the island. So as soon as we got there, you know, we were able to look for maybe half a second and then we're like, Oh look. And then the kids were very excited.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It took some doing to get there, but once we were there, it was not a hard work to find. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty
SPEAKER_00:great. And we saw dolphins and whales on the way. So
SPEAKER_02:yeah, it was a great trip. It was a really great trip. My first island-based national park. And really, some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen in my entire life. Yes. Climbing up on those cliffs and looking out.
SPEAKER_00:The water was so blue.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, man. As they said on Lost, we'll have to go back to the island. Yes. Do you have any other birding memories you'd like to share?
SPEAKER_00:One of my earliest, most favorite birding memories was when we drove to Big Bend in... And we got there late at night. We were camping in the back of our truck. And so we pulled up to our spot in the middle of the giant black sky with all the stars. And we woke up the next morning to the most amazing panoramic view of all of the big bend glory. And we just laid in the back of the pickup truck until 11 a.m., like pretty much from the sunrise until 11 a.m. because then, you know, we were hungry and whatnot. But we were just watching birds out of the truck windows laying in the back of the truck.
SPEAKER_02:Birds we had never seen before.
SPEAKER_00:Never seen. Still, I can see it so clearly, this little green puffy bird that I had never seen before. And it was so cute. And I still don't know what it was, but adorable.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that was one of my favorite memories.
SPEAKER_02:Me too. I'm glad I got to share it with you.
SPEAKER_00:Likewise.
SPEAKER_02:Any other thoughts on Wingspan?
SPEAKER_00:It's been really fun to be able to play this with our older kids and play it at Thanksgiving with, I think, the biggest game that we ever played. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It
SPEAKER_00:was at Thanksgiving, and it took so long, but it was really fun. It was
SPEAKER_02:so fun. Yeah, with Jameson and Melissa. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I just really enjoy this game, and it's fun that they keep coming out with— new cards and new things to explore, and I hope they keep doing that for a long time.
SPEAKER_02:Me too. Thanks, Emily.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02:I want to share one more story before I wrap up. In December 2021, Emily and I went on a little Christmas getaway to Gulf State Park on the south end of Alabama. We camped in our pickup truck, we did a fair amount of birding in the park, and we played wingspan at a picnic shelter on the beach. At one point while exploring the park, we passed a sign that featured a life-size display of a pelican with wings outstretched to show just how big those birds are. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see how my wingspan compared to a pelican's, so I stood in front of the sign with my arms out, and Emily snapped my photo. Sometime later, I saw wingspan designer Elizabeth Hargrave post on social media asking for examples of people who got into birdwatching thanks to her game. I raised my hand, and I sent her a copy of that photo of me standing in front of the pelican sign. Months later, I heard from a work colleague, Michael, who had attended a talk that Elizabeth Hargrave gave at the University of Virginia about game design. Michael was just a little surprised to see me in Elizabeth's PowerPoint slides. Apparently, she has a collection of photos of folks like me who got into birding because of Wingspan, a collection she shares in her roadshow talks. And I'm in it. That made my day when Michael told me about it. That's it for this episode of the First Player Token Podcast. To keep up between episodes, follow me on Blue Sky or Instagram or Discord. See the show notes for links. If you found this or any episode of the podcast useful, please share it with a friend. I've been your host, Derek Brough. Thanks for listening. Now it's time to play some games.
SPEAKER_01:Testing, testing, testing. Testing, testing.
SPEAKER_00:Testing, testing. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
SPEAKER_02:And no pressure here. We're just here to have fun and chat about Linkspan because we're adorable.
SPEAKER_00:We are adorable.
