I finally got a copy of Wingspan, the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres winner (connoisseur/ enthusiast game of the year). This week we had the opportunity to play Wingspan at game night. I'll share a bit about our experience and some thoughts about the game. Wingspan I first learned about this game at the end of 2018. I thought the unique theme was appealing. I have had bird feeders in my back yard for years and enjoy viewing the different species, colors, sizes, etc., of all the different birds that congregate. So this theme stood out to me as something I could enjoy. The designer, Elizabeth Hargrave, took a wide variety of birds and created a terrific engine-building game around them. After learning a little about the game, I started keeping an eye out for it. The availability of this game was quite a story in and of itself. Without researching all the details, let me give you a quick overview. From what I understand, the publisher Stonemaier games wasn't sure how well the game would do, so it produced a modest quantity in its initial printing. Due to numerous reasons one can only speculate, the game immediately sold out. Since that time Stonemaier Games has gone through at least two additional reprints at higher quantities in an attempt to satiate the demand for this game. All reprints have also sold out rather quickly. As a matter of fact, if you go to the Stonemaier Games site (click here) you can see that they are currently sold out. All of this is a testament to the popularity of this game. I did get a chance to play it once at a friends game night earlier this summer and really enjoyed it, making it that much more of a desirous acquisition. Recently, my local game store posted on social media that they had a new shipment in for the latest printing. I ended up calling them a couple days after the post and was sad to hear they had already sold out of their copies. I proceeded to have them try to place an order through their distributor for another copy. Not thinking I'd have much luck, I had resigned myself to thinking that I'd be waiting months for yet another reprinting of the game. About three weeks later, I got the call. They had just received my copy of Wingspan! Excited, I drove over later that day and picked up my "prize". The scarcity of this game had heightened my desire for it. This elusive game was finally in my hands ... now to get it to the table. Obviously, this had to be the next game played at game night. I broke it out, read the rules and prepared for game night, the following night. Wingspan is a game for 1-5 players and has a rated time of play of 40-70 minutes. The theme and basic overview of the game is best described as stated on the front page of the manual: "You are bird enthusiasts — researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors — seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats. Each habitat focuses on a key aspect of the growth of your preserves:
I set up the game ahead of time to prepare for game night ... getting all the pieces punched out of the cardboard and building the bird house/feeder dice tower. We had four people available to play this night, Brian, Chris, Nikki and myself. Brian and I had each played once before, months ago. The group had limited experience. We all needed to go over the rules, which didn't take too long to explain. I had everyone look at their player mats and worked from the top down explaining each of the four actions players could take on their turns. The game is played over the course of four rounds. Players start the first round with eight actions and progressively have fewer actions in following rounds dropping to seven, then six, then finally five actions in the final round. There are two different ways to play the end-of-round goals. The default method is more competitive awarding the highest victory points to the winner in the category and fewer or no points to those in second place and lower. The other less competitive side of the end-of-round goal tracker awards each player for how many of each goal attained regardless of how the other players did. It is recommended that this less competitive side be used for new players, so that is the side we played with. As we progressed around the table each using an action cube to denote which action we were taking on our player mats, we became more comfortable with the game mechanics and process. One of the more visually pleasing and clever aspects of the game is the bird house/feeder which is a dice tower. This tower allows for a random roll of available food types to select from in order to attract specific birds to the habitats in your preserve. We added new birds to our habitats paying any associated costs to place in the specified habitat area on our player mat. We enjoyed viewing the bird cards (170 bird cards are included in the base game) sometimes reading aloud the short description and anecdotes noted at the bottom of each card regarding the bird in question. After progressing through all four rounds of play points were calculated and a winner determined. In this game, Nikki won by a single point over Brian (86 to 85). Chris and I finished 3rd & 4th. Well done, Nikki! As we picked up the pieces and put away the game, we discussed our thoughts. It was an interesting mixture. Chris was a bit underwhelmed by the theme. The bird theme of collecting birds and placing eggs etc... didn't really speak to him. He appreciated the complexities and strategy potential within the game and said he'd be willing to play again, however it wasn't really a game that hit his sweet spot. Nikki seemed to particularly like the game. She added commentary about certain birds when they came up in the game. She knew which were found near our area as well as some of the interesting tidbits about them. Nikki stated that she thought this was one of the few hobby board games that she might be able to get her teenage daughter to play. The theme was one that would interest her as well. Brian seemed to also enjoy the game. He tends to prefer Euro-games with a certain level of complexity to them. This game qualifies. I believe he'll be up for playing this one anytime we break it out in the future.
I really like the game. I can't deny that the scarcity/demand may have influenced that a bit. Also noted is the Kennerspiel des Jahres award that is quite prestigious. The artwork for this game is absolutely stellar. the three illustrators credited on the box are: Natalia Rojas, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo, and Beth Sabel. The bird illustrations are wonderful. Reminiscent of field guide illustrations, the artwork and the information provided on the cards truly adds to the theme. The dice tower is the centerpiece of the table and the player mats with the different habitats are printed on a thick cardboard that folds in half to reveal what looks like a leather portfolio, as if it was a field guide or scientific notebook. The components and quality are top notch. I can definitely see why those who find the theme disinteresting or lackluster, might not be drawn to this game. That's a fair point. This theme may not be for everyone, however I applaud Stonemaier Games for publishing this uniquely themed game. Its a nice change of pace. Others seem to be "flocking" to this game as well as is evidenced by the continual cycle of selling out each consecutive reprint. I've provided a link to Board Game Geek if you'd like to find out more about Wingspan, click here. If you liked my description, game insights and thoughts about Wingspan, I recommend you find someone with a copy and give it a try, check with your local game store to see if by some miracle they have a copy, or place a pre-order the next time Stonemaier Games has them available. Until next time ... Game on!
0 Comments
Sometimes you're just looking for a quick and light filler game. A game you can play before or between other more robust options ... or a game that's easy to show and play with your non-gamer friends or family. I've got a game that I like to use for just those sorts of situations. Roll for It! is a 2-4 player dice game from Calliope Games and is rated for ages 8+. I've had this game for several years and have found it to be a great multi-use lightweight dice game. In Roll for It! players each have a set of 6 uniquely colored dice. The deck of cards is shuffled and placed face down in the middle of the playing surface. The top three cards are placed face up in a row next to the deck (see photos below). Players attempt to collect cards by rolling the combination of dice shown on it. Point values are from 2 points for easy dice combinations, to 15 points for the most difficult. The player to collect 40 or more points worth of cards wins immediately. On his/her turn the current player rolls their dice. The resulting roll is compared to the three available cards. If the player can take some or all of the rolled dice and fully match the combination on a card, they immediately receive that card and place it face up in their stack. If the player doesn't have the right combination to take a card, they can place any matching dice next to the card(s) they would like to try to attain in a future roll. It is possible to collect more than one card and it is also possible to place dice next to multiple target cards. Play continues clockwise as each player takes his/her turn. After each player's turn, any claimed cards are replaced with ones from the deck, always having a total of three at the beginning of the next players turn. It is possible that multiple players have their colored dice next to a card or cards. More than one player may be attempting to claim the same card. On subsequent turns the active player rolls any dice in hand not committed to a card, attempting to complete any card(s) in which their dice are next to and collect successfully completed cards. The winner is the first to acquire 40 points in card value. I enjoy Roll for It! It can be used as a filler game, a quick family game, etc... The game play time listed on the box is 20-40 minutes. I doubt many would ever need to take 40 minutes. In my opinion, it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes including teaching time. Though not a strategic or challenging game, it does have its place. Its a fun dice-rolling game that has some player interaction as players tend to be in conflict when multiple people try for the same card. If this sounds like something your interested in, check it out on Board Game Geek by clicking here or pick it up at your local or online game store. Labor Day Weekend Game Survey Last week I included a brief survey in my post. I asked, of the three games I mentioned which had you played, what other games you had played, and which was most interesting to you. The three games mentioned in the post were: Imhotep; Horrified; and Jaws. Not very many surveys were filled out, however of those that were it was quite obvious which game most were interested in ... Horrified. A good pick! I thought I'd share that result and if you are interested in checking out Horrified on Board Game Geek, click here. I hope you had a chance to play some games this past week. Feel free to share in the comments or on the King's GameNight Facebook page.
Game on! Sometimes you get deep into a game and realize, there's no way that this is going to end successfully. At that point, you need to determine if you are going to grind it out to the bitter end, end the game right then and there, or stop and set up to play again. Earlier this week my gaming group had just that experience. This week Chris brought over Zombicide: Black Plague. It's one of the few board games that our group has which plays up to 6 players. This allowed Chris, Nikki, Jeff, Dave, Jennie and me to all play one game together. Most of us were new or relatively new to Zombicide with none of us having more than three gameplays under our belt. The game is a dungeon-crawl, adventure game played cooperatively. The survivors in this version are fantasy characters such as an elf, dwarf, wizard, etc... We got familiarized with the rules then set up to play.
About an hour or so into the game, it became apparent that we had made some mistakes and would certainly lose the game. It may not be soon, but a defeat was inevitable. We had rushed to claim objectives and open doors. This progressed things too quickly. We realized that we should have paced ourselves, doing much more searching of rooms and gaining equipment, weapons, etc... Now we had a decision to make. Do we:
Any of those options would have probably been okay, except I think we weren't quite ready to end game night right then. We also felt we had kind of figured out what our shortcomings were and wanted to correct those issues. So, we chose to stop and set-up the game to play again. This was a bit risky, as we knew it could stretch the game night a little long, however we all agreed we wanted to restart. During the new game play progressed more quickly. We were on a mission and each of us knew what our character's strengths were and where to go. We stocked up on all kinds of equipment: weapons, spells, arrows, etc... We were ready this time around... or so we thought. We delayed pushing through the quest as we geared up. More zombies spawned. We found ourselves continually bailing out a flooding boat ... a dungeon flooding with zombies. Fighting zombies gained us more experience, consequently our danger trackers progressed upward as well, spawning even more zombies. Then an Abomination zombie spawned which is very difficult to defeat. They have 3 health and only weapons dealing 3 damage would kill him. Of course, there aren't any weapons in the core box which deal 3 damage. We needed to find dragon bile and a torch to create a molotov cocktail of sorts to blast the beast. We searched and searched eventually netting us two vials of dragon bile and two torches. We expended all our energy to take out a large group of zombies that congregated at an intersection with one dragon fire combo. Next we burned the hulking Abomination to a crisp setting the bile afire ... a victory of sorts. At this point we realized we had expended so much energy trying to gear up and gather supplies needed to take out the Abomination, that we had not progressed much in our overarching quest goals. We had tons of zombies continuing to spawn and we just didn't know how long it would take to complete this game. That put us in a similar dilemma as earlier in the night. Since it was getting late, we opted to complete another round of play and then just call it an evening. We could have decided to try to take note of where we were in the game and restart from that point at a future date, however we didn't know when that would be. So we opted to clean up the game and take our experience to use in a future play of Zombicide: Black Plague. The example above is a situation that does occasionally occur. What do you do when it becomes obvious that a game is essentially over? The answer is unique to each situation. I am speaking primarily about cooperative games where the game is usually won or lost as a group. Some groups have different preferences and reasons for selecting how they might handle the situation. Certain people hate to cut a game short, opting to complete the game even if there seems to be no possible victory. In that case, completing it is the prime goal and which makes it feel complete. In a case such as ours, it made sense to restart. We wanted to give ourselves a shot at succeeding and we felt we may just have enough time to do so playing again. As it turned out we didn't get another full game in. We came to a similar stopping point and in that case chose to end the game. Have you hit one of these forks in the road? Was it an easy and obvious choice how to proceed or did the group have differing opinions on how to handle? Regardless of the decision made, I believe that the ultimate goal is for everyone to have fun. Gain some form of satisfaction in playing, even if you have to cut it short or restart, etc... I hope my group had fun and felt some level of satisfaction. A main objective for any game night is to be an enjoyable experience. Game on! Over the past holiday weekend I got a chance to play a few games: Imhotep, Horrified, and JAWS. What games did you play this past weekend? I had a chance to play a quick game with my dad and sister over the weekend, so I broke out Imhotep. This medium weight game is easy to teach and quick to play. The goal of Imhotep is to construct different Egyptian monuments gaining points for the stones of your color in each monument. There are different locations on the board that players must sail ships with stones. The stones are placed in the monument as described by the location board and rule book. The game is played over the course of six rounds, then final victory points are tallied. In our game, I had played once before with my sister, however my dad hadn't played at all. I went over the rules for all. Everyone seemed to pick up on the rules right away and had no difficulty. We got right into the game. If you've played Imhotep before, you know that it has a "take that" element. Players can intentionally sail a ship to a location that the know their opponent(s) may not like. This can be a put off for some, however with the right crowd its fun. We had a good time playing. I ended up surging from behind to win with my Dad in second and sister just behind. This is an all-around good game. Most I've played with enjoy it. Horrified I got to play horrified again this weekend. Don brought over his copy of the game and we played with our wives. This is a great middle-weight cooperative game that works well as an introduction to hobby gaming for the more casual gamer or family members. The four of us decided to play the "easy" variation of the game with only two monsters, since the ladies had yet to play and it was a bit of a refresher for Don and I. After explaining the rules, we got started. The game progressed fairly smoothly and with ease. We were able to defeat the Mummy before his special ability could be enabled and then were able to take care of the Creature from the Black Lagoon without too much trouble. It was fun, however it was almost too easy. We are definitely going to get this back to the table again. I'm sure next time we'll attempt to defeat at least three monsters. The first time I played with just two players, two monsters seemed challenging. With four players, two monsters was too easy. Three may be the sweet spot for four players, we will see next time. JAWS After playing Horrified, Don, Shannon, Brenda and I played Jaws. Again, Don and I needed a refresher and the wives had never played. We went back through the rules for Act 1 and played. I played as the shark while Don, Shannon, and Brand played as Quint, Hooper, and Brody. Early in the game, Don forgot that he had two barrels pre-loaded on his boat. This put them a little behind and gave me (Jaws) the advantage. I ended up winning the first act by eating 9 swimmers. This gave me an advantage heading into Act 2. We went through the rules for everyone's benefit. This took a while and was beginning to wear thin on patience preparing to play the second act. Once we began, Jaws was able to use a special ability card every round. The three heroes never really stood much of a chance. Jaws eventually won by eating each of the heroes. A rough defeat. This game, though fun definitely was not as well received. The hidden movement of the first act was challenging and fun for all, but the 2nd act was quite lopsided due to Jaws doing so well in the first act. This made it exceedingly difficult to overcome. Overall we had fun, however I'll say this game can be a bit fragile due to the bonuses given. I'm going to want to play again, though I'm not sure how the others feel about it. I hope everyone got a chance to play some games this past weekend. Please fill out the brief survey above. Let me know what games you may have played and which games interest you that I had the chance to play. Looking forward to seeing responses.
Please, keep checking out my gaming blog posts and... Game on! |
Archives
March 2021
King's GameNight
Special 10% off Coupon Code: KGN10
|