Wyrmspan - Overview & Our Thoughts 

😃 Thank you for all the support!!

Thank you so much!

Yup... uh huh

At first I felt they overcorrected the eggs by buffing food too much via nectar's flexibility, but after playing Oceania on the digital game, I'm seeing this is not the case. You no longer get nearly as many eggs as you did before, and nectar, like most foods are 1 out of 6 chances of being rolled, and are wasted if hoarded.

I still think they overdid the nectar with the extra bonus points you receive when you use the resource. The nectar hoarding is very easy to play around it imo. @@aos-archive

@@aos-archive Nectar/Wheat and Nectar/Cherry both appear on the dice, so its 1 out of 3 that nectar is rolled. But you're right that the effect on lessening egg spam it brings is very welcome.

I think these remarks are really important if you consider Wingspan, as the expansions really change the game. As I play the game on Boardgamearena quite a bit, I really miss all the great expansions that evolve Wingspan from a good game into a stellar game. I really think the difference is stark, for me going from an 7,5 to a 9. (out of 10) Not to mention that the expansions add: - Way more end of round goals and bonus cards, some of them completely affecting how and when you play out cards. - Blue birds that have a recurring effect at the end of the round, this allows for way more engine building and planning than the base game. - Yellow birds that have an end of game effect. Though not as impactful or build-around as the blue birds, they are definitely fun to play around with. - The Asia expansion adds a more intricate 2-player mode, but most of all a host of interesting, diverse and great looking birds. Some of the birds are wild, as they went overboard with a bunch of them. Overall, I love the Wingspan game with all the expansions a lot, the sheer amount of variety you get will all expansions is staggering. (almost to the point of it being a little too much) The only downside to the game - and this is mainly for the Asia expansion - is that the rules text on some of the cards is infinitely small and unreadable for people that need reading glasses and refuse to get one. The base game and first 2 expansions are fine, but for Asia, Stonemaier games whipped out the tinyfont to screw all the old people. A bit of an oversight.

i preferred the birdfeeder with no OE

I second that!

I found similar in my games

Thanks for checking out the video!!

I agree. The intricate way it interconnects and allows for careful planning is definitely a plus if it works out. However, I am on the fence if it is still satisfying to play. Part of the charm of Wingspan (and many other engine building games) is the thrill of making something completely broken to create an insane score at the end of the game. Often it doesn't come together, but the promise of it sometimes happening (or nearly happening) is what makes it exciting for me.

I can both sympathize with this comment and disagree with it, as for me it is the other way around. I totally love Wingspan, especially with expansions and I have no need for a Wingspan 2 for the most part. However, the dragon theme is really a big draw for me. I am just scared that the game is too basic, or too tight, to not let you explore deep builds. As a boardgamearena player, I find it hard to enjoy the base Wingspan version now, without all the expansions, the variety of birds, goals and bonuscards is just too little for me to truly enjoy it.

+1 a playthrough would be nice

I too would love see your playthrough of this

Your play through allow me to see if you’re truly enjoying it.

Thanks for checking out the video! Monique bought the sweater at an anime convention in LA!

I'd have to double check the actual deck, but I'm pretty sure if you feel like the cave cards make the board messy, mechanically you could just discard them. They have when-played abilities, and indicate that that section of cave is available for a dragon, but don't have ongoing effects. If I remember correctly, in playtesting there were some abilities that discarded a played dragon off the board for a benefit - not sure if they made the final game, but in that case, you'd just want to make sure to mark or remember that the now-empty space has already been excavated.

You're welcome!

Thanks Cis!!!

Assuming you are playing with players of similar skill level, the luck factor is a thing. In practice though, you can do a TON to minimize the effect of having a bad starting hand or not having access to the right birds. In my experience, you can still have a great game with suboptimal draws, while other people are having an easier time. You might not win, but it can still be enjoyable to build something decent with (what you are aware of is) a mediocre draw. From playing poker or magic the gathering, you will still win more over the long run if you are a better player, despite those games being a ton more luck-based than Wingspan. The difference is in perception, how you view the impact of chance on your game, instead of the things you *can* control. Could you give me an example of a game you enjoy that has this 'luck' element to a much lesser degree?

Probably just to make sure people have actually excavated it...

I’m trying to remember if there are some dragon cards that allow you to re-trigger the cave card effects. Also we didn’t run into cards that allowed us to move a dragon in our plays, but if so then it may be necessary to keep track of areas that have been excavated.

I think the cave card actually acts as a small platform which should make it easier to pick up and tuck the dragon cards, for some people.

@@Stormlight8700 That makes sense, this is not a huge issue but it comes up in Wingspan for physically ungifted people.

That would be nice. Some of the satisfying tactile things really can add to a game's enjoyment.

I too would love to see it

Hahahaha

Let us know how it compares when you try it!

The tower (or Birdfeeder, what it is actually called) looks great, especially just after unboxing. It is basically a simple dicetower though, you could us any one for the same effect or throw dice in a small container of some kind. After many years of play, assembling and disassembling, mine is close to completely falling apart. The issue of not having the right resources is a smaller issue, which gets better with expansions. I'm more let down by the poor lifespan of the (basically low quality cardboard) paper tower.

I think in our last play I (Naveen) had 8 in play and Monique ended the game with 9. Our scores were within 2 also.

Haha it's never too late!!

The advantage of Wingspan is that just about everyone loves animals and most people like birds, so it is not hard to convince people to try it.

Thanks for checking out the video!

I'd offer that Connie's design style is slanted toward combos and sequencing, so there's still an engine-building aspect in Wyrmspan, but it's probably less of the focus. The costs to activate a row increase within a round, and can't be activated more than three times in any round, so players are as likely to repeat any single action as repeatedly. That would be a pro or con depending on player preferences - some players want more of a pure engine builder, so could prefer Wingspan for that reason.

I'm not entirely sure that if you never get Wingspan after all these years, this game is going to be much of an improvement. The main reason you pick this over Wingspan without playing it is because of the theme being more appealing. If that is the case, I can understand the choice. I'm not saying the game isn't worth it, or that they are too similar, as clearly this video explains they are not. I just have a hard time grasping what makes this unproven game so much better than a clear proven favorite of many boardgamers.

@@pinobluevogel6458 mostly the theme, and that wingspan is kind hard to find In my country. One of the publishers have just announced this, só I'll try to get it while there still fresh in the market.

Until they announced Wyrmspan (Poland is still waiting for their localized version here until later in 2024), I never knew I wanted a Wingspan game. Now I want Wingspan but with Monster Hunter creatures. Would. Be. Awesome.

Feel free to take your time. There will be a lot of copies in circulation, so you'll have the chance to play, or check out more content in the future. Also Stonemaier has an anti-FOMO philosophy (they continually reprint their games, they don't have KS exclusives, etc.), so if, say, two years in the future you play it at a Con and decide you want a copy, you'll be able to buy one.

If you can give a sample of games that you actually do like, it might be a little easier to compare your tastes to what Wyrmspan is? I'm not sure either if I'd like Wyrmspan, but I do love Wingspan, so I'm not much of a help here :(

@@HexStarDragon This is great advice, just trying the game out sometime won't be hard and it will be reprinted a lot.

Have you played any of the Wingspan expansions? I felt the same about the final round with the original, but then I picked up the Oceania Expansion and it changed the final round in many of the games I played.

I do have all except the Asia expansion and it helps to some extent, but there's still a lot of games that just turn into 5 turns of 4 person egg spam

The main place where people take 5 egg laying turns is online play on Boardgamearena, where you play only the base game, with only the base birds. This is because people are optimizing the game with cheap birds that do a lot for their cost, instead of using many of the engines that are possible in the expansions, where the game becomes infinitely better and a little more balanced.

@@steveskew1097 Some people still do use the egg laying spam, but those players do not often win if you have all the expansions. If making 4-5 points a turn in the final round is the best you can do, you are not winning many games of Wingspan. Also, you need the space to place all the eggs, or it will still be impossible to do so.

It’s weird, in our plays leading up to this video, the hatchlings we drew were so milk expensive that we couldn’t justify the grind to get them in play.

@@BeforeYouPlay I played again last night, not as easy this time. I believe I had a cave card that gave me two milks my first time which made it easy to put my hatchling out.

Agreed 100%, each expansion adds something that is needed or benefits the game positively. The base game is fine, but with expansions this game becomes deep and top notch.

Ark Nova is both an incredibly tight game, as a game that is a bit 'draw dependant'. This mainly comes up for high level play though and the game has some very strong innate basic ways to counteract lack of good draws. Even moreso than Wingspan, Ark Nova has some serious high ceiling level play that will let you win over lesser players. In my opinion, nearly all heavy euros have some luck elements in it, unless you play something like Caylus that is extremely dry and just shoving cubes around in a particular manner :)

FWIW, the caves cost an action/coin, but don't have an additional cost the way dragon (or bird) cards do. They actually have instant abilities that are typically giving you resources. So it's about trying to find the right combos, or tactically reacting to leverage the benefits provided. That might not be obvious just from the rules description, so I can see how that might feel, at first glance, like it's a slog to get anything done.

Hi! We’re not quite sure which video you’re referring to. Can you describe it a bit more? Thanks!

i remember watching a video in which you guys talked about „making other players wait at the gaming table“… it was not the main topic appernetly, hence i couldn‘t find it anymore 😕

Well great on job on securing your eggs! Our point was that there is no dedicated action space that is literally just "lay eggs" like there is in Wingspan.

That's fair! Hope you can try this one out at some point! 😀

It's designed/intended to be slightly heavier than Wingspan, and I would guess most people would categorize it as such. "Heavy" means different things to different people, though (e.g. rules burden vs complex strategic decisions), so there could be people that find the Wyrmspan systems more intuitive for them. Without knowing the specifics, I would generally recommend that people who have played Wingspan could handle the step up in complexity to Wyrmspan, if interested, but that players who have not played many games at all would be more able to play Wingspan first.

@@HexStarDragon thanks. Makes it a much higher bar to buy since it just has to compete purely on gameplay with all the great games out there. I typically play wingspan with people who wouldn't be up for anything more (wingspan is a stretch). Still I love the theme so maybe I'll give it a chance.

@@PeteQuad I think it would be farily easy for people already used to wingspan

its a paid review, that's not going to be here

They can say if they like it, or is that off limits on this channel?

Others who have received a copy for review have stated whether they liked the game or not. One couple even giving a rating out of 10. Monique & Naveen didn't seem very excited about it. They didn't answer my questions either so I assume they didn't like it.

I had the same question: Was it fun?

Thats not relevant. Form your own opinion. Reviewers shouldn't be making decisions for you.

@@Wylie288 well the video title also says “our thoughts” and I was hoping for more of their thoughts on the game. Isn’t that relevant?

@@Wylie288 I form my own opinions, they were not that thrilled with Expeditions and I ended up getting it partly because of the reasons they gave for not being thrilled by it. I think discussing the fun factor of a game is kinda crucial. If I just consider the look of the game I would buy it in a flash, but if these two say it’s boring as hell, I can research some more. Thanks for caring.

The idea how reviewers (and mainly youtube reviewers) work is that you get to know the people that make these videos, get to know their tastes and preferences, what they are enthousiastic about and what not. Then you compare and contrast this what how you yourself like those games, to see where you interject and overlap or where you go across or completely outside of your interests. Reviewing games is an art, but it is also an extremely useful tool for us viewers to learn if you would like something. I've gotten many great tips for movies, videogames, boardgames and other media from reviewers. For example: I know both Naveen and Monique like 'A Feast for Odin' a lot, which is also a game I enjoy a ton myself. You still have to like the game or the premise of the game to begin with, but having a lot of overlapping games means you can trust their opinion to be a good baseline.

The points for dragons are listed in the top-right of the card. It's a different symbol, because feathers are less thematic to dragons.

@@HexStarDragon thanks! I hadn’t seen that

I had similar thoughts about the personal goals, the bonus cards give life to an otherwise directionless game. Not only does it make the game more challenging for very advanced players, it gives some guidelines on what birds to collect and how to play for intermediate players. This game seems to replace this 'advanced' mechanic with the Guild wheel, which seems fun, but much harder to grasp for newer players.

Isn't far shore just a reskin? This game is fundamentally different. The action set isn't even comparable.

Wyrmspan is a little more differentiated than farshore, but farshore's definitely not just a reskin. Farshore changed up the worker placement places a lot, and added two new systems. (the boat and maps) The two really new things that wyrmspan does is the dragon guild and the exacavation action. The other 4 actions are the same: activate one of three rows or play a card. And then they did a bit of a mix up on the rewards for the actions and the action cubes/coins.

That's so abstract and barely relates to the theme.

@@12345678abracadabraIts got a more tied in theme than most peoples thematic games. Yall just make shit up because its popular to hate on certain games and when you can't come up with a reason you just default to bullshit like "The theme doesn't work" when it factually and objectively does.

Exactly! I too see the theme being greatly connected with the mechanics in Wingspan. I don't see why Wingspan seems to get more criticism about not being thematic enough, when there are tons of popular games with less theme presented as there are more thematic then they actually are.

It will be available on the Stonemaier Games store starting Jan 31st, 2024.

Thank you!@@cindykee3719

Agreed. Though I have to say with online play that has only the base game, there are a lot of 'optimized' strategies that focus on cheap birds that are generating easy points and resources and filling it up with high point value birds and a full grassland to generate many points in the last few turns. The base game is a little unbalanced. With the addition of way more birds, (mainly engine cards) and more diversity of end of round goals and bonus cards this is much improved.

I dunno, maybe a good game?

you are the only person I have seen feel this way

Imagine only caring about theme and not gameplay like a loser

@@Wylie288Buddy, we’re both watching board game videos on RU-vid. There ain’t no winners here. Embrace it.

Exactly!

@@Wylie288 calm down. This is uncalled for. He was just stating things, objectively even. If anybody is the looser, it is you because you can't stand a normal discussion and can't stand other people's opinions and even doses of objectivity.

you're missing out..