Wingspan

 Switch
Wingspan Image
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 7 Ratings

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  • Summary: Relaxing Strategy Game About Birds for 1 to 5 players

    The officially licensed digital adaptation of Wingspan, the winner of the prestigious 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres board game award. You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to    Relaxing Strategy Game About Birds for 1 to 5 players

    The officially licensed digital adaptation of Wingspan, the winner of the prestigious 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres board game award.

    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.

    In Wingspan up to 5 players compete to build up their nature preserves in a limited number of turns. Each beautiful bird that you add to your preserve makes you better at laying eggs, drawing cards, or gathering food. Many of the 170 unique birds have powers that echo real life: your hawks will hunt, your pelicans will fish, and your geese will form a flock.

    Features
    * Relaxing strategy card game where your goal is to discover and attract the best birds.
    * Single player and multiplayer modes for up to five players.
    * Based on the award winning, competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game.
    * Hundreds of unique, animated birds with their real life sound recordings.
    * Multiple ways to accumulate points with birds, bonus cards and end-of-round goals.
    … Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. Digitally Downloaded
    Dec 29, 2020
    100
    The Nintendo Switch has plenty of excellent board games already available on it. Wingspan is one of the best, if not the best of them. Admittedly the developers were fortunate in that they had the most beautiful, well-designed base material to work with, but rather than do a pedestrian copy/paste of the game to make for a boring digital release or, worse, somehow mess it up by trying to change the game in some way, the team has shown some real respect and appreciation for what makes Wingspan a special experience. Without changing the fundamental appeal of the game, the developers here have taken advantage of the video game medium to enhance the experience in all the right ways. Wingspan, on Nintendo Switch, is nothing short of perfect.
  2. Vandal
    Dec 30, 2020
    90
    Wingspan can feel obtuse and overwhelming at the beginning, but the more you play, the more you discover the depth its concept offers, and when it finally clicks it becomes something excellent.
  3. Starbit
    Jan 19, 2021
    90
    Wingspan is an example of how it is possible to take a board game and carry out a near-perfect conversion work to turn it into a functional and enjoyable video game. Nearly every element here has been the target of a marvelous work and players will find themselves welcomed by a very broad and encompassing tutorial, a lovely audiovisual world, an addictive multiplayer (as well as single player) experience and sharp, fine-tuned controls. Wingspan should be held as a benchmark for how to convert board games into electronic entertainment.
  4. Switch Player
    Jan 12, 2021
    70
    Wingspan is a delightful introduction to American birdlife and complex card games. With beautiful illustrations and cerebral gameplay, it’s one to savour. Hardcore players may find the strategy lacking skill-wise, but this port is an excellent accompaniment to the board game.
  5. Pure Nintendo
    Jan 27, 2021
    70
    Wingspan is a calm, thought-provoking bird-watching game with fun visuals and sounds and simple controls.
  6. Gamezebo
    Jan 19, 2021
    70
    The presentation is superb, with hand-drawn artwork and a relaxing ambient soundtrack. This all adds to the feeling that Wingspan is well aware it is targeting a very small niche. Even with that in mind we’re still not sure Wingspan needed a digital gaming iteration, and if you can get your hands on the physical version we’d recommend that as a first resort – even if it is triple the price. If not then this a more than serviceable alternative.
  7. TheGamer
    Dec 29, 2020
    60
    If the Switch is the only choice you have, it's not the worst option. This is perfectly playable and works fine. But if you can somehow play this in person with your small group of socially distanced friends or on your PC while talking through Discord, then that would be the optimal way to experience this lovely little game.

See all 12 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. PoundShopOrwell
    Oct 8, 2021
    9
    I play this every single day. The perfect wind down.

    I’ve only held off a 10 because although this is a near perfect conversion I do think    I play this every single day. The perfect wind down.

    I’ve only held off a 10 because although this is a near perfect conversion I do think the UI could be slightly easier to navigate and the graphics are a little flatter than perhaps they could’ve been. I nice bird feeder asset or card shuffle animations etc might’ve really cemented this as a video game experience.

    All in all, almost perfect. Worth every Penny.    … Expand
  2. JonathanPalermo
    Dec 31, 2020
    9
    I was extremely excited to grab this game upon release as my son just got a Switch, so I was eagerly awaiting the moment to download it. BeingI was extremely excited to grab this game upon release as my son just got a Switch, so I was eagerly awaiting the moment to download it. Being extremely familiar with the board game I have played it dozens and dozens of times, possibly closer to 50 games.
    Two expansions have been released for the board game so far; the Europe expansion and the Oceania expansion; which includes birds from Australia (my home country). The Switch doesn't cover these two expansions yet.
    I have played five games on the Switch so far and knew what I wanted to include in this review from the completions of game #2. The last three games i played really cemented mechanic knowledge.

    In the first game, you really are hit with difficult controls. Although you may be familiar with the board game and I know it inside out, there were some bizarre implementations of game mechanics. By the end of the first game, I was finally getting confident with some of the finer UI mechanics on the Switch; an example being a really swift way to check a particular habitat for each of you opponents, in a very easy way.

    In the last few turns I was definitely confident to play vs strangers on line (my first game was with a friend who introduced me to the board game and even he was struggling with some of the controls. If you can get over the hurdle of your mindset going with "play a bird; pick a habitat" and instead go with "pick a HABITAT; play a bird" you will do so much better in the long run.

    One really cool feature that I noticed is that illustrations of birds in your hand and in the bird tray are static; once you play them into the different habitats, they animate to life. They also have unique birdsong if you tap on them and during the game the are always moving within the confines of their individual card; that's pretty awesome.
    One other feature that I loved was that the score card shows you ahead of time just what other end of round goals will score for you in later turns and that makes strategy much easier.

    There are really great attentions to details throughout the game that open up as you play along, and with each play, I find more and more.

    I think that this is a great port of the board game onto the switch; i just dont know if its a great board game port onto the Switch since this is my first time playing a board game port. I currently cannot put the Switch down, since it scratches the Wingspan itch during a time (Covid) when I cant get the game out to play with friends.
    I hope that the two expansions are developed for the Switch really soon.

    I urge you to pick this up ASAP, but realise that there is a bit of a learning curve for the mechanics. That being said play some birds and feed them today!    … Expand
  4. Solgux
    Jan 2, 2021
    8
    Beautiful and wonderful game! My family and I are huge fans of the tabletop version so I was very excited to have a digital version since itBeautiful and wonderful game! My family and I are huge fans of the tabletop version so I was very excited to have a digital version since it hard to get people together lately.

    PROS: Just like the source material, the visual style and artwork is wonderful. The subtle puppet animations for each bird are a cute touch, and the narrated bird facts are honestly the highlight for me. -The game has a nice assortment of tooltips to help you through phases and card effects. It’s very nice so you don’t have to keep consulting the rule sheet if you haven’t played for awhile.

    -Playing against the AI is enough a challenge to just kill some time, and it has an online mode, which I intend to try soon.

    -It’s cheap! If you've had your eye on the physical copy and were put off by the price point, or had issue getting it when the stock was limited, digital may be the answer!

    - It’s a very faithful recreation of the board game.

    CONS: The interface is a tad cluttered, and the controls are not intuitive. After playing a practice game, they came to me easy enough.

    - I had a couple bugs where I tried resolving too many effects at once (I think) and the game would not proceed. Reloading the auto save from the home menu fixed it. I chalk that up to something a simple patch update could fix.

    - This version only has the base game, 170 birds. It’s plenty to play with for now, but I hope for quick updates to add Eurasia and Oceania expansions so the digital game doesn’t feel too far behind the physical one.

    THOUGHTS: Some games you play because they are challenging and competitive and others you get because they make you feel good. WINGSPAN is definitely the latter. Settle in for some chill music, bird songs, and did-you-know bird facts! :)    … Expand
  5. MedusaMadman77
    Jan 20, 2021
    5
    Fun, but extremely unbalanced both on and offline (for the good and the bad). If you really want to play, stick to the board game. ThisFun, but extremely unbalanced both on and offline (for the good and the bad). If you really want to play, stick to the board game. This version needs an overhaul. Maybe they'll patch it. Maybe for $10 on sale, but without some work, it's just not fun for more than a game or two. At least the touch control is nice.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

100
#100 Best Switch Game of 2020

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