Blue Prince
You inherit a manor with forty-five rooms and are told to find the forty-sixth. The floor plan redraws itself every morning. It…
On the Desk/Currently playing
Currently playing · Board game · 2019
Wingspan
Elizabeth Hargrave · Stonemaier Games
Active No. 0104
An engine builder about attracting birds to a preserve. Kennerspiel des Jahres 2019. Over 170 birds, illustrated, each with a real wingspan printed on the card.
- Started
- 25 Dec 2021 · 1,723 days ago
- Progress
- 41 plays logged. Jill favours the wetland. This is not a coincidence.
- In the collection
- No. 0104 — On shelf · 41 plays logged
- Elsewhere
- stonemaiergames.com →
Catalogued as No. 0104. Forty-one plays logged, which makes it the second most-played object in the collection after The Crew.
The engine is a clean three-habitat tableau: forest gains food, grassland lays eggs, wetland draws cards. Every bird you place extends a chain in one of the three, and the game is essentially a question about when to stop building the engine and start scoring with it. It is medium weight and it plays in an hour, which is why it gets to the table on a Tuesday when Spirit Island does not.
The reason it sold two and a half million copies is not the engine. It is that Hargrave is a birder and it shows in the data: 170-odd real species, each card carrying an actual wingspan measurement, an actual nest type, an actual habitat. The powers are derived from real behaviour. The Northern Shrike caches food because Northern Shrikes cache food. The Society finds this deeply agreeable — it is a catalogue that happens to be a game, which is very close to our own project.
On the wetland. Jill has won 29 of 41. Jill draws cards. The Society has no formal position on whether these facts are related and has declined to open an investigation.