Wingspan

After the little trains, it was time for the little birds. Much as the Viral Marketing Stegosaurus annoys me, Wingspan is pleasant: very light, quick, and relaxed enough that anyone can play it without effort or anxiety.

At its core it is an engine builder, except its engine never gets the chance to become some monstrous, self-sustaining machine. You build something small and functional, use it for a while, and the game ends before you feel you have really assembled a substantial engine.

The cards and their powers provide the main variety between games, especially once the European birds are included. There are several clever ideas there, but throwing everything into one pile and shuffling means that the course of a game can depend far too much on what happens to appear. Sometimes an interesting sequence emerges; other times, it is simply whatever nonsense comes out.

It certainly did not put me off. It did not thrill me either. But because it is so quick and effortless, it is one of those games I will happily play. I just cannot take it very seriously, and I am not sure I want to.

Updated session

The later games with the European birds did not improve my opinion. The new cards genuinely have interesting, very clever powers, but the “put everything in and shuffle” approach raises the entropy so much that I ultimately prefer the base game on its own. I would like some way for cards to leave and enter the mix, so there could be a little more strategy and a little less random silliness.