{"id":368439,"date":"2021-11-17T17:03:03","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T14:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/wingspan-the-bird-board-game-that-encourages-collaboration-not-competition\/"},"modified":"2021-11-17T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T14:03:03","slug":"wingspan-the-bird-board-game-that-encourages-collaboration-not-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wingspan-the-bird-board-game-that-encourages-collaboration-not-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"#Wingspan, the bird board game that encourages collaboration, not competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Wingspan, the bird board game<\/a> that encourages collaboration, not competition<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Move over, Monopoly. Hop on the bus, Battleship. Today\u2019s board games are more into nature and teamwork than money and war.\n <\/div>\n
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\"Sales<\/p>\n

Sales of board games like Wingspan skyrocketed as people looked to fill the long hours during the pandemic lockdowns (Photograph by Jennifer Roberts)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Just before the pandemic hit, a new board game arrived in hobby stores: Wingspan<\/em>, a gorgeous tabletop game in vibrant hues with pastel accents. Players carefully nurture their aviaries with worms, cherries and field mice to collect bird cards\u2014with meticulously hand-painted California condors, yellow-billed cuckoos and many others\u2014that then lay eggs to populate the reserve and form an interconnected ecosystem. Competition is low while collaboration is high\u2014the principal goal being robust bird populations for all players\u2014making it almost antithetical to zero-sum games like Risk<\/em> or Monopoly<\/em>. Yet the admittedly slow-sounding Wingspan\u00a0<\/em>has sold 1.3 million copies and is no longer available at many retailers\u2014you\u2019d be lucky to get your hands on a copy this season.<\/p>\n

Wingspan <\/em>is something of a Cinderella story. Elizabeth Hargrave, a health policy analyst in Maryland, found herself discouraged by the usual board game tropes like trains, outer space and castles. Within her growing circle of gamers, alongside a moratorium on castles, Hargrave began developing and play-testing a game based on one of her passions: birdwatching.<\/p>\n

Like birdwatching, playing board games is a quaint hobby that made an unlikely comeback with those looking to fill long hours during COVID lockdowns. Business has been good, says owner John Engel of Mission: Fun & Games in St. Albert, Alta., but Wingspan <\/em>does better by specifically app<\/a>ealing to new gamers\u2014or those circling back to games 30 years after they last played Yahtzee<\/em>. \u201cWingspan <\/em>is what we call a gateway game\u2014an entry-level game designed specifically for non-gamers who then get hooked and stay with the hobby,\u201d says Engel.<\/p>\n

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Similar bestsellers include Sagrada<\/em>, in which players roll colourful dice to create stained-glass windows fit for Barcelona\u2019s Sagrada Fam\u00edlia; Parks<\/em>, in which \u201chikers\u201d collect \u201cmemories\u201d from 45 real-life U.S. National Parks; Azul<\/em>, based on the Portuguese art of ceramic tile making; and Kanagawa<\/em>, in which players are disciples of the Japanese Edo period painter Hokusai, collecting \u201charmony points\u201d to create a perfect landscape. Gateway games are often based on gentler topics than the usual money and war activities. They move slowly but can be played in an hour or two, and are designed to be beautiful so they pop off the shelves for browsers.<\/p>\n

Alongside hardcore Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>-style fanatics, space is being made for more casual gamers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in a family that played Scrabble<\/em> and dominoes all the time,\u201d says marketer Becky Young. When the pandemic hit, she went looking for games to entertain her 10-year-old daughter, who proved to be impressively good at even the more complicated ones, like their newest acquisition, Tiny Towns<\/em>, which is officially designed for ages 14 and up. \u201cWe play a game most weekends, maybe for an hour or two, but we\u2019re not all-night players,\u201d says Young, who hails from Niagara Falls, Ont., and now lives in Seattle.<\/p>\n

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Would-be game designers used to have to pitch their ideas to gatekeeping publishers, but not any more. \u201cKickstarter changed everything for us,\u201d says Young, who just printed a thousand copies of her card game, Rainbow Rabbits<\/em>. As always, crowdfunding for the masses has pros and cons. \u201cEveryone who had a game idea floating around their head decided that this was the year,\u201d says Young. \u201cThe bar is so high now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wingspan<\/em> took a more traditional path. After a few years spent perfecting the bird-based game, Hargrave pitched and sold her idea to developers at Gen Con, the annual game designers\u2019 convention in Indianapolis. (In lieu of an advance, Hargrave wisely gets paid in royalties.) \u201cThat this game that just exploded has a woman designer is so exciting for the rest of us,\u201d says Katia Howatson, a game designer from Compton, Que. Howatson is currently at Gen Con pitching Stamp Society<\/em>, the working title for a game about her childhood love of collecting stamps, and selling merch to a new cohort of aesthetically minded gamers. \u201cI use board game pieces to make mosaics, take photographs and then print calendars and coffee mugs,\u201d she says. Howatson has even sold Wingspan<\/em>-inspired coasters.<\/p>\n

In the modern field of game design, old standards like Sorry <\/em>or Trouble <\/em>probably wouldn\u2019t get made. \u201cTop art has almost become the norm in board games; otherwise it won\u2019t sell,\u201d says Howatson. Beneath that, however, the elements of most board games are so similar that would-be designers can actually purchase a starter kit. \u201cIt\u2019s a big old box of stuff\u2014dice, cubes, cards, tokens\u2014plus blank tiles and a dry-erase board,\u201d says Gabe Barrett, founder of the Board Game Design Lab in Honduras. His kit earned more than $72,000 on Kickstarter and has already shipped to more than 1,500 aspiring creators. Somewhere out there, someone is already working on the new Wingspan<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the December 2021 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cWinning is for the birds.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
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