‘Wyrmspan’ Board Game Review
I can already imagine how Apiary designer Connie Vogelmann pitched her idea for Wyrmspan to Jamie Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games – and although I am sure it was a lot more complex than this and probably a lot smarter – in my imagination it goes something like this “do you know how much people love birds? Well, guess what else people love…. Dragons!” and perhaps things evolved naturally from there. I say evolved deliberately because that’s what Wyrmspan is to Wingspan. It’s not a replacement or a sequel, and yet it’s definitely not a completely different game either… It’s something very similar, but refined following millions of plays and what probably amounts to about 100,000 or more written pieces of feedback about the original Wingspan.
Firstly, let’s address the theme – dragons. Wyrmspan comes with just under 200 dragon cards in the base game, and whilst these are all obviously imaginary, the game takes inspiration from Wingspan by more or less replicating the same card data. Each dragon will only live in certain habitats (which might be one, two or all of the three available), has a preference for specific food (from milk, meat, diamonds and such) and has a personality type such as aggressive, or helpful. Dragons are nicely drawn as well, with pleasant watercolour art that is pretty unique from one card to the next, despite the number of them on offer.
How the dragon theme translates to you will depend entirely on your preference, but personally I enjoy anything with high fantasy, whilst also still maintaining a separate interest in birds, animals and nature. So for me, even though Wyrmspan and Wingspan are pretty similar, I really will try hard to find space in my collection for both. Others might have a stronger preference for one theme or the other, and I dare say that the two games are similar enough that if you hate the basic gameplay in Wingspan, then I don’t think that Wyrmspan is going to change your mind.
That said, let’s talk about the mechanical differences between Wyrmspan and it’s more terrestrial, avian sibling. Firstly, Wyrmspan uses the same style of player board as Wingspan, with three rows of habitats for your dragons, and a mechanism of additional payments (in the form of eggs) as you play cards further to the right of your player board. On the left side, you’ll find information to help you understand the structure and cost of taking a turn, and you’ll see some useful reminders such as the rule that allows two resources to be exchanged for any one of a different kind, at any time. So far, so Wingspan.
In terms of new features and differentiation, Wyrmspan introduces a new guild board that goes in the centre of the table – and there are four guilds to choose from (usually at random) that each do different things. The main thing that the guild board does is give players a reason to look up from their own board, helping take Wyrmspan away from being the relatively solitary experience that Wingspan can often feel like. To be fair, Wingspan did similar to this in the Wingspan: Asia variant, but that catered exclusively for two players whereas the guild board is an integral part of Wyrmspan at all player counts. Wyrmspan also comes with an improved objective board, which allows players to clearly see the current and future objectives, as well as who scored what in the previous rounds.
In terms of gameplay, the changes are fairly minor in terms of rules overhead, but make quite a big difference to how Wyrmspan plays. Firstly, more or less all actions in the game involve the payment of a silver coin – for example, if you recruit a new dragon, you’ll play it from hand paying the cost shown on it (in food) but you’ll also pay a silver coin. When you decide to explore (which is when you send an explorer to visit either your top, middle or bottom row of dragon caves) you’ll first pay a coin – and so on. This means that the number of turns that each player may have is limited by their wealth, not by how many cubes they have (as it was in Wingspan).
Dragons must now be recruited not only into the correct row, but also into spaces that have an unoccupied cave in them. Caves are a new and completely separate set of cards that have to be placed on open spaces (also costing a coin) before a dragon can then go onto them. The benefit of placing a cave is that you’ll almost always get an immediate bonus (such as resources, an extra dragon card or even a coin) and/or a benefit when you take the explore action later. Caves, along with the explore action, make taking other actions more interesting – because as your explorer moves from left to right along a cave, it will get more and more bonuses depending on how many caves and/or dragons you have there.
Between the guild board, the addition of caves, the exploring mechanic and the use of coins to take actions, Wyrmspan ends up feeling quite different to Wingspan whilst still being pretty obviously cut from the same cloth. As I said earlier, this is more about evolution than revolution, and there’s no doubt that Wyrmspan has more of a multiplayer feel to it, with more interaction between players and greater interest in what others are doing. It also has more refined, interesting mechanisms that lead to turns that feel more generous, and decisions that feel more meaningful. In Wingspan, I often took turns collecting cards or food because I needed to – and not because I wanted to. In Wyrmspan, cards and resources are mainly earned through exploring, and that just feels more enjoyable to do.
Overall, Wyrmspan is still a Wingspan-inspired game that shares many aspects with the older game. As I mentioned before, I’ll be trying to keep both games in my collection – because if nothing else I feel that I’ve amassed a really nice “collection” of Wingspan products that have value to me beyond the actual game. However, if I were to pick one of these games to play with a completely new player who had no bias for one theme or another, I’d probably choose Wyrmspan. This sequel somehow manages to add a lot of little features and changes, without any additional rules overhead and no negative consequences. It’s marginal, but in 2024 Wyrmspan is the better game, and more than a worthy successor to Wingspan.
