Wyrmspan (board game)

Last updated
Wyrmspan
Wyrmspan Board Game Box.png
Designers Connie Vogelmann
IllustratorsClémentine Campardou [1]
Publishers Stonemaier Games
Publication2024
Players1-5
Playing time90 minutes
Website www.stonemaiergames.com

Wyrmspan is a board game for one to five players designed by Connie Vogelmann and published by Stonemaier Games in 2024. It is a card-driven, engine-building board game in which players compete to excavate labyrinths and entice dragons to the sanctuary of their caves. Based on the acclaimed board game Wingspan, Wyrmspan is themed around dragons instead of birds and hosts slightly more complex game mechanics. Upon its release Wyrmspan received widespread positive reviews and achieved the largest single-day product sale quantity in Stonemaier Games history.

Contents

Gameplay

In Wyrmspan players excavate caves and entice dragons, represented by 183 uniquely illustrated cards, before using their adventurer to explore for resources and victory points. [2] Inspired by Wingspan, Wyrmspan is a card-driven, engine-building game that increases the complexity of Wingspan. [3] On their turn, players can take one of three actions. They can excavate by playing cave cards in the Crimson Cavern, Golden Grotto or Amethyst Abyss in the leftmost available space, each triggering a when-played ability. [2] They may also entice a dragon, but only on spaces where a cave has already been played, placing the dragon on top of the cave card. The first column in each of the three rows starts already excavated. [4] Players can also explore by sending their adventurer to one of the three caves and receiving resources, collecting what is printed on the mat and from any dragons with an adventurer icon until they reach a stop sign. [5] The more dragons that are played, the better the explore action will be. Besides when-activated powers represented by the adventurer icon, other dragon power types include when-played, once-per-round, and end-game. [4] Each of the three action options will use an action coin and the adventure action will also cost eggs if you explore each cave more than once. [5] Throughout the game players will also be working towards public objectives at the end of each round and advancement on the guild track, which will give players rewards as they gain more esteem. [2]

At the end of the game players score points for the dragon cards on their board, the dragon guild, end game abilities on dragons, public objectives, accumulated eggs, cached resources, tucked cards, and remaining coins and items in certain combinations. The player with the most points wins. [4]

Development

Wyrmspan was designed by Connie Vogelmann, an attorney in Washington, DC, who released her first board game Apiary in 2023. [6] [7] The game is a spiritual successor to Wingspan, a hugely successful board game by Elizabeth Hargrave, who worked as a developer for Wyrmspan. [8] Unlike Wingspan, whose theme revolves around birds, Wyrmspan’s theme is dragons, as proposed by Jamey Stegmaier. [9] This is a theme that both Vogelmann and Clémentine Campardou, the artist for Wyrmspan, researched heavily to create diverse dragons and cohesive categorizations. [10] Jamey Stegmaier, president of Stonemaier Games, recruited Connie to design Wyrmspan after seeing a market for it and receiving fan requests for other creature themes. [9] Stonemaier games is a company based in St. Louis which previously published Scythe, Apiary, and Wingspan. [11]

While working on Wyrmspan Connie Vogelmann described her first change from Wingspan as the addition of cave cards and excavating spaces for the dragons to live in, which felt very thematic. [8] The team wanted Wyrmspan to retain the engine building and friendly feeling of Wingspan while upping the complexity slightly. [8] This also included the addition of hatchlings, which activate in three steps unlike normal dragon cards and have big payoffs. [6] Some mechanics that Vogelmann tested but didn’t make it into Wyrmspan include bag building and market mechanics for drafting resources, but a mechanic that did get added to the final game, the Guild Track, was actually added to fix a resource problem that turned into a “happy accident." [8]

Accessibility

Stonemaier Games has begun working towards making their board games more accessible, as seen in some of the additionally purchase options for Wingspan like vision-friendly cards, and this effort carried over into the design of Wyrmspan. [12] This work includes increasing accessibility for colorblind and low-vision players, which they have done in several ways including hiring freelance proofreaders and an accessibility reviewer. [13] Some of the accessibility features in Wyrmspan include large font sizes, no flavor text or visual noise, double-coded attributes through both text and color, and positional double-coding. [13]

Reception

Critical reviews

Wyrmspan received widespread positive reviews upon release, with many noting that the mechanics are a step up from Wingspan. [14] [15] [16] Dicetower stated that the guild mat and resource gathering were an excellent addition, and that removing the dice tower from the game was one of the best possible choices that could’ve been made. Mechanically, they said, Wyrmspan is “if not at least as good, better than Wingspan.” [14] However, they were not huge fans of the theme and aesthetic, noting that they didn’t like how the art looked in practice and that the Dragon information book was unnecessary fluff. [14] 3 Minute Board Games said that Wyrmspan is a tight engine building game where you are trying to get as many points and moves as possible, and an all around upgrade to Wingspan. [15] Meeple University listed Wyrmspan in their Top Games in January 2024 list, noting that the pace was completely different, with it being slower to get going but leading to huge combos at the end. They said it was a step up from Wingspan and they appreciate the change to resource gathering. [16]

Rahdo stated in their review that Wyrmspan achieved a “perfect balance” between keeping the heart and joy of Wingspan alive while also creating a game that feels new and unique. [17] They like that it adds an extra element of timing due to the sequence of actions that build off of each other, like needing to excavate to entice, and the addition of drawing two different sets of cards into your hand. [17] They also enjoyed the tension of an exploration action costing more each time you use it so that there's no game breaking engine runs with eggs, and that the game felt less random, especially with the birdfeeder being cut. [17] Before You Play said that they love the diverse art in Wyrmspan but found some minor frustrations with stacking dragon cards on top of cave cards, making the game more fiddly. [18] They also said they enjoyed the harder and tighter play that built off of the base of Wingspan, the easier to get food resources, the removal of the egg spamming problem, and the new dragon guild board. They appreciated that the game felt more flexible and eliminated a lot of sources of frustration found in Wingspan. [18]

Sales

Wyrmspan was the largest single-day product sale quantity of Stonemaier Games ever as of February 2024, with a little over 16,000 copies sold in the first 24 hours. [19]

Related Research Articles

<i>Talisman</i> (board game) Fantasy adventure board game

Talisman: The Magical Quest Game is a fantasy-themed adventure board game for two to six players, originally designed and produced by Games Workshop. The game was first released in 1983 and has gone through three revisions. As of 2021, the fourth edition (2008) is the latest version. The board game sold over 800,000 units by 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">D&D Adventurers League</span> Tabletop role-playing game association

D&D Adventurers League is the organized play association for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) roleplaying game which is officially administered by D&D's publisher, Wizards of the Coast. It was rebranded with the launch of D&D's 5th Edition in 2014. Prior to 2014, it was known as the Role Playing Game Association Network. The organization was originally established by D&D's previous publisher, TSR, Inc., in 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meeple</span> Small wooden human-like board-game piece

A meeple is a small board-game piece, usually with a stylized human form. They are usually made from wood and painted in bright colors. Meeples have been called an icon of German-style board games ("Eurogames"). The word is a contraction of "my people".

<i>The Sorcerers Cave</i> Fantasy board and card game, published 1978

The Sorcerer's Cave is a fantasy board/card game designed by Terence Peter Donnelly and first published in 1978. Though greatly simplified, it was inspired by the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike D&D, however, Sorcerer's Cave does not require "Dungeon Master" or referee. One of its strengths is that it can be played solo or competitively, as well as cooperatively. Another is the diplomatic aspect of interactions between players with changing agendas. In general, player(s) gather and control a party of adventurers who explore a multi-level dungeon that is randomly generated by drawing area cards from a deck. Encounters include special rooms, traps, monsters, allies, magical items and treasures.

<i>Dominion</i> (card game) Deck-building card game

Dominion is a card game created by Donald X. Vaccarino and published by Rio Grande Games. Originally published in 2008, it was the first deck-building game, and inspired a genre of games building on its central mechanic. Each player begins with a small deck of cards, which they improve by purchasing cards from a common supply that varies from game to game. Cards can help the player's deck function, impede their opponents, or provide victory points. As of December 2022, fifteen expansions to the original Dominion have been released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptozoic Entertainment</span>

Cryptozoic Entertainment is an American publisher of board and card games, trading cards and collectibles based on both licensed and original intellectual properties. The company is well known for its "Cerberus Engine Game", the catch name for its series of deck-building games. Cryptozoic's first game was based on DC Comics characters, having been released in 2012. The Cerberus engine is utilized in various games; all Cerberus games are compatible with each other, allowing gamers to intermix different decks and characters from different universes.

<i>Lords of Waterdeep</i> Board game

Lords of Waterdeep is a German-style board game designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson and published by Wizards of the Coast in 2012. The game is set in Waterdeep, a fictional city in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Players take the roles of the masked rulers of Waterdeep, deploying agents and hiring adventurers to complete quests and increase their influence over the city.

<i>Istanbul</i> (board game) Board game

Istanbul is a Euro-style board game designed by Rüdiger Dorn and illustrated by Andreas Resch and Hans-Georg Schneider, published in 2014 by Pegasus Spiele.

Dead of Winter is a Semi-Cooperative strategy board game for two to five players designed by Jonathan Gilmour and Isaac Vega through Plaid Hat Games. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested colony. Players are faction leaders who must work together to ensure the colony's survival through incoming zombies and lack of supplies. In addition, players have individual, secret win conditions that they must meet to be victorious.

<i>Deus</i> (board game)

Deus is a Civilisation-themed board game designed by Sébastien Dujardin, illustrated by Ian Parovel, Maëva Da Silva, Christine Deschamps & Paul Laffont, published in 2014 by Pearl Games and distributed by Asmodee.

<i>Scythe</i> (board game)

Scythe is a board game for one to five players designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games in 2016. Set in an alternative history version of 1920s Europe, players control factions that produce resources, develop economic infrastructure, and use dieselpunk combat mechs to engage in combat and control territories. Players take up to two actions per turn using individual player boards, and the game proceeds until one player has earned six achievements. At this point, the players receive coins for the achievements they have attained and the territories they control, and the player with the most coins is declared the winner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charterstone</span> 2017 board game

Charterstone is a board game for 1-6 players designed by Jamey Stegmaier and released by Stonemaier Games in 2017.Players work together over a twelve game campaign to build a village, while simultaneously competing to win each game, and ultimately win the campaign. Chartersone was designed as a "legacy board game" meaning that each game played influences, or leaves a legacy, for subsequent games within a larger campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Everdell</span> 2018 board game

Everdell is a board game for 1 to 4 players designed by James Wilson and published by Starling Games in 2018. In the game, players take the role of forest animals building a city over four seasons by collecting resources, recruiting workers, and constructing buildings. The game has been well regarded by reviewers, with its art and components receiving strong praise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wingspan (board game)</span> 2019 board game about birds

Wingspan is a board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games in 2019. It is a card-driven, engine-building board game in which players compete to attract birds to their wildlife reserves. During the game's development process, Hargrave constructed personal charts of birds observed in Maryland, with statistics sourced from various biological databases; the special powers of birds were also selected to resemble real-life characteristics. Upon its release, Wingspan received critical and commercial acclaim for its gameplay, accurate thematic elements, and artwork. The game also won numerous awards, including the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres. Several expansions and a digital edition have been subsequently published.

Elizabeth Hargrave is an American game designer. She has designed several games, including Wingspan, which won the 2019 Kennerspiel des Jahres for best connoisseur game of the year, Tussie-Mussie and Mariposas.

Caverna: The Cave Farmers is a 2013 board game designed by Uwe Rosenberg. It is a complex worker placement strategy game that shares similarities in gameplay and theme with his earlier board game, Agricola, The game's theme revolves around helping a small dwarf family to settle a cave and nearby woodlands and to develop the setting through furnishing caves as well as converting forests into meadows, fields and pastures. Caverna received positive reviews from critics, and two major expansions have been released for the game.

<i>Roll Player</i> Famtasy board game

Roll Player is a euro-style board game designed by Keith Matejka and published in 2016 by Thunderworks Games. In the game, players compete to design the best fantasy adventurer, through dice rolling and card drafting mechanics.

<i>Tapestry</i> (board game) 2019 strategy board game

Tapestry is a 2019 strategy board game designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games.

Ryan Laukat is an American author, and illustrator from Salt Lake City, Utah. He started in 2008, and has worked on a dozen boardgames and illustrations. He founded Red Raven Games in 2011 He is known for the unique art in his boardgames. Many of his games are played using a campaign system and have a story as part of the game mechanism. Ryan Laukat regularly uses the platform Kickstarter to fund the games he published.

Apiary is a tile-based strategy game designed by Connie Vogelmann and published in 2023 by Stonemaier Games. Players control a faction of spacefaring bees as they explore, gather resources, and advance their hive before hibernation.

References

  1. ↑ Hewer, Dave (2024-01-03). "Wyrmspan". Stonemaier Games. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
  2. 1 2 3 Carter, Chase (2024-01-03). "New board game from Scythe and Wingspan makers trades doves for dragons". Dicebreaker . Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  3. ↑ Allen, Richard (2024-01-03). "Wyrmspan, a new 1-5 player competitive tableau and engine-building game, announced". GAMINGTREND. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  4. 1 2 3 "Wyrmspan - How to Play Board Game. Wingspan the Sequel🦅🐉 - Meeple University". Meeple University. 2024-01-22. Retrieved 2024-03-05.
  5. 1 2 Wyrmspan | A Rahdo Runthrough by Amy & Maggie, Rahdo, retrieved 2024-03-05
  6. 1 2 Connie Vogelmann on Wyrmspan & Apiary - TCbH Interviews, The Cardboard Herald, retrieved 2024-03-17
  7. ↑ Dunn, Mike (2023-09-22). "Designer Connie Vogelmann reveals core question at the heart of the Apiary: "What if your workers aged and died?"". GAMINGTREND. Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Didymus-True, Mike (2024-01-10). "How we made Wyrmspan: Designer Connie Vogelmann on creating 2024's hottest game so far -". Board Game Wire. Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  9. 1 2 Wyrmspan Interview - A Conversation With Jamey Stegmaier, BoardGameCo, retrieved 2024-03-17
  10. ↑ "Watercolour Wings: Re-imagining Dragons for Wyrmspan". Blule, The Boutique. 2024-01-06. Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  11. ↑ Hall, Charlie (2023-09-07). "Wingspan publisher Stonemaier Games' next board game is full of bees". Polygon . Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  12. ↑ Design, Dave Hewer (2022-01-03). "How Do You Measure Accessibility?". Stonemaier Games . Retrieved 2024-03-17.
  13. 1 2 Chandler, Brian (2024-01-27). "From Wingspan to Wyrmspan: An Accessibility Journey". Colorblind Games. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
  14. 1 2 3 "Wyrmspan | The Dice Tower". The Dice Tower . Retrieved 2024-03-06.
  15. 1 2 "Wyrmspan in about 3 minutes". 3 Minute Board Games. 2024-03-01. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
  16. 1 2 "Top Games, Updates and Vlog - January 2024 - Meeple University". Meeple University. 2024-02-27. Retrieved 2024-03-06.
  17. 1 2 3 Wyrmspan | Amy & Maggie's Final Thoughts, Rahdo, retrieved 2024-03-06
  18. 1 2 Wyrmspan - Overview & Our Thoughts, Before You Play, retrieved 2024-03-06
  19. ↑ Stegmaier, Jamey (2024-02-01). "Wyrmspan: Thoughts and Strategies from Our Biggest Launch Ever". Stonemaier Games. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.