Wingspan Review (Otissimo)
As a big fan of the Wingspan board game I had high expectations which were not met by the digital version. It does lots well, but has plenty of flaws, some small, but some are big. I'll start with the positives, in no particular order:
-You can play solo or against bots, plus do Automa as an alternative single player experience. This is the main reason I got the game. The AI is not quite as good as other people, it's around the level of someone with a dozen games under their belt.
-It looks and sounds great. There are voice overs of the fun bird fact when you play a bird. If you choose one of the view modes you have an animated row of pretty bird cards for each of your habitats. The background birdsong and specific calls when a bird is played work really well. Great sound design!
-The scores are easily comparable during the game, so you can check others nectar and round end progress easily. This is great, and easier to do than in the boardgame. It also gives you a running total score.
-Similarly your progress towards bonus cards is shown on the card throughout the game, which helps with selecting which to pick if you draw new ones.
Negatives, from biggest to smallest:
-You can't see the whole board or even all the birds in your player mat. There are 2 views: You can see a single habitat at a time, which looks lovely, but also has a slow animation when you switch to a new habitat. Or you can have an overlay that looks like the boardgame, with all the habitats, but you can only see 1/3 of each bird card at a time. You can either view the stats of the bird, or the power, or the fact. This really disjoints the experience, it just needs the whole of the cards to be visible. If space is an issue have a mouse over zoom or similar. MTG Arena handles swathes of cards well. Also an easy way to flick to another player's mat (arrow keys?) would be great, to check for adjacent birds/food.
-There is lots of clicking yes to things. Possibly a preference thing, but I'd like more automation and just use undo if I need to. One example of this is at the start of your turn you get an individual notification for all of your 'between turn' successes. To get each one you click, then you click again to start your turn. The undo button also restarts the whole action, not just one iteration of it.
-Trying to select a card in hand when you have lots is difficult with a mouse. Keys can be used, but with 10+ cards it's a lot of scrolling.
-The controls are fixed. I'd like scroll wheel to look through my hand of cards, but it's not possible.
-Some pronunciation is incorrect with the voice over. Galah for sure, and I suspect some of the Maori names too.
Bear in mind this is my opinion as an experienced player of the Wingspan boardgame, which I think is better in most respects. My partner is a bit newer to Wingspan, and she was actively frustrated by the end of the digital playthrough. My recommendation: stick with the boardgame if you can