Wingspansion Preorders, Charity Auction, & other news
In this email:
Wingspan European expansion & Swift Start pack available for preorder
Upcoming events (Extra Life, Tabletop Network, BGG)
Recent press and podcasts
Bird of the month: Yellow-bellied sapsucker
Game News
Wingspan European Expansion Available for Pre-Order:This expansion focuses on 81 birds from Europe. They all have new abilities, including a set with round-end abilities. It's all Also: purple eggs, extra food tokens, and a new scorepad!
You can preorder today from Stonemaier Games at https://stonemaier-games.myshopify.com/. Or preorder from your favorite retailer for the retail release, which is on November 22.
Swift Start pack is also available today: Because so many folks new to gaming have been jumping into Wingspan, I was inspired to make a tutorial module. The Swift Start pack includes starting hands for 4 different players, along with a tutorial card that walks each player through their first 4 turns using that starting hand.
If you're already playing Wingspan, this isn't really something you need. But it is in all new copies of the base game going forward, so Stonemaier decided to make it available as a stand-alone thing for anyone with an earlier version of the game.
Unique Wingspan boxes on offer in charity auction: Every year Stonemaier Games holds a charity auction where several board game content creators choose different charities, and auction off special Stonemaier items. This year, the items on offer are copies of Wingspan with personalized boxes: You pick your favorite bird from the game, and Stonemaier will print a unique box with that bird on the cover. You also get a full set of MeepleSource tokens and a copy of the European Expansion. The auction runs just through November 8 at 11:00 am CST.
Upcoming events
Extra Life: This Saturday I'll be at the Labyrinth Games Extra Life event. I haven't committed to stay up all night but I was certainly happy to help get things kicked off with a Wingspan tournament!
Tabletop Network: This is a game designer conference Nov 18-19, tacking 2 days onto the beginning of BGG.con. I've been working on slides for my talk, which is about women playing Wingspan, what we know about what women seek in games, and what we can do about it as designers.
BGG.con: I'm a "Special Guest" -- I'm sure there will be a way for you to find me!
Recent Interviews, etc.
Wingspan is in the New York Times Holiday Gift Guide games section
Paste put Wingspan on their The 25 Best Board Games of the 2010s
And NPR's Here and Now ran a story on Wingspan.
At Essen I did an interview (in English) with a Danish podcast called Papskubber
Bird of the Month
Most North American woodpeckers stay put all year, but yellow-bellied sapsuckers migrate. DC is the northern edge of their winter range, and they've arrived. Earlier this week I got a great look at a pair of them, hanging out in the top of a persimmon tree. You can even kind of see the yellow belly on this one!