So I’m continuing my posts about Wingspan based on the drip drip of information that is slowly being released.

Somehow I missed the first bit of information, because it should have been in the previous post. But I’m making up for it now. Once again before I start the photos used in this post are copyright Stonemaier Games, I’m using them without permission because I’m a rebel.

“We’ve never designed a cardboard dice tower, so I reached out to the experts at TowerRex. They designed the template, and Beth Sobel illustrated it. It’s a 2-piece component, and it’s designed for easy storage–simply lay the tower horizontally into the tray and place it in the box according to the storage guide on the side of the box.(I’ve exploded out that part of the image Jamey provided.) ”

First wow. Love the fact a dice tower is included, and it looks cool. Looking at the storage guide I’m not going to be too worried about wear and tear on the cardboard. And it’s great that they have actually designed the contents of the game to take into account storing of the dice tower.

But let’s look at the rest of the photo as well. The eggs look to be in the same storage containers used for the resources in Scythe. I actually like those a lot. So much so I bought a pack of ten to use with other games. I hope an extra two are included to store the cardboard tokens. The storage guide hints at there will be two provided containers of some sort.

Looking at the storage guide we can see there will be goal tiles, so I’m jumping to the conclusion that these will be randomly selected at the start of each game. And naturally there appears to be a mat for these goals to go on. Will we see players claim goals as they achieve them, and new ones get revealed. Or will they be goals that are there for the whole of the game, and can be claimed by whoever completes them? Or a combination of the two?

There will also be player mats, a score pad, and action cubes (if I’ve read the blurry text correctly). So will we be selecting actions on a turn based on our player mats and birds that make up our engine? I’m whistling in the wind here really, as I don’t have any insight into what is actually going to happen. But I’m guessing that the player mats will be basic actions you can take.

There was a bit more information given about the dice in the game and how they are used.

“The food dice in Wingspan are an example of input randomness (the randomness happens first, and then you make a choice–the randomness doesn’t make the choice for you). Basically, whenever you gather food from the birdfeeder, you remove a die from the tray and gain the corresponding food token. If the tray is empty (or if all dice show the same face and you don’t want that food), you toss all of the dice back into the tower. And if you still really aren’t getting the food you want, when playing bird cards, any 2 food tokens always equals any 1 food token.”

What I like about this bit of information is that firstly Jamey explains what the technical design term is that he uses. We then get told how the dice are used. But what I like from this snippet is that there is a mechanic to mitigate bad dice rolls. That’s important. You don’t want to keep having to reroll to try and get the resource you are after. Two for one seems a pretty standard conversion rate.

Then hot off the presses yesterday some photos of the Automa – solo play side of things were released.

“The Automa system uses cards to simulate an intelligent opponent (without requiring all the upkeep of actually taking turns for a player who isn’t there). Wingspan’s Automa includes a separate rulebook and a total of 16 cards, my favorite of which is the cleverly named “Automubon expert-level” card.”

As you can see it follows the same format as the other Stonemaier Games. It’s nice that it is there, but it’s not a side I’ve ever used with any of the games (so far). But these posts have peaked the interest of my friend Jonathan who does play much more solo games than me. So he will like this option for sure.

Ok that’s it for this post.