At last I got to play some games. It seems so long since I last played anything. But in reality it’s only been since Tuesday.

I did open Wyrmspan yesterday. And although I’m excited to play the game. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed with the box and lack of insert. Two nice sized game trays for tokens and eggs. That’s it. Nothing to organise the cards etc.

I would also add that if you bought the deluxe upgrade kit like I did that replaces the cardboard resource tokens and metallic cardboard coins with wooden resource tokens and metal coins. The game trays don’t hold the wooden tokens. I used them for the metal coins and eggs.

To organise the cards and to stop them getting damaged in the box I used some old MtG cardboard deck boxes.

But that aside I did get Wyrmspan to the table today.

This afternoon Charlene, her daughter, and Colin joined me to play Wyrmspan.

I love the theme of Wyrmspan. Why wouldn’t I? How Connie Vogelmann came up with 175 wyrms aka dragons I don’t know. Even more impressive is the imagination and art of Clementine Campardou.

I really love the art in Wyrmspan. Yes it’s subjective, and there are those out there that don’t like the art. Which is cool. We are allowed to have a difference of opinion.

The changes made to Wyrmspan from Wingspan really work for me. They make the game more thinky, and more gamer oriented.

Although Wingspan had the awesome table presence with the bird feeder dice tower. I don’t miss it or the dice for resources. I love being able to chose which of the four resources I need. Although getting resources or eggs is a bit more challenging.

I love being able to squeeze out more actions on a turn by gaining more coins or even carrying coins over to the next round.

The guilds are a lovely touch. Something you can’t ignore because moving round the guild track gets you much needed resources.

But there are other touches that are quality of life improvements such as the built in player aid on the player boards. Or the larger end of round bonus tiles, easier to read.

Also a major change is the limitation on the number of times you can run your “engine” on each of the cave complexes. And that the cost to rerun them gets more expensive. It stops that Wingspan last round where all you did was run the grass lands and just laying eggs every turn.

That’s not all of the changes to Wyrmspan. There are some great content creators out there that cover this stuff way better than I could. For me the sum of these changes elevate the game to another level that would appeal to more hardcore/experienced gamers.

For the record Charlene thought she liked Wyrmspan more than Wingspan. In fact it was posing her a difficult question. Did she keep Wingspan and all of its expansions? Why would she need to keep Wingspan?

I can see where Charlene is coming from. I think I too prefer Wyrmspan over Wingspan. Although I think there is space for both (just) in my collection. Hear me out. I think the theme is more attractive to none gamers. Plus it’s a bit more accessible as well.

Don’t get either of us wrong. We still like Wingspan and would happily play it. It’s just we like Wyrmspan more.

History will record I won my first game of Wyrmspan with a score of 106.

We followed Wyrmspan with a game of Parks.

Up until this afternoon my only other plays of Parks was as a two player with Diego. Which it works as really well. And will be one of the many games I will take with me next time I visit Nathan.

But wow!

I really liked Parks at the higher player count. That added competition for spaces and the harder decision of when to use your camp fire was exactly as I thought it’d be.

Apparently the history books show Charlene won this game by 2 points.

A big thank you to Charlene, her daughter, and Colin for taking the time out to play these games with me.