I don’t think it’s a secret (if it is I don’t hide it well) that I’m a big fan of more than one game from Stonemaier Games. Heck Scythe is still my favourite game of all time (I really must redo my code to allow me to run that exercise again).

Further in the interests of disclosure for this post I should point out I love Wingspan and it was my game of 2019 iirc.

So with that information firmly out there in the open you can make your decision about my initial flawed looked at the Nintendo Switch version of Wingspan.

Compared to other board games that have been turned into digital versions, at £17 Wingspan firmly sits on the expensive side. At that price I think more than a few potential players will be put off purchasing it.

One bug bear I have with Wingspan on the Switch is what seems an age for the app to load. Admittedly Wingspan is loading from a 256GB micro SD card. But from pressing my user id to having the main menu pop up I timed it at around 30 seconds.

Once you get to the main menu you can select the “Play” menu and play against AI/Friends, Automa or complete the tutorial.

Before I go on I should point out that I have not played Wingspan in any of those options. I’ve only played it against Jonathan the once. So make of that what you will. And once again feel free to dismiss what I am about to write.

You can also go online and play against other Wingspan owners, and here is the biggie those players can be on other platforms. Which currently means those that own the game on Steam, so basically PC.

I do like the tool tip help that can be switched off or on. As the two images below show.

Below I have highlighted a couple of touches on the online menu screen that I like. The first is the display of the timer showing how much time is left for the current player before they time out. The other is your id with your karma rating. I need to look into this whole karma thing, its a new thing for the app, and is used I think in online game matching.

Wingspan can be used using a mix of touch via the Switch’s touchscreen or the joycons. I like that I can using my finger drag a card from my hand on the reserve space I want to play it.

The game uses the art from the board game really well with some nice little animated bits. The music really compliments the art and game play. It’s so relaxing. Something you could just chill out to. I also liked that when you play a bird to your reserve this is a brief bit of audio that tells you about the bird.

Below is the final state of my game winning reserve. I got lucky and had the raven early on in the first round, and then got two cards that complimented it really nicely. After the gull joined it, I didn’t need to go to either of the other two areas of my reserve. I could take eggs, draw cards and get food at the same time. It was a pretty powerful combo. If my memory isn’t failing me the first time I have had the raven in a game.

A nice touch (sadly not captured) is the end of round objectives screen during the game. It shows you and the other players current positions when it comes to scoring the objective, plus your current total number of points.

The end of game scoring is nice and I like that you can view the scoring with or without points annotation.

At the end of a game you can save the end of game state which then can be viewed from the main menu via the preserve archive. Always handy for showing Jonathan how much you beat him by.

While I am talking the main menu again below are the two setup screens that the app gives you to change the settings for audio and for the game.

The bottom image below shows the birds menu option, which basically lets you see the cards you have seen during game play. It’s almost Pokemon like in you will want to collect them all.

The image above the birds screen are the options when you setup a custom online game. Which allows you to enter a players name (cross platform option) or select a friend from your Nintendo friend list.

One thing I do miss and this is also missing from the Steam version as well (I checked this with Jonathan), are alerts for when it is my turn. I would expect that these will be present when the mobile versions are finally released. However this is a limitation of the platforms that Wingspan is currently on.

During our game at the end of round 2 there seemed to be a glitch. I don’t want to call it a bug as the behaviour we saw may well have been correct. But the app skipped through from the end of round 2 to the start of round 3 without showing the end of round scoring, and the bit that threw off John’s plans tucked a card that he wanted to play!

I did find when I first started playing the game the screens to be a bit confusing. But that’s because I jumped right in. What I should have done is the tutorial first. But after a very short period I got used to the controls.

Like Jonathan I prefer the view of the complete reserve, as it shows everything on the screen, food, the food dice, etc. Although the individual reserve screen does look really amazing.

Overall my initial impressions are I like the app. It’s a nice implementation of the board game. But the price does seem excessive.