You are bird enthusiasts-researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors-seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats. Each habitat focuses on a key aspect of the growth of your preserves:

• Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
• Lay eggs using marbled egg miniatures in a variety of colors
• Expand your bird collection, drawing from hundreds of unique bird cards

The winner is the player with the most points accumulated from birds, bonus cards, end-of-round goals, eggs, cached food, and tucked birds.

Components

• 1 goal board
• 1 scorepad
• 40 wooden action cubes
• 170 bird cards
• 103 food tokens
• 1 bird tray
• 26 bonus cards
• 8 goal tiles
• 5 player mats
• 75 egg miniatures
• 1 first player token
• 1 birdfeeder dice tower
• 5 custom wooden dice
• 1 rulebook
• 1 Appendix

Setup

Global Components

1. Bird cards: Shuffle the bird cards into a deck. Place it next to the bird tray, then populate the tray with 3 face-up bird cards.

2. Supply: Place all food and egg tokens in the supply. These are tokens accessible to all players.

3. Birdfeeder: Toss the food dice into the birdfeeder dice tower.

4. Goal board: Choose which type of goals you will play with, and place the goal board on the table with that side facing up:

   1. Green: For a game with more direct competition for goals, choose the side that has 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place for each goal. This is the default.

   2. Blue: For a game with less direct competition between players, choose the side that awards 1 point for each targeted item. This is good for new players.

5. Goal tiles: Shuffle the goal tiles without looking at them (they're double-sided). Place 1 goal tile (random side up) on each of the four blank spaces on the goal board. Return extra goal tiles to the box.

6. Bonus cards: Shuffle the bonus cards into a deck and place it on the table.

Player Setup

1. Each player receives:

   • 1 player mat
   • 8 action cubes of one color
   • 2 random bonus cards
   • 5 random bird cards
   • 5 food tokens (1 of each type: )

   You may keep your hand of cards private or public throughout the game.

2. 

   Keep up to 5 bird cards and discard the others. For each bird card you keep, you must discard 1 food token. You will probably want to keep food tokens shown in the upper left of the bird cards you selected.

   For example, you might keep 2 bird cards and 3 food, or you might keep 4 bird cards and 1 food.

3. Choose 1 bonus card to keep, and discard the other. You may look at your bonus cards while selecting which birds to keep (and vice versa)

4. Randomly select the first player and give them the first-player token.

Tip: When selecting bird cards, think about how they will help you get more cards or food early in the game. Brown powers can be especially helpful!

Game Play

Wingspan is played over 4 rounds. During each round, players take turns-proceeding clockwise-until each player has used all of their available action cubes.

Turn Structure

On your turn, you will take 1 of 4 actions, as shown on the left side of your player mat:

1. Play a bird from your hand
2. Gain food and activate forest bird powers
3. Lay eggs and activate grassland bird powers
4. Draw bird cards and activate wetland bird powers

Designer's Note: Your first few turns will be very simple as you work to attract some birds to your wildlife preserves. You may even select the same action multiple times, which is absolutely allowed! More detailed descriptions of the actions are found on pages 6-9.

To place a bird from your hand onto a habitat, place an action cube on the Play a Bird spot above where you will play the bird. Pay the bird's food and egg cost, then place the bird on your mat, only triggering that bird's "when played" power (if any).

The Gain Food, Lay Eggs, and Draw Bird Cards actions follow the same 3-step process (numbers noted on player mat image, below):

1. Choose a habitat on your player mat and place an action cube on the leftmost exposed slot in that row. Gain the benefit of that slot.

2. Move your action cube from right to left, activating any birds with a brown "when activated" power in that row. Each power is optional.

3. When the action cube reaches the far left, leave it there. Your turn is over.

Click here for all detailed information about the four actions.

Round Structure

When all players have placed all of their action cubes, the round is over. Follow these steps in order:

1. Remove all action cubes from your player mat.

2. Score the end-of-round goal for the round you just completed.

3. Discard all face-up bird cards on the bird tray and restock the bird tray with cards from the deck.

4. Rotate the first player token clockwise to the next player.

Designer's Note: Players have fewer actions as the game progresses, but the bird powers create powerful combinations as birds accumulate in each row of the player mats.

Use 1 of your action cubes to mark your score on the end-of- round goal. As a result, you will have 1 fewer action cube to use each round:

• Round 1: 8 turns per player
• Round 2: 7 turns per player
• Round 3: 6 turns per player
• Round 4: 5 turns per player

End of the Round

When players have placed all their available action cubes (1 cube per turn), the round is over. At round end:

1. Remove all action cubes from your player mat.
2. Score the end-of-round goal for the round you just completed.
3. Discard all face-up bird cards on the bird tray and replenish them.
4. Rotate the first player token clockwise to the next player.

Scoring End-of-Round Goals

The end-of-round goals are based on how many birds or eggs you have in a given habitat or nest type. To indicate the points you score from that goal, each player must place an action cube on the goal board (even if you score 0 points).

The board has 2 sides, each using a different scoring method. Green is the default, but blue is good for new players.

Green: Majority of the Targeted Item

This method uses the side of the goal board that has spaces for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

At the end of the round, count your quantity of the targeted item. Players compare their results and place their action cubes based on their rank order.

If players tie, place both cubes on the tied place, and do not award the next place. At game end, you will add the points for that place and the next place(s), then divide by the number of players who tied and round down (4th place scores 0 points).

For example, when using the goal that scores 5, 2, or 1 points, if two players tie for 1st place, each gets 3 points (5 + 2 divided by 2 players, rounded down). Do not award 2nd place to another player.

You must have at least 1 of the targeted items to score points for a goal. For example, you must have at least 1 grassland bird to score points for the "most birds in the grassland habitat" goal.

If you finish in 4th or 5th place, you must still place an action cube on the goal board in the space marked 0.

Blue: One Point per Targeted Item

This method uses the side of the goal board that has spaces labeled 5-4-3-2-1-0 next to the space for each goal.

At the end of the round, count your quantity of the targeted item. Score 1 point per item, with a maximum of 5 points. Use an action cube to mark your score on the goal. If you do not have any of that item, you must still place an action cube on the goal board in the space marked 0.

Bonus Cards

As described in Setup, each player starts the game with 1 bonus card (selected from 2 random cards). There are also several birds in the deck that allow you to gain additional bonus cards.

Bonus cards are all scored at end of game.

End of the Game

The game ends at the conclusion of Round 4. Use the scorepad to add together the following:

• Points for each bird card (printed on the cards).

• Points for each bonus card (printed on the cards).

• Points for end-of-round goals (shown on goal board).

• 1 point for each:

  • egg on a bird card
  • food token cached on a bird card,
  • card tucked under a bird card

The player who has the most points wins. In the case of a tie, the player with the most unused food tokens wins. If players are still tied, they share the victory.

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