In September 2019, the game Wingspan was released by Stonemaier Games of St. Louis. Based on the behavior and habitats of birds, the game was created by designer Elizabeth Hargrave.
Wingspan was Hargrave’s first game. An avid birder, she used her knowledge of birds to create the game’s strategic “engine” based on cards.
“It’s got 180 unique cards that each have a bird on them,” she explained. “As a player, you’ve got a personal area in front of you that has three different habitats. As you play the birds, they make you better at doing the actions that are associated with the habitats. One row helps you get food. One gets you more bird cards. One lays eggs, which are worth points. So by the end, your turns are much more powerful than you were in the beginning.”
Hargrave met Stonemaier co-founder Jamey Stegmaier at Gen Con, an annual tabletop gaming convention in Indianapolis. Stegmaier was immediately impressed by her work.
“She seemed like a delightful person to work with right off the bat,” he said. “The biggest thing about the game itself is that Elizabeth had designed around 100 birds and the mechanisms on the card. That’s tough to do for 20 cards, much less 100 cards. I was astonished at the time that Elizabeth had come up with that many unique birds.”
The game has sold more than 2 million copies since its launch and spawned two spinoff versions – Wyrmspan and Finspan. They also released a travel-size version of the game this year.
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Wingspan spinoff versions Wyrmspan and Finspan, released on March 29, 2024, and Jan. 22, 2025, by Stonemaier Games
Stonemaier Games / Provided
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Wingspan spinoff versions Wyrmspan and Finspan, released on March 29, 2024, and Jan. 22, 2025, by Stonemaier Games
Stonemaier Games / Provided
“We very recently released a smaller version of Wingspan called Wingspan Pocket, and in the first printing alone we printed 175,000 copies of the game,” Stegmaier said. “And now with just a month after releasing it, they’re all sold out. That kind of shows you the scale of how many people Wingspan has reached, how much joy it’s brought to people’s tabletops.”
The popularity of Wingspan has also led to four regional expansions of the base game, with plans for more on the horizon.
“I always have the next Wingspan expansion that I’m working on,” Hargrave said. “We have said that we want to do all of the continents, a deck of birds for each continent, and so we’ve got two left to go.”
On this episode, Stegmaier and Hargrave talked about the new changes made in the game’s pocket edition and reflected on the Wingspan’s success since its release seven years ago.
“My biggest advice generally for Wingspan is that you have to stay flexible,” Hargrave said. “You have to sort of see what the game brings [and] you pivot to adjust to it. That’s a style of gameplay that I enjoy in games in general. So it’s I guess not surprising that it came out in the game that I designed.”
To learn more about the creation of Wingspan, listen to “St. Louis on the Air” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.
Published in St. Louis, board game ‘Wingspan’ expands to dragons, fish and new pocket edition
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Layla Halilbasic is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.