Wingspan Expansion Play Test

The Gainesville chapter had an amazing opportunity come up this past week – board game designer Elizabeth Hargrave, creator of Wingspan and many other excellent board games, was visiting Gainesville and having play test events at our local game store Punk Outer. 

We’re already on friendly terms with Punk Outer since we have a monthly board game night there, so when we heard on Discord that there was a chance we could play test upcoming new content, we jumped on it. There was a Punk Outer-hosted event on the 18th, several members were disappointed that they weren’t able to make it – but wait! Elizabeth said a few days later that she’d like to do another play through so we quickly planned on a Saturday night gathering in one of Punk Outer’s VIP rooms. 

Teamwork makes the dream work – Elizabeth requested that, if possible, it would help to have a component from the Oceania expansion of the Wingspan game. One member had it but she wasn’t going to be able to make it Saturday night though because she was going to be at a 50th birthday party … at the arcade right next door! So she offered to bring it in her car and walk it over. Her son who wants to be a game designer one day came along to meet Elizabeth for a couple minutes before they returned to the arcade. 

With all the pieces needed, Elizabeth swore us to secrecy and gave us the new rules to play by and we were ready to rock and roll. The night was filled with fun, puns, candy, learning of birds we never knew existed, getting a bit attached to the bird cards in our hands, and hoards of bugs.

We want to give a big thank you to Elizabeth Hargrave for giving our group and the Gainesville community the amazing opportunity to take part in play testing.