Wyrmspan Review: What I Think as an Occasional Board Game Player

I play board games occasionally and probably learn a new one once a month thanks to one of my closest friends, so when I think about what’s important for a board game, I think about the one night a month I get to play it. I’m a big fan of Root, I love Flamecraft, and I’ve recently been introduced to a new game: Wyrmspan. Although it may not be my new favorite (you’ll have to read to see), I’m sharing all my thoughts on the board game in this full Wyrmspan Review!

Before you get too technical on me, let’s remember what I stated first: I am an occasional board game player. Very casual, never professional, and rarely do I ever enter tournaments. I won’t have much to say about the technicalities of how to play the game, although I will definitely touch on it.

This review is to give you some insight on how easy or hard it is to learn, how long it takes to play, and a few other tidbits – like if you can play while two toddlers are sitting beside you because they want to play too. While board games are one of the hobbies I recommend for moms, not all board games are made equally.

Now, let’s get into this Wyrmspan Review:

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What is Wyrmspan?

Wyrmspan is a 1-5-player board game that is expected to last around 90 minutes. The game, created by Stonemaier Games with designer Connie Vogelmann, artist Clémetine Campardou, and developer Elizabeth Hargrave, walks you through “building a cavernous sanctuary for dragons of all shapes and sizes.”

I was able to play this one thanks to my friend @highly.sensitive.tess, who played the game inspired by Wingspan and decided to order around the first launch on the Stonemaier website on January 31st. The worldwide release of Wyrmspan is not until March 29th, 2024.

The game is a one-action per turn, meaning you can only choose one of the possible actions to do on your turn – in this case, you can choose to Excavate (discover a cavern), Entice (place a dragon in a cavern), or Explore (take your little adventurer and travel through a cavern until you hit a stop).

Each action has a cost; you’ll have to pay a coin to do anything, and some actions cost more than one coin and require additional resources such as gold, milk, gems, meat, and eggs. You also have additional tasks or goals that are completed each round (set of 6 turns), such as getting the most hatchings or excavating the most caverns during that turn.

While you’re not fighting anyone head-on, you compete to get the most points that are counted up at the end of the game. Each dragon is worth a specific number of points listed on their card, along with the resources and goals you compete for each turn.

The Wrymspan Full Review

Now that you know what the game is, it’s time to dive into the full Wyrmspan review! Some things I’m going to include in the review are how easy or hard it was to play, how we enjoyed it (from my husband and I), and some overall thoughts on if I would play it again, along with who might not enjoy it.

I’m not a board game pro, just a mom who likes to play them with friends as a hobby. In fact, most of my board and card game experience centers around Magic the Gathering, and all of my cards are at least 4-5 years old.

That being said, let’s dive in:

How Long Did It Take to Set-Up?

There’s a lot to unpack for the game between all the resources, dragons, and caverns. It didn’t help that my two toddlers wanted to play with (and apparently lay) the eggs, and my one-year-old is in a napless, mama-must-hold-me phase.

I would say that unpacking everything and setting it up, along with reading through the rulebook a little bit, took us about 30-ish minutes. I will say that we’re doing it very leisurely, so I’m not surprised.

The Aesthetics and Art

I wanted to touch on the art style and the overall aesthetics in this Wyrmspan review because it does play a role in whether I like a board game or not. I very much loved the art style for the dragons – especially the hatchlings. The caverns were a nice style, but the play mat itself really stole the show.

The eggs and all the other resources looked really cool too, although I did keep thinking the “gold” was ‘butter” but I think that’s on me. Maybe it’s because I’m a font girly, but I love the choice of fonts used for your cards and on the board; it really brought everything together.

How Did Wyrmspan Play?

Honestly, getting started was hard – the game was new to all four of us (me, my husband, friend, and her boyfriend) which meant that we were all diving straight in.

Once everything was set up and my littles were put into bed, it was much easier to focus on the game and learn what we needed to do to play. And while the first few rounds did okay, mainly because they have a “how-to” for your first few steps, we really didn’t get the hang of everything until we were almost at the end of our first 6 turns.

It took turns 9-13 before we really started building out strategies and looking at what our cards could do along with what we needed to do to play into their abilities.

Would I Recommend Wyrmspan?

Yes – and no. I would absolutely recommend Wyrmspan if you’re looking for a beautifully made game with lots of moving parts that’s enjoyable but not competitive in the same sense as most traditional board games.

I would not recommend Wyrmspan if you don’t like to learn a bunch of moving parts on your one-night-per-month game night. While it was fun to me, it can be annoying to some to spend so much time learning how to play the game and figuring out the strategy behind it and the strategy you can use to win based on the cards you have.

That being said, if you’re a mom who enjoys cozy gaming and board games as a hobby, this is a pretty good option to keep on hand. Since it’s a 1-5-player board game, you can actually go solo rather than playing in a group!

What did you think of my Wyrmspan Review? Do you think it’s a board game you’d like to try? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below!