Wingspan

Wingspan is the game that made engine builders beautiful, and it is still the one we recommend most often to anyone moving past gateway games. The bird cards are gorgeous, the pastel dice tower is ridiculous in the best way, and underneath all of it is a tight, satisfying puzzle about building a machine that feeds itself. Everything we have written about it lives here.

Start with the Wingspan review if you are still deciding. Once you own it, the strategy guide covers the habits that separate a 70-point game from a 100-point game, and our bird card tier list tells you which birds to chase and which to feed to the discard pile. The bonus cards get their own ranking too.

When the base game starts to feel familiar, Wingspan expansions ranked tells you which one to buy first. And if you are torn between this and the other pretty engine builder, we compared them head to head in Everdell vs Wingspan.