Mandy Patinkin Struggles With Board Game in Hilarious Video

Mandy Patinkin's first go at Wingspan had some major struggles. Yesterday, the beloved actor posted a 2-minute video of himself and his wife Kathryn Grody trying to learn how to play Wingspan, the popular birdwatching board game designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by Stonemaier Games. Wingspan is a bit of a complex game and it seems that Patinkin and his family learn that the hard way. At one point, Patinkin reads the directions and exclaims "This is incomprehensible! This is an IQ test....for f***ing idiots!" Patinkin takes his struggles in stride, though. In a subsequent tweet, Patinkin complements Wingspan, saying "It does seem like a great game if you have brains that work."

Patinkin's struggles with Wingspan is probably a familiar sight to anyone who has ever pulled out a more complex board game to play with their family or friends. While there are several resources that exist to alleviate the frustrations of learning how to play a board game for the very first time (I recommend the Watch It Played YouTube channel, which has a great video on Wingspan that I show before putting it on the table), learning games with complex rules can be more of a journey than learning something like Scrabble. 

Wingspan's creator had her own jokes about Patinkin's first playthrough of Wingspan. In a tweet, Hargrave said "I would like to dedicate this video to every gatekeepery ubergamer who complained that Wingspan was too simple.

Complex board games are becoming more and more mainstream in recent years. While most major retailers used to only carry board games for kids along with perennial favorites like Trivial Pursuit, retailers like Target, Barnes & Noble, and WalMart are filling up their shelves with "heavier" board games. In addition to Wingspan, games like Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Azul are also common sights on most board game stores.

As for Wingspan, its publisher Stonemaier Games recently noted that the game has sold over 1.4 million copies since its release back in 2019. Several expansions have been released for the game, and it has inspired several more games with their own unique takes on birdwatching.  

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