The board games turning science into playtime
Science-themed board games are an increasingly popular way to learn about everything from atom building to colonising space
When Elizabeth Hargrave created a board game inspired by her love of birdwatching, she had no expectation it would become a tabletop phenomenon. Yet Wingspan sold out within a week of its release in January, earned glowing reviews and was the subject of a New York Times article.
“It’s just so far beyond what you could ever hope for, right?” says Hargrave, a health policy researcher in Washington DC. Given that most modern board games have geek-friendly fantasy, science fiction or historical themes, she admits she was uncertain as to “how it would go with a theme so far outside the mainstream”. But that theme “got people really excited”, as it turned out.