Finspan Review – The Aquatic Engine-Builder That Finally Gives Predation Some Bite

Disclaimer: Finspan was provided for free by Stonemaier Games, although the writing and opinions of this article are my own.

Finspan flops onto the scene as the latest –span spinoff, trading feathers for fins and caves for coral-covered depths. Marketed as the lighter, faster, fishier cousin of Wingspan, it promises familiar play with an aquatic flair. But will it reel you in… or leave you treading water?

I’ve done my time underwater. The fish have been schooled. The divers, deployed. So let’s talk about Finspan, and whether it deserves a spot in your game night ecosystem.

How to play

Like its flying forebears in the –span series, Finspan is all about scoring points by collecting weird and wonderful creatures, completing round-by-round objectives, and reeling in big endgame bonuses. In this underwater edition, you’ll earn points from the fish you collect, the eggs they lay, and (new to Finspan) the young fish and schools those eggs eventually grow into.

The first thing returning players will notice is the new orientation of the player boards. They’re now vertical instead of horizontal, but still feature a familiar three-column layout where you’ll be slotting in fish cards. The redesign fits the ocean theme nicely as playing cards from top to bottom makes the board feel like you’re actually sinking into the sea.

On your turn, you’ll take one of two actions: play a fish card onto your board, or send a diver down one of your columns.

Adding a fish is simple: slot the card into any space in any column. They might provide victory points, one-time effects, or an ongoing activatable ability whenever they’re paid a visit by one of your divers.

The other move you can make is sending a diver down a column, and this is where your carefully laid fish engine starts to pay off. Divers move from top to bottom, activating every fish in the column as they descend. Just like in past –span games, each column has its own specialty:

• The first column helps you draw new fish from the deck or recover cards from the discard pile.
• The second focuses on laying eggs. Each fish can only hold one.
• The third hatches those eggs into young fish and then lets you move them around your board. And you’ll want to do that, because when three young fish meet up, they form a school worth six victory points! Not bad for a bunch of baby fish.

There are bonuses sprinkled throughout your board too. Each column is broken into three depth tiers, Sunrise, Sunset, and Evening, and each offers population bonus if you’ve got at least one fish in those tiers. These stack with your fish abilities, leading to some powerful combos. Plus, the first time you send a diver down any column, you’ll also score a one-time bonus. A little “thanks for getting your feet wet” reward.

At the end of each round, players score that round’s objective.

Once four rounds are done, it’s time to see who ruled the reef. Activate any end-game fish, total up points from objectives, fish, eggs, younglings, and schools. Then see who swam ahead… and who belly-flopped at the finish.

How does it differ from Wingspan?

Stonemaier Games has returned with another –span, leaving us to wonder: when will it stop? And how many more games until we get Spanspan? Jokes aside, this incarnation feels much closer to the series’ original roots than Wyrmspan in both theme and gameplay. And I’m so thankful for that.

Because while I’m all for dragons, and the illustrations in Wyrmspan were gorgeous, they don’t stoke my curiosity quite like a board full of bizarre real world creatures. And on that front, Finspan absolutely delivers. You’ll spot everything from the classic clownfish (hello, Nemo) to the wonderfully weird hatchetfish. A little freaky thing that looks like someone x-rayed a fish and called it a day.

So yes, the animals are back, and they’re as delightful as ever, and so too is that familiar Wingspan feel. Although, with all the streamlining in Finspan, a few mechanics didn’t make the cut.

For one, there’s no more card market. You just draw blindly from the deck. And the more I think about it, the more I prefer it this way. The market in Wingspan was always a bit of a gamble anyway. Half the time you were waiting for someone to clear out the sad row of sparrows before you dared pick up your next bird. Finspan has no such hesitation. You just draw whatever Poseidon wishes to give you.

And while that might sound too random on the surface, it’s actually easier to draw cards now, and there are plenty of ways to recover discarded ones too. So even though you’re not hand-picking cards, because you’re drawing and picking up so many more cards you usually end up with a lot more variety to work with.

Another big shift is the removal of resources. No more collecting worms, berries, and grain. Instead, you’re laying eggs, hatching them into young fish, and then swimming them around your board to form schools. These new mechanics don’t just fill a gap, they add their own spatial puzzle while providing some solid thematic tie-ins.

But the mechanic I love love love in Finspan? Fish size matters. One of the returning features from Wingspan is predation (some animals eat other animals). But while birds could sometimes tuck or chow down on anything they pleased, regardless of size, Finspan reins that in: fish can only eat or tuck smaller fish. It’s a beautifully on-theme rule that finally gives the size stat some real bite.

Shiny fish, slightly duller finish

One thing I missed from Wingspan and Wyrmspan, is in each round you’d sacrifice one of your action cubes to mark your score or collect bonuses. Shrinking your available actions for the next round. So as your engine ramped up, your time to use it wound down. It created real painful decisions in those final turns.

Finspan doesn’t do that.

Every round gives you a flat six actions, and it feels off? As while the total playtime is shorter, the pacing actually feels a lot slower. Every round feels stretched out, and I kept wondering: when will this end? Not in the painstaking waiting for the weekend kind of way, but more incredulously. Like the round should have ended a while ago and yet we’re still going.

Finspan also takes another step back when it comes to player interaction. Closer to what’s in Wyrmspan and pre-Oceania Wingspan.

There are still some cards that throw resources to other players, but they’re fewer and less exciting. It’s a noticeable drop in energy compared to Oceania, and provides for a more solitary experience.

Then there’s the production. The art is still gorgeous, right up there with Wingspan. But the rest? A little less polished. My copy had an issue of mismatched objective tile sizes, while the game skips over some of the tactile fun from earlier –span games is missing: no wooden bits, no chunky eggs. The components still do the job, but the overall finish feels just a touch less polished than what we’ve come to expect from Stonemaier.

Oh, and while we’re nitpicking, I need to mention the player colours. Black, white, gold, blue, and red. In a game teeming with colour and marine life, the player colours are oddly muted. It’s a bit like showing up to a tropical fish parade in greyscale.

Lastly, with all the new systems, I felt lost in my first game, it wasn’t immediately obvious what I should focus on or how the fish synergised together. It took a few games but by game three, everything clicked. I had a solid strategy, and was enjoying the puzzle of planning ahead.

That said, once it did click, I noticed I wasn’t thinking quite as deeply as I did in other –span titles.

But maybe that’s the point. Between its streamlined structure, and irresistible theme, Finspan is incredibly easy to get to the table. It might swim in shallower waters, but it still delivers that familiar –span satisfaction. And sometimes, especially on a busy game night, that’s exactly what you need.