WBG Score: 8.5
Player Count: 1-5
Published by: Stonemaier Games
Designed by: David Gordon (I), Michael O'Connell (II)
This is a review copy. See our review policy here
OK, here we go again! Another "Span" game. This time, with fish. Let's simplify things. Wingspan, the review of which can be found here it's a hugely popular game. A lovely medium-weight, card-based, engine-building family game. It sold bucket loads and opened up thousands of new people to the hobby. Well done to all involved. The publisher saw this success and decided to make a slightly more complicated version aimed at gamers, and this was called Wyrmspan, and you can see my review for that here. Now, we have a lighter version, streamlined and simplified for more entry-level gamers. It's about Fish now, and it's based on the same core mechanics, but with a lot of things stripped away. Does that make it better or worse? Well, let's get it to the table and find out.
How To Set Up Finspan
Take a player mat for each player and unfold it in front of each person playing. Each player then takes the six divers in their chosen colour and places them in front of their play area. Each player will then place two egg tokens and one young token on the marked spaces on their player mat. Each player then takes two random start fish cards, discarding any unused to the box. Each player then adds three random cards from the main deck to their hand, placing their now five cards face up to the left of their player board. Place the remaining main deck face down in a central area along with the remaining young and egg tokens and achievements board to form a general supply. The achievements board has two sides, pick the one you want, adding the necessary tokens if using side B. Pick a random first player and give them the first player token. You are now ready to play.
How To Play Finspan
Starting with the first player, players will now take turns to perform one action. Actions can be one of two things. Either you will place a diver pawn into the space on the top left of your board and add a fish card to your play mat, being sure to pay the necessary costs and take the shown benefits. Or, you will add a diver pawn to the top space on either one of the three dive sites at the top of each column on your board, and move down, taking the shown benefit at each dive site where you have at least one fish.
When all players have played all six actions, you will then check the week one bonus on the achievement board and reward each player accordingly, marking each player's score on the score pad. Each player will then retrieve all disc divers, the first player token moves one space clockwise, and the second week begins. Repeat this into weeks three and four, and then at the end of week four, all players will score points for any end game fish cards they have played, shown by the yellow background. Each player also scores all fish cards played, totalling the score shown on the left of each card. All players also score one point for each consumed fish (a card under another card), one point for each egg and young on their mat, and six points for each school token on their mat. Add these to the three previously scored end of week totals, and the player with the most points wins.
And that is the game. If you know Wingspan, the above two paragraphs will be enough to get going. You will just need to use the iconography chart on the back of the rule book to understand the card icons, but that really is it. Everything else from Wingspan and Wyrmspan has been stripped out. But to give you a little more understanding, lets go through each of the two main actions in a little more detail.
When you want to play a fish card, you can do so with any of the face-up cards to the left of your board. All cards in your "hand" are kept like this for the entirety of the game, so it is open information. The cards are also easier to see this way, and you can make your choice simply. Pick the fish card you want to play, add a diver to the top left of your board, and place the fish card down on the main player mat. There are three columns and three depths in each column. Some cards will have a coloured bar on the right side of the card. This means they can only be placed in the matching column. All cards have a symbol on the left showing either the top Sun area, the middle sunset area, or the bottom moon area. This represents the depth in the ocean and how much light is received by this part of the water. The fish you place must match its area to the symbol shown on the card. Some fish offer options here.
When you place the card, you must pay the shown cost in the top left. The most common cost is discarding another card or more from your hand to your discard pile. Move any cards needed from the left of your board to the right to meet this criterion. Other cards will need eggs of young. Simply remove these from your board and put them back into the general supply. Some cards will need to consume other fish. This is represented by the symbol of a fish surrounded by a red outline and a bite taken out of the bottom left corner such as shown on the Angelshark below. Here, you simply need to place this fish card on top of another previously placed fish, being sure to note that the new fish has a larger size than the previous fish. Sizes are shown in cm on the bottom left of each card.
After you have paid the cost, place the fish card in its required location and then check the right side of the card to see if there is a When Played benefit. If so, gain this now. If not, your turn is done. If they don't have a When Played benefit, there will be a Game End score option, or an If Activated benefit. These come into affect when you dive.
When you dive, place your diver on the top space on either of the three columns. Look out for the dive site icon as represented by the white fish in the orange background. If you have at least one fish card present in the dive site you will gain the benefit, which will be either a new card from the main deck, an egg taken from the general supply and added to any fish card that does not already have one egg token on it, or it will shown the hatch symbol, which allows you to flip a previously placed egg token to the other side, now showing a young fish icon.
When you dive, you will move downwards, stopping at each dive site where you have at least one fish card present in this depth, noting that the pre-printed fish on your board count for this. You will also stop on any card placed in this row with the If Activated symbol, gaining the shown benefit on this card as well. When you get to the bottom, you will place the diver in the final space, gaining the bottom benefit as well. If you have already dived in this location this round, and there is already a diver in the bottom location, you simply place this second diver next to this on the left and do not gain the bottom benefit.
At the end of each week, when all players have placed their six divers either to place a new card or dive, all players will score that week's current score bonus as shown on the achievement board. For side A, this is a set of predetermined criteria, such as the number of egg or young tokens on their board, or two points for each horizontal row of fish on their main board. But on side B, you can choose from multiple variable bonuses that offer different end-of-week bonuses, which differ from game to game.
For the final week at the end of week four, there will be no end of week bonus, but instead, you will score all end of game fish, as shown by the Game end bonus on any previously played card.
Is It Fun? Finspan Board Game Review
This game strips out so much of Wingspan but leaves the core of the game. Gone are the food icons and dice tower. Gone are the action cubes that reduce by one each round. Gone are the turns where you simply gain food, cards, or lay eggs. All this is replaced with a simplified and brilliant system where the cards act as their own resource. Your "hand" will often be all you need. Discard two cards from your hand to play one other card, then gain one back right away as the card you just played has an immediate benefit to retrieve one card from your discard pile. And now, instead of simply laying eggs, or gaining food, or drawing cards, you dive. And get the same benefits, but based more on how many other If Activated cards you have placed. It is a very elegant system and works well to give the same feeling at Wingspan, but in a much more condensed and streamline fashion. If Wyrmspan was Wingspan 2.0, this is Wingspan 0.5.
So, I think the question is this: Will you enjoy this if you like Wingspan? And, two: Will you enjoy this if you don't like Wingspan? Do you need both, and if not, which one is for you?
If you like Wingspan, I think there is a high chance you will like this. It doesn't necessarily offer anything new, but it offers a similar experience to Wingspan, one that is more accessible, streamlined, and simple. Perfect if you like Wingspan but want a version to share with friends less familiar with modern gaming, or just want a fish option yourself!
If you don't like Wingspan, this probably will not be for you either. The games are very similar, and as much as this is a simplified version, I cannot imagine many people didn't enjoy Wingspan because it was too complicated. That said, if you do not play modern games at all, I would recommend Finspan over Wingspan, simply because it is a lot easier to learn and teach. But fundamentally, if you did not like Wingspan, this is probably not for you. Unless it was a theme thing, and you really are a fish person over a bird person!
Do you need both? Well, that is up to you. I have both, along with Wyrmspan, and I will keep them all. But I am a collector as well as a player, and I like having all the options. I think I will play Finspan more than the others though, simply because it still gives me the same experience and feeling, and it does it a little quicker, a little simpler, and with less setup or hassle. But I would suggest that most people would only need one, and the one you pick would be based on two things. Do you like Fish or Birds more? And do you want a lighter or more medium-weight game? Now don't get me wrong, the difference between the two is not huge. But Finspan is the lighter option.
So, what is good about these games anyway? Well, it is all about the card play. Building up your engine so that your later turns become more powerful, in this case with Finspan, having more powerful and effective dives. Running your engine so you start to generate more cards, eggs, or spawns each time you dive is highly rewarding. And building up your array of fish cards will allow you to grow your end-of-week points tally along with your end-game points in a very noticeable and progressive manner.
The card art is obviously gorgeous as well. And though initially cluttered, the card's iconography is absolutely world-class. It very quickly falls into place what everything is showing, and each card has seven main elements: the cost to play, the end game points of the card, the size of the fish, the fish name and picture, a brief fact about that fish, and then the benefit of the card (be that immediately, when activated, or end of game). It sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But it all looks so slick. Impressive work. The clear white background helps here. As much as I would like the background to match the colour of the board so the fish blend in a little more, making your array look more visually appealing, it makes sense for clarity that they made this choice.
The insert, like Wingspan, is somewhat disappointing. Everything just stuffs into the box. It fits fine, without any issues, and nothing is left rolling around as you have a nice tray for the cards and bags for the tokens. But a few more bags would have been handy, or a nice insert to put everything in. Stonemaier definitely seems to be looking more at cost and environmental issues when it comes to inserts over the last few years.
But the final word must go to the cards themselves. There are 152 unique cards in the base game. There will certainly be more in future expansions, but this amount is plenty to give you a real sense of exploration and discovery for a lot of games. The most you can display on your board will be 21 each game. You can obviously place more as fish consume others, but I would say there will be a max of 30 or so per player used each game (more in your discard). It will take some time for you to see all the fish in this deck. Finding the best combination of fish to discover each game will be the main joy in this game. And there is plenty to discover!
Thanks Jim, this is a great review. Super concise and practical. I know where I stand!