Finspan Review – From Wings to Wyrms to Water

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 a splash of aquatic flair. But will it reel you in… or leave you treading water?

I’ve played it, I’ve formed schools of fish, and yes, I’ve sent divers on their very specific, column-based missions. So let’s suit up and dive into whether Finspan floats to the top of your game night lineup.

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 the 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 diving into the depths.

On your turn, you’ll take one of two actions: either play a fish card into 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. Each column is divided into three depths (Sunrise, Sunset, and Evening) and where your fish ends up might allow it to trigger additional bonuses later on. Fish cards themselves might provide victory points, one-time effects, or an ongoing ability that activates whenever a diver visits that column.

Sending a diver down a column is where your carefully laid fish engine really 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:

• One helps you draw new fish from the deck or recover cards from the discard pile.
• Another focuses on laying eggs. Each fish can only hold one.
• And 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 depth tier, Sunrise, Sunset, and Evening, offers population bonuses if you’ve got at least one fish in those spots when a diver visits. These stack with your fish abilities, leading to some tasty combos. Plus, the first time you send a diver down any column, you’ll 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. After four rounds, it’s time for the final tally. Activate any fish with endgame abilities, then total up your points from objectives, fish cards, eggs, young fish, and schools.

Then find out who swam… and who sank.

How does it differ to 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, and I’m sure returning to real-world animals made all the difference.

I’m all for dragons, and the illustrations in Wyrmspan were gorgeous, but they don’t tickle my curiosity quite like a board full of bizarre sea creatures. And on that front, Finspan absolutely delivers. You’ll spot everything from the classic clownfish (hello, Nemo) to the wonderfully weird hatchetfish. An oddity 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 that familiar Wingspan feel is back too, just more streamlined this time, which means 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, you usually end up with a lot more variety to work with anyway.

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 the gap, they add their own spatial puzzle of egg and youth placement while providing some solid thematic flair.

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 chow down on anything they pleased, regardless of size, Finspan reins that in: fish can only eat smaller fish. It’s a beautifully on-theme rule that finally gives the size stat some real bite. It’s no longer just an interesting fact on the card—it actually affects your decisions and how you build your board.

And that? That’s pretty darn cool.

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 in Wingspan could chow down up anything they wanted, no matter the size, Finspan reins that in: fish can only eat smaller fish. It’s a perfectly on-theme rule that suddenly makes the size stat matter. It’s no longer just an interesting fact on the card, it’s a meaningful mechanic affects how you build your board.

Shiny Fish, Slightly Duller Finish

One thing I missed from its predecessors is the rising sense of acceleration as the game nears its end. In Wingspan and Wyrmspan, each round you’d sacrifice one of your action cubes to mark your score or collect bonuses. Shrinking your available actions round by round. So as your engine ramped up, your time to use it wound down. It created real urgency in those final turns, where you had the power to do a lot, but only a handful of moves to pull it off.

Finspan doesn’t do that. Every round gives you a flat six actions. And while the total playtime is shorter, the pacing actually feels slower. Without that late-game tension, the experience kind of cruises along evenly, never quite building to a big finale.

When it comes to player interaction, Finspan takes a step back—closer to pre-Oceania Wingspan. There are still some cards that throw crumbs to other players, but they’re fewer and less exciting. It’s a noticeable drop in energy compared to Oceania, though more in line with Wyrmspan’s more solitary vibe.

Then there’s the production. The the art is still gorgeous, right up there with Wingspan. But the rest? A little less polished. My copy had mismatched objective tile sizes, and the game skips over some of the tactile fun: no wooden resources, no chunky eggs. It makes things easier to manage, sure, but it did feel just a little less premium. Especially given Stonemaier’s usual track record.

Oh, and while we’re nitpicking, I need to mention the player colours. Black, white, gold, blue, and red. In a game full of vibrant ocean life, they somehow manage to pick the most drab looking player colours. Imagine going to an all you can eat buffet and only eating Weet-Bix, that’s what they’ve done here.

Something else to look out for with Finspan was with all the new systems and no traditional resources to guide you, it wasn’t immediately obvious what I should focus on in my first game. The goals felt a bit fuzzy, so I felt lost in the first couple of 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 the smoother setup, simplified 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.