Finspan from Stonemaier Games — Review

I look at the third game to use the Wingspan system to look at nature.

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Publisher — Stonemaier Games

Designer — David Gordon and Michael O’Connell

Art Direction — Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo and Mesa Schumacher

Game Type — Animal, Engine Building, Nature, Set Collection, Tableau, and Wingspan

Initial Year of Release — 2025

Age Range — 10+

Expected Playtime — 45–60 Minutes

Number of Players — 1–5

Theme and What is it?

In Finspan you are a marine biologist looking to examine sea life at different depths. You’ll catalogue their eggs, smaller fish, and schools as well as watching the individual sea life that make up the area.

Using a system based on the popular game Wingspan you’ll play fish into columns and use resources to keeptrack of different attributes and get different bonuses when exploring each column.

Initial Impressions

I enjoy the Wingspan style games. While diving into this one I was happy to see how things looked. My first few games were with a friend’s deluxe version of the game with the high end bits. I have seen the standard edition and found both really nice. I liked the cardboard tokens, I felt they were a decent thickness. The cards had a good feel and I liked the quality. The rules were well written and easy to follow. I was looking forward to playing this going in but the components made me happy to see them.

Game Mechanics

Set up for the game starts with players getting a players board. Each board is divided into three columns with three sections; sunlight, twilight, and midnight. You have three fish printed on your board and some spaces that start with two eggs and one young fish. You also get two starter cards and three random cards from the deck. Each player gets six divers to mark their turns.

On your turn you’ll place a diver to take an action. You can play a card. For this you’ll pay the card’s cost which can include discarding cards to your personal discard pile, placing it on a space with a smaller fish, discarding eggs or young. You then place the card into one of the spaces on your player board, paying attention to any zone and column requirements.

You can also have one of your divers explore a column. To do this you’ll start at the top and work your way down. Each zone has an effect if you have a fish in that section of the column. Some fish have activated abilities when a diver reaches them. If you have some of these then you’ll take these actions as well. The first time a diver reaches the bottom of a column in a round you’ll get one final bonus you can take.

Once each player has gone six times the round ends. you’ll play for four rounds and then score points.

A couple of new effects that apply to this game. Each player has a personal discard pile. Some card costs will have you discard into your pile. Some effects will allow you to remove cards from your discard and place them back in your hand. The game also has a young fish/school of fish mechanic. Eggs can hatch into young fish. Some effects will allow you to move fish around the board. If three young fish are ever in the same space they become a school of fish. You can never have more than one school in a space at a time. A school of fish can also prevent three or more young fish from becoming a school if they are in the same space.

Game Build and Quality

The standard components are quite good. You will shuffle them a lot especially with placing them into and removing them from your discard pile as often as comes up. Because of this I would recommend sleeving them. Though, I think they held up pretty well.

The cardboard held up well to use. It’s a nice thickness and looks nice on the board. The colors are bright to easily spot them which can break up the look of the game. I think this is more of a playability choice over an aesthetic one. It’s one I agree with.

The deluxe components are fantastic. The fish tokens look great and the squishy orange eggs are fun to use. They also look a lot like salmon roe, which I imagine was on purpose.

Artistic Direction

The art here is fantastic. Each of the fish cards look amazing. I was really thrilled with the type and variety of fish included in the game.

Fun Factor

This is a family weight tableau and engine building game. You’ll need to think about your turn, how the fish you play will affect your divers, and how you’ll score bonus points each round. There are some decent decisions here, but not so many as to be overwhelming.

Age Range and Weight

The box says 10+ and I think that is mostly accurate. Some of the symbology is a little tricky. Because of this I can see this being a bit of a lift for younger players (more on this in the conclusion). If you’re willing to look out for them until they get a handle on the game It should be fine.

Conclusions

I like the “span” games. I have a lot of fun playing them and look forward to trying a new one whenever they are announced. This is no exception. I had a lot of fun playing this game. The dive rule is fun to play out and is always viable thanks to the three cards that start in your field.

The game isn’t perfect. Using the same symbol for rewards and cost to mean different things can be confusing for a game or two. For example, the blue rectangle with a fish skeleton means discard a card if a cost but it is, take a card from your discard pile and add it to your hand as a reward. This tripped up some experienced gamers out there. This becomes less of a problem after a couple of plays, but is a bit of a stumbling block.

The games difficulty compared to the other two games from Stonemaier. I think that this is clearly the simplest game with the least issues for play. It’s more straightforward than either of the other two games; Wingspan and Wyrmspan.

Final bits; I like this game. It’s fast, easy, and plays well with new players. This is an amazing game to introduce new gamers to the hobby. The symbols being reused can be a bit of a stumbling block for the first couple of games but fades with time. This is worth the time to try.

If you’re interested in the game and would like to pick up a copy you can follow this link to Amazon and pick one up for yourself. If you do, it helps us out at Meeple Gamers and we would appreciate it.

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Until next time, stay safe and be well.

Overall Rating — 8/10