Finspan – Diving Into the Ocean-Themed Wingspan Game

Play fish into ocean depths, lay eggs, hatch young, and form schools — Stonemaier's friendliest Wingspan-family game trades the sky for the sea and cuts the complexity down to size.

Finspan is a competitive, card-driven engine-building game for one to five players, published by Stonemaier Games in January 2025. Designed by David Gordon and Michael O'Connell, it takes the beloved Wingspan formula beneath the waves: you play a marine biologist studying sea life at different ocean depths, cataloguing fish, eggs, young, and schools as you build a thriving underwater research station.

Elizabeth Hargrave, the designer of Wingspan, wasn't the lead designer here — but she tested the game with Gordon and O'Connell from the very beginning and helped shape it into something familiar-yet-different from her original. That collaboration is why Finspan feels like a true member of the Wingspan family without being a simple reskin: it borrows the satisfying engine-building loop but rebuilds the details around a fish theme, a new spatial layer, and a noticeably gentler rules load.

Reviewers who have played all three Stonemaier "Span" games consistently describe Finspan as the most approachable of the trio — more straightforward than either Wingspan or Wyrmspan, with fewer rules exceptions and less overhead. One reviewer called it clearly the simplest game of the group, with the fewest issues at the table.

What's in the Box

What Makes It Stand Out

Finspan vs. Wingspan vs. Wyrmspan

How Does It Play?

Over four rounds — Stonemaier describes them as weeks of research — players take turns playing fish into columns of their ocean mat and activating the abilities that chain along each dive site. The core loop will feel immediately familiar to Wingspan veterans: play a card, trigger its effects, build an engine that pays out more every turn. What's different is where your attention goes: Finspan puts a strong emphasis on spatial decisions, both in where you play fish and in where you lay eggs, hatch them into young, and shift those young into scoring schools.

The card-cost system is one of the game's smartest tweaks. Because most fish are paid for by spending other cards from your hand — which then head to your personal discard pile — every play forces a small, meaningful sacrifice, while clever reclaim effects let you recover some of what you spent. Compared with Wingspan's food-token economy, it creates a different kind of tension without adding meaningful rules weight.

A double-sided achievement board offers either pre-printed goals for an easy start or random achievement tiles for more variety, and a Nautoma solo mode simulates an opponent for lone researchers. The overall package is deliberately more accessible than its siblings, making Finspan an excellent entry point to the whole Wingspan family for players who found the original slightly intimidating.

Rating Breakdown

Pros & Cons

Who Is This Game For?