Admittedly I was a tad late to the Wingspan party, reviewing it in 2021, a full three years after it was released. At the time, I positively glazed the thing, giving it five pips out of six and tilting it up.
Um, yeah...about that.
Since then I've played it many times and taught it even more, which has led me to realize that the game has some pretty big flaws, not the least of which is placing your action cubes in the right-most unoccupied spot then backtracking to Activate your Birds from right to left.
This has to be one of the ass-backwards, un-intuitive mechanics baked into a modern classic. So idiotic, in fact, that it was wisely jettisoned in subsequent 'Spans, namely Wyrm in 2024 and last year's Fin.
I haven't tackled the dragon-flavored game, but after playing Finspan at last year's Cabin Con, I sold off my copy of Wingspan (and it's flock of expansions) to buy the former.
So what's this version of the game all about? Well, here's Stonemaier Game's equivalent of casting out a baited hook, so to speak:
You are a marine researcher seeking to find and observe an array of aquatic life in the colorful Sunlight Zone, ghostly Twilight Zone, and pitch-black Midnight Zone of the world’s seas and oceans. In Finspan, the fish you discover over 4 weeks will generate a series of benefits as you dive deeper into the ocean.
Each dive site specializes in a key aspect of expanding your research:
- Grow your collection of fish.
- Discover freshly laid eggs.
- Hatch eggs into young and consolidate young to form schools.
The winner is the player with the most points gained from fish, eggs, young, schools, and achievements.
Wanna read the full scholarly article on all these phinny phreaks? Well, click on the following link and discover that there's always a bigger rulebook!
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WEEK ONE -EXAMPLE OF PLAY
Charlie goes first and places one of his Divers on the "Play a Fish" section of his board. He drops a Longfin Batfish in the Blue Sunlight Dive Site, which requires him to get rid of an Egg, so he takes it off the Glasshead Grenadier.
Dory plays her Porkfish in the Sunlight section of the Purple Dive Site, which also requires spending an Egg. It's removed from the Catalina Goby. The Young Token on that space just gets overlaid on the new fish.
Chuck wants more Fish options so he Dives into the Blue Zone, nabbing two in the Sunny section (thanks to the Batfish and it's Activated special ability. NOTE: Dory also gets a card because of this!) and one from the Midnight Zone (via the Grenadier). Under normal circumstances, Charlie would retrieve a Discarded card, but since his pile is empty he just draws a random card. To signify that he got his one Bottom Bonus card for the Week, he places his Diver right on that Icon.
Dory plays her Tropical Flying Fish in the Sunlit Blue Dive Site, requiring her to Discard a Card (she throws out the Spiny Sea Devil) and also sacrifice an Egg (discarded from her own Grenadier).
Charlie plays the Longspine Porcupinefish in the Sunny section of the Purple Dive Zone. This requires that two Fish be Discarded, so he throws out the Humpback Anglerfish and the Atlantic Wolfish. It also costs an Egg, which is discarded from the Goby. Chuck might look Egg poor right now, but the Porcupinefish has a "When Played" ability which lets him place an Egg on all Medium sized fish, so both it and the Batfish get yolked!
Dory opts to Dive into the Purple Zone for Eggs. She gets three in total: one for the Sunny side's Porkfish, one for the Twilight's Bristlemouth and one for the very bottom. To denote this once-per-Week Bottom Bonus, she places her Diver right on the Egg Icon. The three Eggs are then placed on the Flying Fish, the Grenadier and the Goby.
Also keen on more Eggs, Chuck Dives into the Purple Zone. He gets three in total: one each for the Porky-Pine fish, the Bristlemouth and the Bottom Bonus. With the latter tapped for the Week, he covers over the Icon with his Diver. The resulting three Eggs are placed on the Grenadier, the Bristlemouth and the Goby.
Dory wants more Fish options so she splashes into the Blue Zone, getting a new Card from the Flying Fish. This Activates said poisson, so she pulls the Seadevil out of the Discard Pile. She also nets a new random Fish from the Grenadier and takes advantage of the Bottom Bonus, marking the space with the Diver as a reminder. Her Discard Pile is tapped out, so she gets another random card off the top of the deck.
Charlie puts a Diver in the "Place a Fish" section of his board then drops the Giant Devil Ray into the Blue Twilight slot! This costs him an Egg (from the Bristlemouth), a free-swimming Young and a Great Northern Tilefish into the Discard pile! Curiously, two Young pop up on the Devil Ray as a "When Played" feature.
Dory finds a home for her Spiny Seadevil...and no, that isn't code for something. It's placed in the Purple Midnight section for two Eggs, which are taken from the Grenadier and the Goby. When Played, she retrieves three cards from the Discard Pile, but since that's empty she just gets three new RandoFish off the top o' the Draw Deck.
Leaning into the Week One Achievement, Charlie Dives into the Purple Zone, snagging an Egg for both the Porcupine Fish and the Bristlemouth, which gets added to the Devil Ray and the latter. NOTE: the Bottom Bonus was claimed earlier so it doesn't pop again.
Dory takes the same action, but gets three Eggs, one each for Porky, Bristleboi and the Devil in the dark. Her Bottom Bonus was also claimed earlier, so it doesn't add in. She decks all three out with Eggs and, with that, the Week - I.E. the round - ends!
END OF WEEK SCRIPT
Week One Achievements
Charlie: 6 Eggs and 2 Young = 8 Points
Dory: 4 Eggs and 1 Young = 5 Points
All Divers come home and the First Player Token moves to Dory!
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REVIEW
THE PROS
- Like Wingspan, the art by Catalina Martinez, Ana Maria Martinez Jaramillo and Mesa Schumacher here is amazing. Confession time: I actually opted for Fin over Wyrm partly because I know that Fin can be tabled easier...but I also actively despise Wyrm's art style. Now, if it had some bad-ass dragons in the style of a Larry Elmore, it would have been a completely different story.
- This one is definitely easier and more intuitive than its older sister. Here you don't have to futz around for food or juggle secret victory conditions, plus the concept of diving from top to bottom is a helluva lot more intuitive to the average person than back-tracking from right to left in Wingspan.
- Hey, I love birbs as much as the next outdoorsy guy, but I just find the ocean and its denizens much more alien and interesting. This comes through thematically with the three different offshore distances and depths. The fish also have some cool thematic powers - like eating smaller fish - as well as neat attributes such as "Bioluminescent" or "Venomous."
- There are three informal stages to the basic Side "A" Achievements: generating Eggs / Young, getting Fish in a row and then sending all dem Young to School. Creating efficiencies to accomplish this is fun, and if it grows stale, you can always use Side "B's" Random Achievements and bonus points for each Week's top performer.
THE CONS
- This one doesn't have a fancy bird feeder, dice or edible-looking eggs, just some boards, cards and crappy looking Egg / Young and School Tokens. So why does it retail for around the same price as Wingspan???
- To use a water-level pun: this one's kinda...um, shallow. It plays well enough, but will it hold up after a half-dozen runs? I just feel that it needs another element or two to bring it to a high water mark. Sorry.
- If you hate silo gaming, you may wanna give this one a really wide berth. Somehow the designers managed to create a game that involves even less player interaction than Wingspan. Beyond "cozy" games and cutesy, amprophmorphic animal bullshit, a lack of player interactivity in games is swiftly becoming my biggest pet peeve.
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IMPORTANT RULES TO REMEMBER
- Whenever three Young are on a space, remove them and place a School.
- There's a limit of one School per space. If there are six Young in a space, one group of three becomes a School but the other three stay there as Young. Should that School be moved away, the other three immediately School together.
- If you try and move a Young through a space with two more Young, they stop moving and all three immediately School.
- A School can't move through a space with another School.
- Once Schooled together, the Young can no longer be separated.
- Each Fish can only hold one Egg.
- The Bottom Bonus only occurs once per Week, so place the Diver right on the icon as a reminder that it can't be tapped again.
- Deepwater: Although you can play any Midnight Zone fish at the very bottom of your board, some Fish can only be placed there!
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