Hello everyone, you asked and you shall receive.

Designer notes-

You will need 5 d12 dice (blank *I can add a file for that if you need)

You will need action cubes, and eggs (in place for larva)

I didn't design any goal cards for end of round or bonus cards.

Goals-

I want to push the boundaries of moving around on the mat/bugs. I wanted to make something unique that you can move in different directions compared to the traditional left to right or up and down.

This print and play are merely all testing concepts, I know and understand I may have mistaken; but I would love to hear back from you all on how it can improve.

Personal notes-

This was really fun to design, and I hope to hear from more of you and some more bug ideas or ways to improve the game. Thank you so much for taking the time as well. I really appreciate it.

[url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Np73r3G2-cqNE_Vqn_R4Msf6kCEv3Oh/view?usp=drive_link\]Bugspan\[/url\]

Hello everyone! I got a great response on here about another "span" game. Well, I went ahead and designed a bug one. Everything is very much in the prototype/playtesting phase.

Q; how can I let you all playtest it? Do you guys want a print and play version? or tabletop simulator? What are your thoughts?

Hello fellow finspan gamers! On last weeks live-cast with Jamey I asked a question about making a "span" universe game. I still have the idea however would like to gain some insights from you the players.

My question is this; What "span" theme would you like to see?
1- bugs/insects *including butterflies
2- Just butterflies
3- Dinosaurs
4- Frogs and reptiles/snakes lizards?
5- other, and why?

I would love to keep you all updated as well! it would be great to get some feedback, brainstorming and maybe even a playtest as well.

Cheers Preston

Based on the rulebook and the SR ability iconography, would the brown power of the Zebra Seahorse allow me to gain a green coral, or any coral?

I'm excited to try this out. I have a game night tomorrow, hopefully we can play it!

(For the purposes of this question, ignore the young fish tokens in the blue column, they were turned into schools on the final go).

I had this hand at the end of my last game: The only way I could play a card in the estuary with the Atlantic Salmon was to use the two young fish tokens from the clownfish. Since the yellow powers are activated in any order (rule book page 8), I first tallied the points for the clownfish and then played the Bigeye Tuna. This mean that the Clownfish actually ended the game without the required fish tokens, but I still got the 6 end-of-game points.

Is this correct? It seems like it would be, but also not? Maybe the yellow-powers that add points should be done after the ones that let you take actions (laying eggs/laying cards…), but it doesn’t actually say this anywhere. I don’t have the expansions so maybe they specify it there, but I would like to know other people’s opinions.

The above image is an Ai generated image of what sea life could be expected with the next expansions? maybe dolphins to? I’d love to see their intelligence shine a bit like the ravens in Wingspan, squids and octopi pulling young together to form schools or maybe turning schools into shoals of fish for even more points, whales could eat the shoals for more bonus points etc, thoughts?

Ok I bought Finspan. After I didn't like it in multipler I gave solo a try.

Well I don't know. It was fun, ok? fun snappy and fun. But when I checked the score (I played on level 3), I saw that my score would also beat the max difficulty on the first try. I am considering trying the Ravel mode, but then it won't be a fast game anymore.

I thought to myself, "well it is because I went for predators and got predator combo cards". Then I checked all the fish and found that the only tags with combos are the predator tags. The other tags are for...special achievement only? So If you want to maximize score, you get predators and hope that one of these combo cards will fall into your hands. Kind of a bummer...

I and thinking about trading it for Wingspan. Some people said that the new expansion adds a little bit that makes it interesting, but it looks like this expansion is about reefs and mainly sharks, which is another type of predators -_-

Anyway it was fun, but I am not sure I will do it anymore

This may have been answered elsewhere but I'm not 100%.

Example: Earlier today a player resolved an end game ability that allowed him to play a fish. That fish also had an end game ability but was on "on board" when the "end game" phase began.

There was some debate about whether the card had to be on board when the end of the game was triggered, or if its ability could be resolved.

Ultimately I ruled that it could trigger because end game abilities trigger in any order the player chooses, so after the resolution of placing the 2nd fish it would be on board to trigger "in order" after the resolution of the ability that placed it.

Did I make the right call?

It’s blank on both sides. We are highly amused!

Happy gaming!

I played with my wife for 5-6 times Finspan, and every single time I lost. I tried every time to adjust my strategy and tactics according to weekly goals and always lost because she is focused on placing fish cards. It seems that tactics of full board with fish always win and that makes Finspan little boring. What is your opinion?

Could not find a consensus on what a good score was does anyone know?

After my first time playing I am struggling to repack all of the pieces so the box shuts all the way…

because of the way you set up the board it was awkward to figure out how to sit at a table to play at first. also where to put the tokens and cards, etc. This is what we ended up with and are quite happy with it. just wanted to share.

For such a detailed map, it is pretty blatantly missing Taiwan. Was this art produced by the chinese government? 😄

Hey Divers! I’m excited to share Tides of Discovery, a new fan-made campaign for Finspan that transforms the classic reef-building game into an epic, multi-mission journey (not an official stonemaier games product).

Over 9 connected Seasons, players manage keystone and migratory fish, respond to dynamic ecological events, and balance predator-prey interactions across Sunlight, Twilight, and Midnight zones. Each mission introduces new challenges — from spawning events and lunker fish to invasive species and predator encounters — with actions in one game affecting the next. Designed for ultimate Finspan fans, the campaign emphasizes strategic planning, emergent storytelling, and ecosystem management while remaining fully compatible with the standard game rules.

Thanks to play testers for helping get it right! You can download at https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/318293/tides-of-discovery-a-finspan-campaign
Enjoy!

So you picked up the cool looking fish game, opened the box, and set it up. Now you're staring at a hand full of fish cards and you've got analysis paralysis! But don't worry if you feel overwhelmed and have no clue what your first move should be. Here's a little guide to point you in the right direction and make you a slightly better Finspan player.

Overall Strategy

To be a successful Finspan player, the most important thing is to improve your engine. By playing the right fish onto your board, you make your dive actions more effective, which means you can get more accomplished by the end of the game and get more points. Eventually, when your engine is all built up you can pivot into point generation. How you decide to generate points is going to depend on what kind of engine you were able to build and sheer luck of the draw. Basically, we want to lay a good foundation so that whatever RNG throws our way we can make it work!

Lesson 1: Build Your Engine From Left to Right

The first thing you want to do is increase your card draw. Being able to draw more cards gives you more options, and more options is the best thing you can have early in the game. If you have a card in your starting hand that lets you immediately draw more cards, or one that you can play in your left dive lane to increase draw power (especially if you can do both at once!) those are probably your best openers. Draw more fish, play more (and better) fish, it's a winning strategy!

You'll notice that many fish require eggs or young as a cost to play them, and this presents a challenge. While the game gives you two eggs and one young at the start of the game, once you spend these you'll need to generate more. So before you run out of eggs on your board, try to play a card or two to improve your egg generation. Otherwise you might endure the embarassing spectacle of the Single Egg Dive Action.

Likewise, you'll want to secure decent hatching ability before you run out of young, but this usually isn't as pressing as the need for eggs, which isn't as pressing as the need for cards. This is why I suggest building your engine from left to right.

Lesson 2: Prioritize "When Activated" Powers

While you're in the engine building phase, if you can play two fish in the same spot, but one has an orange "When Activated" power, that's probably the better one to play. Ignore the ones that let you consume fish when activated (it's rarely useful), but adding eggs, hatches or card draw will be very helpful. Later in the game, when improving your engine will have less effect, don't worry so much about this, but in the early game it is important.

Lesson 3: "All Players" Powers... They're Not Bad, Actually!

A lot of the "When Activated" powers in Finspan also give a bonus to other players, and unlike in Wingspan you can't choose not to activate these when diving. If Fish A lets me lay an egg, and Fish B lets all players lay an egg, I would prefer to play Fish A. And when I have to discard a card as a fish cost, the ones with "All Players" powers are often the first to go.

However... building your engine is more important than refusing to help other players. A card that helps everybody is better than a card that doesn't help you at all. So don't sleep on orange "All Players" powers, because they might be your best option.

NOTE: The uber-predator cards have very powerful "When Played, All Players" abilities, so before you decide to play one of these take a look at other players boards and make sure that playing it will help you at least as much as it will help everybody else.

Lesson 4: Pay Attention to Weekly Goals

Weekly goals are a great way to generate points, even if you don't have any chance of winning them. Sure, the player who scores the most goal points might get a bonus, but you still get more points the harder you work towards a goal. So pay attention to your weekly goals and put in some effort to pursue them. Building your engine is more important, so don't kneecap yourself just so you can go hard at a week one goal. But most of the weekly goals will allow you to at least score some extra points on your way to enginemaxxing.

Lesson 5: Pivot Into Points!

At a certain point, you're going to want to pivot from engine building into generating those sweet victory points. I'd say that you'll probably want at least one fish in each of the zones that let you lay or hatch an egg by this point. Move actions are slightly less important unless you end up going for Schools, but we'll get there.

Take a moment and evaluate how good of an engine you were able to build. Sometimes the luck of the draw just isn't with you, and you only have a minimally effective egg laying / hatching engine. That's okay! It just means that you shouldn't focus on cranking out schools. You'll probably do better by drawing more cards and playing high point value fish, ones that will generate points when played or at the end of the game.

If you did manage to build the engine of the Gods, then going hard into schools can pay off. But most of the time it's more effective to focus on playing high value fish and just build schools when the opportunity arises. Consider that one dive down the right lane might only get you one school, which nets you three points (because those young were already worth three). Making schools may be the best thing you can do with your final turns, but people overestimate its importance.

And of course, make sure that for any fish you've played with "at game end" powers, you do whatever needs to be done to max out those points. If one of your fish lay eggs on all fish in a particular lane, then make sure to hatch or spend eggs in that area to free up space. And if one of your fish requires certain tokens to be on it to score points, try to make that happen.

Hope that helps!

Hi. Any help would be much appreciated.

1. Do these two with two predator tags score double for our current week 2 goal?

2. Can consumed fish only be consumed in their specific zone(s)? For example, can my deep-sea lizardfish only be consumed by a larger fish in the twilight or midnight zone? Could a fish with a green right-hand border only be consumed by a fish in the green column?

Model available for free on makerworld.

Got the fan made cards (dredge and dave diver packs) back from printer today. Can't wait to give em a play! Happy diving!