How to Play

Finspan

1-5 players 45-60 min 7.7 Board Game Geek Rating

Play as an ocean scientist exploring three marine zones to collect aquatic specimens. Over four weeks, visit specialized dive sites to gather fish, find eggs, hatch young, and form schools. Each discovery provides strategic benefits for deeper exploration. Victory goes to the player accumulating the most points through their collection and research achievements.

Published 2025

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Place general supply

Put all egg/young tokens and school tokens within reach of all players to form the general supply

Prepare starter fish deck

Shuffle the 10 starter fish cards (dark gray corners, different back) and place face down near the general supply

Prepare main fish deck

Shuffle the deck of 125 fish cards and place face down next to the starter fish cards

Place achievement board

Put the achievement board near the general supply

Set up ocean mat

Each player places an ocean mat in front of them

Choose player color

Each player selects a color and takes the 6 divers of that color

Place starting eggs

Put 1 egg token on each of the 2 starting egg slots (printed on forage fish) in your ocean

Place starting young

Put 1 young token on the starting young slot

Deal starter fish cards

Each player gains 2 random starter fish cards, placed face up in a vertical line beside their ocean mat to form their hand

Return unused starters

Put any unused starter fish cards back in the box

Draw fish cards

Each player draws 3 fish cards from the deck and adds them face up to their hand

Determine first player

Randomly select the first player and give them the first-player token

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Choose your action

Place an available diver onto your ocean mat to either play a fish card or dive at a dive site

Play a fish card - Place diver

Put an available diver in the gray box at the upper left of your ocean

Play a fish card - Pay cost

Choose a fish card from your hand and pay any costs shown (discarding cards, removing eggs/young, or consuming a shorter fish)

Play a fish card - Place the fish

Put the card on an empty or occupied slot following zone restrictions (Sunlight, Twilight, Midnight) and dive site color restrictions (blue, purple, green bands)

Transfer tokens when covering

If placing a fish on eggs, young, or another fish, transfer those tokens to the newly played fish

Consuming fish rules

The played fish must be longer than the consumed fish; consumed fish remain underneath and are worth 1 point at game end

Resolve WHEN PLAYED abilities

Gain any optional benefits shown; if "all players" is indicated, each player may choose to gain the benefit

Dive - Select dive site

Place an available diver at the top of one of the three columns on your ocean mat

Dive - Gain topmost bonus

If you have at least 1 fish in the Sunlight Zone of that column, gain the printed bonus (draw card, place egg, or hatch egg)

Dive - Move down and activate

Move the diver down one row at a time, gaining IF ACTIVATED benefits on fish cards and dive site bonuses above each zone if you have a fish there

Dive - Gain bottom bonus

If first diver to reach the bottom of this dive site this week, place in the marked slot and gain the bottom bonus; otherwise place in gray box with no bonus

Form schools

When 3 or more young share the same slot without a school, immediately replace 3 young with 1 school token

School movement restrictions

Schools may not enter or pass through a slot with another school

Manage discard pile

When paying cards as costs, place them face up in your personal discard pile; use the recall ability to retrieve cards from your discard