Finspan Solo Playthrough and Review | Bits & Biology

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Welcome to Bits & Biology, a channel about board games from the perspective of a biologist gamer. In this video I play a solo game of Finspan (peppered with information about some of the fish!) followed by my review of the game. Timestamps can be found below in case you want to skip around. Finspan is a tableau building and hand management game for 1-5 players that plays in about 45-60 minutes. This is the 3rd game (and reportedly the last) in the “-span” series of games that also includes Wingspan and Wyrmspan. In Finspan you are a marine scientist documenting the fish you find while exploring the world’s oceans. Along the way you will also discover freshly laid eggs, hatch eggs into young, and nurture young into schools. At the end of the game, the person with the most points from fish, eggs, young, schools, and achievements will be the winner. Let me know you liked the video by giving it a thumbs up! Have you played Finspan? What do you think of the game? What other games would you like to see on the channel? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! 00:00 Introduction 1:27 Setup overview 2:00 The ocean board 3:09 Player turns overview 3:24 Playing a fish card 4:08 Dive action 4:55 End of round bonuses 6:24 End game scoring 6:52 Solo setup and rules overview 8:02 Solo difficulty levels 8:33 Ravel solo variant 8:53 Game start – starting resources 9:25 Week one start 13:11 Tangent about sequentially hermaphroditic fish 14:43 Nautoma’s first turn 17:15 Tangent about cleaner wrasse https://youtu.be/V5EszU8yuA8?si=VddpmXtyOPxl6J6V 33:40 Week one achievement scoring 35:21 Week 2 start 46:48 Tangent about the giant oarfish https://youtu.be/9DOPV1ZxfmY?si=oaVVSVkTFv9jrzSj 50:44 Week two achievement scoring 51:26 Week 3 start https://youtu.be/-aX_IO5DMlk?si=Jrfe9r_E5xG4u8Tv 1:01:34 Week 3 achievement scoring 1:02:32 Week 4 start https://youtu.be/id1XEi7Jk7Y?si=ol5jRJbSnd2XiS0H https://youtu.be/iT_EMKl2A3Y?si=CFLPcJnksm4Makc1 1:19:53 Game End (yellow) abilities 1:23:07 End game scoring 1:25:44 Review of the game 1:27:30 Receiving a review copy of the game 1:28:54 Back to the review 1:29:00 Why I don’t think Finspan is a lighter game than Wingspan Link to Finspan on Board Game Geek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/368432/the-fox-experiment Tales from the production of Finspan, from Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games: https://youtu.be/B9t271VlHfo?si=Gkm3PXghwJJlVls5 Check out these YouTube channels from marine biologists: https://www.youtube.com/@TellysMarineTales https://www.youtube.com/@Seamemaria A couple of fun videos from WIRED where marine biologists answer questions from social media: https://youtu.be/2YquYkNcF7I?si=QmFdhhZ5uZzdj2ZU https://youtu.be/t8hjTa1IeNc?si=OsU5wob8x7oVH-wM ----------------------------- If you like what you see, please subscribe to be notified when new videos are uploaded! My focus is board games that feature anything having to do with biology (e.g., nature, wildlife, plants, ecology, environmental science, etc). Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/vFGpeT8hM4 Read the Bits & Biology Blog! https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/12551 Follow Bits & Biology on social media: Instagram: @bitsandbiology Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bitsandbiology.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bitsandbiology/ Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BitsandBiology Email for collaborations and partnerships: bitsandbiology@gmail.com #Finspan #soloplaythrough #boardgames