Finspan - How To Play

[Music] hi and welcome to watch it played my name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to five player game finpan designed by David Gordon and Michael oconnell with development by Elizabeth Hargrave and published by ston Meer games who helped sponsor this video wondrous creatures live in our seas and oceans and you're on a quest to explore and observe all the Aquatic Life you can find based on the original wingspan designed by Elizabeth Hargrave here you'll be charting a new course down Into the Depths so join me at the table and let's learn how to play to set up put this achievement board in the center of the play area with the aside face up if you have any new players at the table I'll explain this bside and the tiles that are used with it at the end of this video but for now return these to the Box and add this weak token to the space here nearby create a supply of these double-sided tokens which show an egg on one side and a young fish referred to in the game as a Young on the other also create a supply of these school of fish tokens referred to as school tokens in the game next find the 125 fish cards with this back and shuffle them into a face down deck Within Reach of the players each person now now collects one of these ocean boards and a player Aid we'll assume we have two players in this video returning any extras back to the box from the supply each person collects three of these tokens flip two of them to their egg side and add them to the related spaces for them showing on your board here and here then add the third token with its young side face up into this spot for it here now find and Shuffle the 10 C cards with this light blue back dealing two of them to each player returning any leftovers back to the Box the cards you're dealt you'll leave face up to the left side of your ocean board then each player is dealt three cards from the central deck of fish cards and these are also kept face up by your board even though you won't hold these in your hand cards you have here are known as your hand of cards and are always publicly visible to all the players each person now collects six of these diver pieces in their chosen color and then one person is randomly picked to be the first player gaining this first player token and that's the setup in finpan you'll be playing cards to your ocean board creating fish eggs and hatching them forming schools of fish and sending divers Into the Depths to explore all in an effort to earn the most points by the end of the game now before getting into how the game is played I think it would be helpful to take a tour of the ocean boards these have a variety of spaces where cards can be placed during the game and are organized into various regions these nine spaces are grouped together in what is known as the sunlight zone represented by this symbol the three spaces here make up the Twilight Zone represented by this symbol and here we have the midnight zone symbol representing these six spaces each column of the board also represents a unique dive site represented by The Flipper symbols that we see here and a matching band of color that runs down their right sides so we have a blue purple and green dive site the spaces of the very top row also show this symbol which represents an estuary where saltwater and freshwater meet and the very bottom row spaces show this symbol representing an area known as deep water we'll see how these various spaces and zones affect game play soon speaking of which the game is played over four rounds known as weeks and each week is divided into a series of turns starting with the first player and then going clockwise around and around the table and on your turn you'll either play a card or dive let's start by seeing how you play a card here you first move one of the available divers from beside your board to this gray box in the upper left left hand corner beside what is known as the player fish symbol your player Aid will remind you of how every symbol in the game works but we'll also go through these together during this video when you're playing a fish card it must come from one of the face up ones here on the left side of your board which you'll remember represent your hand of cards to play a fish you must pay its costs which will be shown in its top leftand Corner these will be a combination of one or more symbols which again are described on your a but we'll go through them together for each blue rectangle you see as a cost you must choose one card from your hand to discard so to play this fish we were looking at we'd have to pick two other fish in our hand to remove maybe we'd pick these two they'll go to your personal discard pile which you'll keep on the right side of your board rotated sideways to further ensure you know which fish make up your hand and which you've discarded the cards in each person's discard p are considered public information and their order doesn't matter once you've paid the cost of a fish you then check this area to see which zone of the board it can be placed in the symbols you find here will match one or more of the symbols representing the three different zones of the board in this case the fish must be placed in the Twilight or midnight zones but which column it goes into doesn't matter notice each player's board begins with three three fish printed on it these are known as forage fish and when adding a new fish to your board you can cover a fish within a valid Zone as long as the size of the fish you're playing shown here in its bottom leftand corner is longer than the fish you're covering up this is known as consuming the fish underneath so I could place this fish in any of these spaces including these since the fish I'm playing is larger than the ones here and here here anytime you add a fish to a space containing any number of tokens move them to the top of the new card when playing fish later I can also cover previous cards I had played again as long as the fish going on top is larger than the topmost fish under it some fish will show this symbol in its cost if so it means that fish must consume a smaller fish when it's placed on your board so we couldn't add it to this empty space SP it would have to go into a space of its listed zones that contains a smaller fish that it can consume like the one here sometimes a cost will show one or more eggs like we see here this means you must return that number of eggs from anywhere on your board back to the General Supply so I could remove these two and then place this fish into any valid space of its indicated Zone this striped Marlin shows a young symbol in its cost this means you must have one of these tokens anywhere on your board to return to the General Supply we have one here so we could pay it to play this fish this whale shark has what is known as the school symbol in its cost we don't have one of these on our board currently so we couldn't play this fish but they're represented by this token and if we had one we could return it to the supply to cover its costs just be aware when you're paying egg young or school token costs they can come from anywhere on your board they don't have to come from a space related to The Zone that the new fish is going into and the new fish doesn't have to go into a space where one of those tokens came from with that we've covered all the possible costs you might encounter and many fish will show some combination of them so here we would need to move one card from our hand to our discard pile and return one egg token from our board back to the supply then we'd place our fish into any space of the related Zone it shows here even covering a previously placed fish as long as the new one is larger than the one we're covering up however there is one other placement rule to consider some fish will show a banner down their right side in one of three different colors blue purple or green each color matches one of the three dive sites or columns and that means they must be added to one of those related spaces so if I was playing this emperor red snapper then after paying its costs it would have to go into one of these spaces showing a matching purple Banner in the sunlight zone and that's how you play a fish you move a diver to this gray area here at the top of your board and pay the cost of a fish in your hand adding it to a valid space based on any restrictions it might have after adding a new fish to your board check this area of its card many will have a when played effect showing a combination of symbols you resolve once immediately after the fish is added to your ocean board several of these symbols we have seen before but instead of being a cost they are now considered a benefit and are resolved differently for example when we see these blue rectangle symbols now as a benefit it means we draw that many fish cards from the deck adding them to our hand so three in this case and again cards in your hand always go face up on the left side of your board this fish also has a when played symbol we haven't seen yet for each of these on a when played benefit you go through your discard pile and pick any one of the cards there to return to your hand if you would ever need to collect fish from your discard pile and you don't have any there draw from the top of the fish deck instead for example with this effect I would gain any three cards from my discard but if I only had one I'd collect it and and then draw the remaining two from the top of the deck on this fish we see egg symbols as a when played benefit for each collect an egg token from the supply and add it to any fish on your board that doesn't already have one which could include a pre-printed forage fish or even the one that provided the effect just be aware an egg must be added to a space with a fish it can't be added to an empty space and each fish can only have at most one egg token at a time that said they can be put on a fish with a school token or any number of young tokens and we'll see how these tokens get added later sometimes you'll see a when played benefit with an arrow pointing to a type of location for example this means you add an egg token to each fish you have in the purple column that doesn't already have an egg token so in a case where we had just played this card if we assume that these are all the fish in the purple column then when resolving this effect we'd add an egg here and then one here as well but not to this fish since it already has an egg the wind plate effect on this fish is similar but it shows a new type of symbol here as we know every fish has a size indicated by the number in this corner but each size is grouped into three General categories represented by three different possible tail icons in this area for example this is the symbol for a large fish then here we see the symbol for a medium fish and finally we have the symbol for what is known as a small fish so this effect means we'd place an egg token on every medium-sized fish on our ocean board that doesn't already have one sometimes a win plate effect will show this symbol meaning that every player at the table gains the benefits shown but each player can choose individually whether they want to resolve that benefit or not in this case each player can add an egg token to every small fish on their board that doesn't already have one it's worth pointing out benefits are always optional I can resolve or ignore any of them that I'm owed and when other players could gain benefits from cards I play they can also choose to gain them or not no matter what choices I make all right moving on when you see this benefit it means for each of these symbols you may hatch one of your eggs to do this you flip any egg you have to its young side and it's worth pointing out you can resolve benefits in any order so let's assume for a moment we hadn't resolved any of these effects yet and we wanted to add an egg here well we know we can't use this top effect to add an egg to this fish because it already has one so maybe we'd skip down and use this ability to hatch the egg here first and then use an egg effect to add a token here and then possibly use this dis ability to hatch this egg and maybe resolve our remaining egg symbol by placing a token here why you might want to put certain tokens on certain locations will make more sense as we learn more of the rules okay earlier we saw this symbol as a cost but when resolved as a benefit each one lets you add a young token to any space of your board unlike eggs these can be added to empty spaces and you can have more than one in the same space so I can add these to to different spaces or both to the same one however anytime you would have three young in the same space pause and return them to the supply replacing them with one of these School tokens as we'll see these are worth several points at the end of the game however you can never have more than one school token in the same space so if I later had three or more young tokens in this space they would not change into a school token because again you can only have one school token per space this is where an effect like we see here can help when resolving this you may move any one young or School token you have any number of spaces in a straight line not including diagonally as we mentioned earlier we have three young tokens here that can't turn into a school token because there's already one in this space but if we use this effect to move this school token let's say over to here we would then pause and immediately replace these three young tokens with a school token now that there's room here for it just be aware when using this ability you can never move a school token onto or through a space already containing a school token when moving young tokens with this effect they can move onto or through any types of spaces but as soon as one enters a space where three young are together and a school could be created they must stop and are immediately replaced with a school token this fish has a benefit with the same type of symbol we saw here for playing a fish card that means after it using a diver to play this fish paying its cost and placing it into a valid space on our board we would then immediately resolve this effect which allows us to play another fish from our hand without using a diver but this fish must be one that can be placed into a sunlight space like for example the one we have here so as an example if on our turn we were to play this card by using a diver and paying its costs after adding it to the board we would then be able to play another fish that can go into a sunlet space and perhaps we would choose this one but just keep in mind you still have to pay that fish's costs and then you would resolve any of its when played effects after as usual before moving on I want to point out that some fish will have one or more symbols beside their name and these are known as tags you'll also find these lists did in this area of your player Aid these are important because some effects refer to tags like this here you get to add an egg to any fish on your board that has this Predator tag which includes this fish itself here we have a fish with two of these symbols this is known as an Uber predator and it would gain an egg from this effect as well but these still only gain one egg from this type of effect even though it shows two Predator symbols the same is true for these two tags a fish with two of these symbols is also affected by benefits that Target a single one of these symbols and with that we've covered all of the when played benefits you might encounter so remember to play a card on your turn you move one of your divers to this area and then pay the cost of the card moving it to a valid space of your board and resolving any when played benefits it may have some cards have other types of benefits but those we'll learn about later I should mention in the unlikely event that the shared fish draw deck is ever emptied you then Shuffle together each player's personal discard piles into a new face down draw deck all right so we've seen that on your turn you can play a card but instead you may use your turn to dive and to illustrate this I'll create some custom examples on my board like you might see later in the game to dive you move one of your diver from beside your board to the top of any one of these three columns known as dive sites at the very top you'll find a dive site bonus related to the sunlight zone this represents the benefit you'll now gain if you have at least one fish within that zone and column for example if I was diving here I would not get this bonus because I don't have any fish in the zone directly under it if I dove here I'd gain this bonus since I have a fish within the sunlight zone of its column pre-printed fish count as well so if I dove here I'd gain this benefit for the fish in this area we've seen these benefits before and when resolved they can apply to any valid space they don't just affect the column where you're diving but let's assume for this example we decided to dive here as we know this benefit means we'd gain a card from the top of the deck and add it to our hand after resolving in this benefit your diver then moves straight down Space by space stopping if it reaches a fish with an if activated effect these will have a brown background like this when your diver arrives at one of these you resolve the related benefit it shows you'll remember this symbol means you move any one card from your discard pile back to your hand on this if activated effect we see a symbol we had resolved earlier as a cost but here it's a benefit benefit when resolving this effect now you may choose to have this fish consume a shorter fish in your hand placing it underneath this fish is 30 cm so we could put this 12 CM fish under it this consumed fish is now considered a blank card which will be worth exactly one point at the end of the game as we'll see later just remember benefits are always optional so we don't have to resolve this effect if we don't want to also be aware you ignore any effects showing on any fish that are covered by other fish so as a reminder you'll be moving your Diver Down Space by space within a column stopping at each if activated effect you find there and at the top of each Zone you'll find a benefit that you can resolve as long as you have at least one fish in the related zone of that column we do have a fish here so we'd resolve this gaining another card and then we'd continue moving down stopping at the top of this Zone we have a fish within the column of this zone so we know that means we'll gain this benefit but then whether you've gained a benefit here or not you will continue to move your Diver Down and eventually you will always reach this bottommost space when you get to this area if there are no divers in the white space to the right you move your diver there and gain that benefit the next time we dive in this column and reach the bottom we don't gain that benefit again instead our diver just stays within this gray space and that's how diving works so on your turn you'll either use a diver to play a card or to dive down one of your dive sites either way after the next player in clockwise order takes their turn and around and around the table you'll go until each player has used all of their divers then it's time to resolve the end of the week if this is the end of the first first week you'll come to this space of the achievement board and resolve the scoring effect it shows here this is the symbol for points so you earn one point for every egg and young token currently on your ocean board each player records the points they earned in this space under their name on one of the included score sheets then you move this token to the next week each player now takes back all of their divers but otherwise leaves their boards as they are and then the person holding the first player token passes it clockwise where that player will now take the first turn of the next week of the game at the end of that week you'll score two points for every row of your ocean board with three fish recording those points on your score sheet and following the steps here to take back your divers and pass the first player token moving the marker here at the end of the third week each player earns two points for every school token on their board and then follows these steps and play plays the fourth week when the fourth week ends as you're reminded here you activate any game end abilities showing on the fish in your ocean these will have a yellow background like we see here for example this allows us to add an egg to each fish along the top row of our board that doesn't already have one after players have resolved all their game and abilities they proceed to final scoring following these steps starting with scoring any game end points these will also come from fish with a yellow background benefit here but they'll show a point symbol icon in this case you'll score six points if this fish has exactly two young tokens on it having other types of tokens on it doesn't stop you from scoring these points as long as it contains exactly two young tokens like we see here next score the points showing in this area of the topmost fish card in each space of your board so as an example this would earn me 6 points and this would earn me three you then earn one point for every egg and young token found anywhere on your ocean board and each School token you have instead earns you six points you also earn one point for every fish that was consumed so here you'd earn two points and you include any covered fish that are printed on the board so this would give us another Point add each of these points to their related space bases of the score sheet and then total all of them here and the player with the most points wins in the case of a tie the tied player with the most fish cards still in their hand wins and if there's still a tie the tied players share the victory now I should mention if you have experienced players you can change the setup for future games do this by placing the achievement board with its bside face up and then sort these tokens into groups based on the number of lines shown along their sides here you'll then randomly assign a token with a random side face up from each pile into the matching spaces for them on this board based on the number of lines the space shows this will give you Variety in the scoring goals each time you play also you'll find a new step to resolve during the end of the week it says here that the player or players who received the most points from a week's achievement tile also scores an additional three points so if two players tied for earning the most points from this goal they would each gain the extra three points otherwise the rest of the game is played the same way you'll also find rules and components for solo play but those I'll leave for you to discover on your own otherwise that's everything you need to know to play finpan if you have any questions about anything you saw here feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance you'll also find forums for discussion pictures other videos and lots more over on the games page at Board Game Geek and I'll put a link to that in the description below and if you found this video helpful please consider giving it a like subscribing and clicking that little bell icon so you get notification anytime we post a new video and if you'd like to support us directly you can join our patreon team which I'll have linked below but until next time thanks for watching