Nature

The life aquatic: this board game lets you dip into marine ecology

ARTS REVIEW
09 April 2025

The life aquatic: this board game lets you dip into marine ecology

Finspan is visually stunning and brilliantly captures the intricacies of the ocean’s ecosystems.

By

Angela Chuang⁰ &
Orlando Schwery¹

Angela Chuang
1. Angela Chuang is an ecologist at Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina.
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Orlando Schwery
1. Orlando Schwery is an evolutionary biologist at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
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Close-up of the game Finspan in play, featuring illustrated fish cards, tokens, and a wooden game piece in the shape of a diver on an underwater-themed board. — In Finspan’s fish-eat-fish ocean, it pays to gobble up smaller fish with large predators such as the skipjack tuna and escolar. Credit: Claire Welsh/Nature

Finspan Designers: David Gordon & Michael O’Connell; Artists: Ana María Martínez, Catalina Martínez & Mesa Schumacher Stonemaier Games (2025)

Nature 640, 309-310 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01066-3

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Subjects

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Biodiversity
Fisheries
Ocean sciences

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