Vantage

There have been a plethora of open world games released in recent years. We just talked about Earthborne Rangers in a previous post and all of a sudden I now have another big exploration game, this time from Stonemaier Games. Vantage is a coopperative open world board game, one that Jamey Stegmaier has been work on for years. And ever since its announcement, its been high on my anticipation list as it checks of a lot boxes of what will interest me in a game.

One really differentiating aspect is that unlike other open world games this one is not a campaign game, at least not one like Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread or ISS: Vanguard. While there's narrative to discover over multiple play sessions, there isn't a perscribed beat-for-beat path to follow. I think that distincition alone makes Vantage one of the most approchable open world games out there, just being able to play a session and know you'll get a complete experience each time without any "cliffhanger" of what comes next dangling in front of you to compel you to keep playing.

The game is very streamlined, something that I feel Stonemaier Games tends to do pretty well. Each time you'll embark on this world at one of the many starting points chosen at random via dice rolls. There will be a Mission for that session and you'll discover Destiny cards to fulfill, each of these being how you "win" a game. The timer being managing your three resources: Time, Morale, and Health. When one of those reaches zero, that could mean the end of your game.

One of the main things I appreciate is just how much this game seems to embody the "Yes, and..." style of a dungeon master for a role playing game. When you're taking an action, you're guaranteed to succeed at it. The trick here is that the action requires a level of effort, meaning the number of challenge dice you roll. Half of the dice are in your favor, by either having no effect or going back to the dice pool. The other half of the die faces represent each of the three resources. The good thing is that there are ways to manipulate, reroll, and mitigate die results. So while the length of a play session is dictated by luck of the dice, you will probably have enough tools and resources to address the risk of challenges that you'll face.

I think one of the wildest journey was I had picked up a quest to help escort this one sentient to some remote waterfall somewhere to the East. I tried a few times going East but didn't come across it and ended up getting distracted along the way. Eventually in the next playthrough I had the same quest again and at some point encountered a tall tower that I scaled that gave me a clear view of the area, which let me understand that it was East and slightly south of where I was sort of starting from. In a very roundabout way I finally reached the target location and was able to finish the quest, it was so satisfying to finally reach it, yet also amusing that the sentient just followed me around in an obtuse and scenic route.

The first time my husband and I played together, we were quite a ways through exploring multiple places when he looked at me with a brief moment of epiphany and said:

I see now why you like Earthborne Rangers.

I laughed at the time but I understand his view point. For me, I thought he would enjoy Earthborne Ranger's intersting card play, how the cards interact with each other, and for the setting and lore. But the simple joy of dice chucking and how easy Vantage is to play, it makes sense that he enjoys this one more.

And so hats off to Jamey for creating such an epic and well designed game. It's an awe and wonder of an accomplishment and I hope to see everything this game has to offer.