Vantage, one of the latest games from Stonemaier Games, is all about exploration. You move from location to location, interact with NPCs, find animals and items, and discover more about the world. There are nearly 800 locations in the game, and you can only take one action per location in each play. The order of locations you visit and the actions you take create so many branches that the game should stay fresh and still surprise you after many plays.

Gameplay

You start the game with a certain level of health, morale, and time as your resources. If any of these drops to zero for any player, the game is over (even though you can choose to have a final chance and continue playing). Almost all actions are skill checks that can potentially cost one or more of these resources. When you choose an action, you look up the cost in the related storybook, roll that many dice, and deal with the results. Some dice don’t do harm, but others require spending resources unless you manage to fit them on your cards. As the game goes on, you build a 3×3 grid of cards that can be items, flora, fauna, completed quests, and more, which can house dice and help you preserve your resources and prolong your exploration.

The dice mechanic is clever. Many costs are thematic, and you can sometimes guess that certain actions might be more costly than others. As you progress and build your grid, you can take on bigger risks and bigger challenges. That sense of progress is very satisfying.

The game gives you ways to mitigate bad luck. You can sometimes reroll dice, and if the reroll doesn’t change the result, you gain a skill token that helps with future actions. Even though action costs aren’t revealed until you commit to an action, it should be rare to lose the game to bad rolls if you plan ahead and manage your tokens wisely.

Your grid is an important part of shaping the way you play. Most cards have conditions on their dice spots that encourage you to pick a certain type of action. Your character also supports a specific action type. These two factors combined lead you toward different actions each session, so the locations you visit and the things you encounter vary from game to game.

This game is all about exploration, finding new items, and discovering new things. There’s little overall structure and no long-term planning or strategy. You have to go with the flow of the game. This is not a campaign game, and every play is a fresh experience. So there’s no overarching story, just small storylines and quests. Whether people enjoy this game or not will largely depend on how they feel about this. I adore the exploration aspect of the game and love discovering its locations. It captures the same feeling as wandering off the main path in an open-world video game, and that sense of freeform discovery is what keeps me coming back. But if you need a strong narrative, Vantage won’t provide that.

There’s little interaction in this game. Players can help each other with skill checks and place dice on each other’s cards, but their paths don’t necessarily converge (unless by accident), and everybody is mostly playing their own game. For that reason, this game works best as a solo experience or with two players. I wouldn’t want to wait for my turn in a six-player or even a four-player game.

I wish there were a way to retain some items or progress between plays. For example, keeping items between plays could help save some progress and speed up the slow buildup of the grid. Maybe a future expansion could introduce such rules.

Component Quality and Artwork

Games published by Stonemaier Games always have high-quality components, and Vantage is no exception. The game comes with over 1,300 cards, and they have the quality and finish you’ve come to expect from their other games. However, the cards don’t come wrapped; there is just a paper band around each stack. Several cards in the copy we received were damaged. I understand that many publishers are moving away from plastic wrapping, but paper wraps could protect the cards while still being sustainable.

You take many cards out of the box and put many others back during the game. The organization is excellent, and it’s very easy to find the section you need when searching for a card. Taking out the large location cards is easy, but the smaller cards are a bit cumbersome to pull out because their compartments are too tightly packed. A slightly bigger box could have helped, or perhaps a removable tray so they could be placed on the table with more room between them.

The graphic design and iconography are clean and clear, and the artwork on the location cards is excellent. One of the best things about the artwork is that you can make thematic guesses about what you might encounter based on the elements in each illustration.

Final Thoughts

Vantage is a unique game and probably unlike any board game you’ve experienced. It encourages you to explore the world and discover new things. The rules are fairly straightforward, and sessions don’t overstay their welcome. If you’re looking for a strong story or a legacy game, Vantage is not for you. But if you love exploration and the thrill of not knowing what’s around the next corner, you’ll have a great time with this game.

Disclosure: We received a review copy of this game. Also, there may be an affiliate link in the links included at the end of this article.