Vantage

I’ve played the new Stonemaier Games release Vantage three times so far, and each play gets better.

Vantage game with some enhanced bits

This is a very different kind of cooperative game: it feels like a legacy campaign game, but the game state never changes between sessions (other than the mysterious spoiler card pack that is yet to be opened). The only state maintained across sessions is what the players bring with them: knowledge of the world, inhabitants, and every-increasing understanding of how the rules work. Concrete examples are difficult to share here because of spoilers.

I described this to Julie as a “choose your own adventure” game; the first I remember playing is Tales of the Arabian Nights.

We’ve learned that surviving the early parts of planet-fall (I don’t think that’s a spoiler - it’s in the game description!) is challenging but as we’ve learned more about how to build out inventory and abilities it becomes easier to thrive and do interesting things. There are two key discovery arcs in the game I think: understanding the sorts of things you’ll encounter in the planet, and understanding the rules. I don’t know if Jamey Stegmaier intended the rules understanding to be part of the discovery arc, but I suspect he did: some of the details on rules are in the glossary in the Book of Secrets.

We have a big crowd coming to visit for a week and this game is aligned with their tastes. I hope to facilitate a few 4 player sessions; I think with more than 4 the down time will be a bit much.