Vantage: The Joy of Discoveries in the Little Moments
Set out to explore an uncharted planet filled with mysteries and exciting discoveries to uncover over many plays of Vantage.
I haven’t been this excited about a new solo game arrival in a long time! When Vantage arrived, I intended to save it for my birthday… But then I had to check the components. And then it seemed logical to set it up to get a feel for the play space. While I was at it, why not read the rulebook? Ha ha! As expected, I couldn’t hold back for long and dove into this adventure!
Spoiler Alert and Structure of This Post
Don’t panic! The first part of this post does not feature any spoilers, and provides glimpses into the common starting setup. Also shown are a possible starting location and mission. No details about actions or outcomes are included. However, there is an obvious point where this post moves into spoiler territory to talk more about my experiences.
This breaking point is clearly marked, so I recommend slowly scrolling down. I’ve done my best not to explain where any cards in my grid originate from, nor the exact results of actions. This is a game that is all about discovery, but I also love to write stories to really showcase what I’m enjoying about the experience. If you want no spoilers: I’m loving the game a lot!
To that effect, although I’m playing and piecing together mysteries and puzzles, I appreciate not having anything spoiled for me. If you’ve played and recognize something, I kindly ask that you not point out the “best” location action or inquire why I didn’t take an action that leads to this amazing discovery that I need to understand a piece of lore. Thank you!
Game Overview
Game Name: Vantage
Publication Year: 2025
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Artists: Valentina Filic, Sören Meding, & Emilien Rotival
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
This is an experience all about discovery. A character lands on an unknown planet, starting out from a random spot with the freedom to take all sorts of actions. It is entirely open in concept, yet mechanics help provide limitations. The sheer scope is striking, and each play is quite unique!
First Play
July 22, 2025
Complexity
2
Latest Play
August 3, 2025
Expansions
0
Setup Time
5 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
11
Play Time
1 Hour & 30 Minutes
High Score
N/A
Game Area
36" x 20"
Low Score
N/A
Endless Adventure
First off, this is not a campaign. Everything is reset after each play, but the knowledge about the world persists.
Large double-sided location cards provide the vantage points for the places that may be seen. And there are many! Helpful card covers keep these nearty hidden from view.
And the smaller cards? So many! These encompass other elements on the planet beyond locations. Many are placed in a character’s grid, yet I won’t say anything more!
My vantage of the box isn’t helpful, but there are reminders for the small cards to quickly find a number. Excellent!
Surprisingly… Little?
Make no mistake: There is a huge world packed into all of the cards! But for the general play area and components, there is a lot less than I expected. This is easy to set up!
Skill tokens, credits, and boost tokens are used in different instances. Then, challenge dice act as the core of gameplay.
Every action succeeds, yet there are potential costs in the form of time, morale, and health. Losing any of these entirely means it’s time to check if this play is over!
Storybooks are also integral, but reading is typically around 1-3 sentences per entry. Short, yet amazing in many ways.
Tina, the Marine
There are 6 distinct characters to play as on the planet, each with their own portrait and unique abilities. For some reason, I was drawn to Tina right from the start. Let’s go!
Actually, this might be due to how different she is from the usual characters I go for. Her specialty was the overpower skill, often more of a physical or aggressive style.
However, the random mission called for personal growth, which made me wonder just how this would play out!
Randomized skill tokens provided nice boosts to help out with my first cautious dealings on this strange planet.
Above the World
Setup involves boarding 1 of 6 escape pods, which then feature a bunch of random starting locations. It’s true: There are 126 unique places to begin on this planet!
And it’s amazing, because this is the first view that shows the sweeping panoramas that can be found. I’ll also simply say that none of this is placeholder art for the sake of filler.
I’m also pausing here as a quick reminder that minor spoilers are ahead to share the location after this one.
I can’t stress enough how awesome it is to go in knowing nothing. I was utterly surprised by where Tina landed!
First Spoiler Alert (Minor)
The next photo shows a starting location up close. This is 1 of 126 possible starting locations, so it isn’t necessarily a spoiler since you may encounter it on your very first play. But here’s a quick reminder to stop reading here if you feel like you have a general idea of the game from this post and want to experience everything for yourself. You can always return later on!
So Many Questions
This… Was not what I expected! I thought I would find a barren planet with ancient sorts of discoveries to uncover.
But a balloon and tower that looked like it might be active? I don’t think I can explain this first wave of feelings and thoughts that came across me as I saw this card. One card!
Suddenly, I realized I had no clue about this planet. I paused to actually think about what Tina might do. And who was to say that this was a safe sort of place to even set out from?
The number of questions only grew as I played, which was the coolest sort of feeling. I just wanted to keep exploring!
Challenge Dice Rolls
I won’t reveal the location action I chose, but keep in mind that most locations only allow a single action to be taken there during a play. So many possibilities and choices!
With a few matching skill tokens, Tina reduced the number of challenge dice rolled, but these still came into play.
Managing these is a fun little puzzle. I was lucky to get some blank results, which took those out of the dice pool.
Over time, dice are all placed and must be refreshed. This is immensely helpful when cards have dice slots to avoid any penalties, but they can fill up quite quickly. Go, Tina!
Second Spoiler Alert (Major)
Here we go: Stop now if you don’t want to see anything beyond what a starting setup might look like! Beyond this paragraph are cards uncovered during play, along with a little more of a story to narrate my adventure. I do my best not to reveal the outcomes of location actions, yet there are a few things you might be able to piece together if you look closely.
Around Every Corner…
Since every location typically allows for a single action, moving around and discovering new locations is what advances each play. Tina found herself here, in a swamp.
Most interesting! I had no idea what I was looking at and a big part of gameplay is in putting everything together. Are these devices significant? Perhaps, likely in unknown ways.
That’s what got me so excited. The text entries were great, yet I was crafting the story of Tina’s adventure.
Maybe I didn’t know what was going on, yet I only wanted to dig deeper and experience everything in the world!
The End of the Line
Tina traveled through the snowy mountains, assailed by the unrelenting cold that finally led to her health falling to 0.
On the way, the sights she saw were incredible! I was amazed at the way her character grid started to fill up.
There were items, abilities, and much more… If you want to look closely. And it felt like she was learning more about the world as she progressed, steadily improving.
Missions sometimes offer a way to keep on going even when it seems like the end, but this really was the end of the line for Tina and my first play. Simply excellent!
A Redeeming Act
Ironically, although the mission technically wasn’t achieved, Tina’s often brazen acts of aggressive violence gave way to an interesting final act that felt rather poignant.
A few of these options probably seemed out-of-character, yet not with the mission. Tina faded away after a rather selfless sort of act, and I still want to understand more!
I was surprised by everything I did, and still felt like I was entirely in control. There wasn’t one exact path to take.
Maybe certain actions are more lucrative and better in some situations, yet the act of trial and error really shines here!
A Real Open World & Last Spoiler Alert (Major)
As I started to prepare for the arrival of this game, I suddenly got really interested in trying out No Man’s Sky again. I was one of the early adopters, and still try to give it a chance every few years… But it’s not for me. I understand what the tutorial aims to do, yet it never feels like I get to have the adventure I want to have. It’s all about grinding away for resources.
Nothing has ever given me that feeling of being awe-struck or connected to a planet, either. Scan this. Get units. Fix that. Fly over there. Collect this. Recharge my suit. See a procedurally-generated animal that looks very similar to the dozens I’ve already seen. OK. Then go over here and grind away for a rare resource to be able to do this. It goes on and on.
The bottom line is that it’s not for me, but I was cautious about this sort of open world concept in board game format. Could it work? In short, yes! I’m enjoying the sense of wonder that comes from every location. Nothing makes sense to me yet, but not in a randomized sort of sense. There are mysteries to figure out on this world, and I’m here to explore as I like!
With the full reset, I can pursue different paths, even with the same character. Tina might be all about attacking and breaking everything she can at one point, but then maybe she settles into a more thoughtful play about examining and studying everything around here. Both work! And the open world with so much variety promises new discoveries.
Finally, this is one more warning about spoilers ahead! These are major in terms of the cards you might spot and a sample of a hidden page in the Book of Vantages I got to view. Please pause here if you don’t want to see anything more.
To New Adventures
All I could think about was playing again, so that’s precisely what I did! Well, it started off as me returning the cards to reset the game, which took about 5 minutes. I had to do it.
It was too tempting to get the next play all set up, though, since it was so quick. Suffice to say that I wanted to stick with Tina, and she was immediately onto a new adventure!
This mission called for animals, and I never encountered any previously. I was ready to find any and all of them.
Finally, as expected, the escape pod was a different one and I was led to an entirely new starting location. What was it?!
Valley of the Bones
Similar to my first play, I was perplexed by this starting location. At least my mission hinted at animals, but a large skeleton wasn’t exactly what I needed. Ha ha!
And this adventure took Tina on the most unexpected course. She ended up in locations I didn’t think would even exist… And she tried to make friends with the wrong being!
I won’t go into too many details, but suddenly the world had even more going on than I thought it might before.
New mysteries popped up, and my list of questions just kept on growing, spurring me on to keep exploring everything.
Tina’s Tale
This was a pretty excellent state of her final grid! She didn’t exactly make friends with any animals, but there were some very different events that occurred during this adventure.
More than that, her final location was one of the neatest sorts of things! The card is mostly obscured here to hide the card number. Zoom in at your own peril for a spoiler!
Morale led to her fall this time, yet again, it felt quite thematic with where she ended her journey.
Everything I did led to more discoveries, and I haven’t stopped thinking about playing since it arrived. Love this!
Session Overview
Play Number: 1 & 2
Accessory 1: Vantage: Metal Coins
Accessory 2: Vantage: Playmats
Accessory 3: Vantage: Wooden Skill Tokens
Solo Mode: Included in the Base Game
Outcome: 2 Complete Plays
A map! I had the chance to take a look at this page, and have no idea what it showcases. Which is, again, so awesome! This is a game all about discoveries, but also the journeys along the way. Just a fantastic sort of experience that creates a sense of wonder and appreciation for the little moments!
%
10 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
7
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
10
Quality
Components & Rules
10
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
10
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
10
+ Pros (Positives)
- Exploration is achieved wonderfully, allowing choices to be made in a sort of trial and error method down any path.
- Locations feature artwork that often provides insights into other elements, even if they’re not immediately obvious.
- Storybooks are easy to navigate and typically feature 1-3 short sentences for each outcome, allowing a story to evolve.
- The mysterious world is filled with puzzles and elements that might not be seen as mysteries to solve until later on.
- An immense amount of variety is available with the cards, and even hundreds of plays can be entirely unique.
- Random elements are only used for a setup configuration, while the world feels carefully crafted and full of wonder.
– Cons (Negatives)
- There are a few small errata to be aware of prior to playing, but these are easy to note and are extremely rare.
- Having a dual-layered card grid is amazing, and it would have been nice to see these included in the base game.
- Keeping track of gained knowledge about the world across many plays may be a little difficult without proper notes.
- The text size isn’t too small, yet can require a bit of effort to read when looking at a full grid of cards.
Victory Conditions
Reach a Natural End Point to the Story
- Overall Goal Progress 100%
Goals and Milestones
Complete at least 1 game with a fulfilled destiny.
Complete at least 1 game with a fulfilled mission.
Complete at least 1 game with a full card grid.
Continue the Conversation
Have you had a chance to play Vantage? Do you have any memorable adventures, preferably without any spoilers? I am simply in awe of what this game offers. If I had more free time, I would be playing constantly… And that might be what I do for a weekend in the near future! I went in cautiously, and now can’t wait to find out what’s waiting to be discovered next.
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