The Grand Ambition: Sandbox Storytelling in a Box

Vantage is one of those rare projects that feels like it shouldn’t exist in board game form — and yet, here it is. Designed to emulate the open-world freedom of exploration video games, it’s a co-operative, non-campaign adventure where every session is its own self-contained journey.

Players begin scattered across a mysterious alien planet after crash-landing far from one another. There’s no map to follow, no campaign book to complete, and no story rails guiding you. Instead, you’re dropped into a massive sandbox and left to decide what exploration, discovery, and “success” really mean.

The twist? Vantage is not a legacy or campaign game. There’s no progression between plays beyond what you, as a player, have learned about the world. Each new session begins fresh, with a clean slate — but the planet itself remembers. Knowledge becomes your metagame currency.

It’s a bold design philosophy that makes Vantage feel alive, experimental, and deeply personal.

Components, Scope & Presentation

Unboxing Vantage is almost intimidating. The game features nearly 400 location cards, each representing a unique place on the planet, and hundreds of additional cards for items, gear, and encounters. The physical scale alone makes it clear: this is a massive, interconnected world, not a scripted story.

The artwork sets the tone beautifully. Every location feels alien yet grounded, painted in muted colors that evoke isolation and mystery. The production values are strong — the cards are large, the iconography clean, and the materials sturdy. The planet feels tactile, as if you’re actually piecing it together one location at a time.

Setup can take a bit of time on the first play. There are several books to organize (each corresponding to a type of action), tokens to sort, and reference materials to keep nearby. Once the structure “clicks,” though, setup becomes surprisingly manageable.

One of the game’s most striking design choices is the perspective system: each player sees their surroundings from a first-person point of view. You don’t share your location cards with others; you describe what you see. The table becomes a conversation between explorers — a network of voices relaying fragments of an uncharted world.

How It Plays – Exploration, Dice & Discovery

Each location card provides a list of potential actions tied to six archetypes: Move, Observe, Help, Engage, Take, and Overpower. The action you choose determines which short narrative entry you’ll read in the relevant storybook.

Dice as Effort, Not Chance

When performing an action, you roll a certain number of dice based on difficulty. But here’s the brilliant twist — you always succeed. The dice don’t decide whether you fail or not; they decide how much it costs you.

Bad rolls drain your vitality, morale, or resources. You can absorb these effects if you’ve collected the right equipment or support tokens, but every choice carries a risk. This system flips the traditional idea of dice checks on its head. Instead of fearing failure, you plan for endurance — balancing your willingness to explore against your ability to survive.

This keeps the pacing brisk. There’s no repetition, no “try again until you pass” slog. Every action moves the story forward, even if it bruises you along the way.

Missions, Destinies & Personal Goals

Each player starts with a mission card, representing a broad objective like exploration, discovery, or survival. As the game progresses, you might uncover destinies — new, emergent win conditions that reshape your priorities.

You can end a session by completing your mission, achieving your destiny, or simply deciding that your story feels complete. There’s no fixed endpoint. This freedom gives the game a meditative tone — it’s about the journey, not the victory screen.

Freedom and Ambiguity – The Double-Edged Sword

Vantage is built on freedom, but that freedom comes with fuzziness. The game rarely tells you exactly what to do next. Instead, it presents a world full of strange options and lets you decide what’s worth pursuing.

Some actions feel clear and intuitive; others are intentionally vague. You might “climb,” “listen,” or “enter,” without knowing what those verbs truly entail. The ambiguity is part of the design, inviting imagination and player interpretation.

However, this can also be disorienting, especially for players used to structured, objective-driven games. Vantage rewards curiosity and improvisation more than optimization. If you crave efficiency, it may feel like wandering in circles. But if you enjoy storytelling, mystery, and discovery, it’s intoxicating.

Player Experience & Communication

One of the most remarkable aspects of Vantage is how it handles multiplayer. Because everyone starts far apart, there’s a strong sense of isolation early on. Communication happens through description — players talk over their comms, sharing what they see or warning others about hazards.

It feels strangely immersive. You’ll often realize that two players are describing the same area from different angles, or that someone’s “mountain ridge” is actually your “western cliff.” These moments of overlap are small but magical — they create a shared sense of exploration that feels organic and earned.

This setup also means that Vantage scales differently than most co-ops. It works beautifully at two or three players, keeping the pace lively and the focus tight. At higher counts, there’s more downtime as each person reads, rolls, and resolves their entries. While the game technically supports up to six, it feels best in smaller, conversational groups.

A World That Feels Alive

Every decision in Vantage feeds back into the world. Because you can’t take every action on a card in a single session, there’s always more to see when you revisit locations in future plays. Some areas evolve or change depending on what happened previously.

This creates an illusion of persistence without the burden of a campaign. You’re not unlocking content through stickers or envelopes — you’re unlocking it through understanding. It’s a refreshingly minimalist approach that still manages to make the planet feel alive and reactive.

The design philosophy echoes roguelike games: you start anew each session, but your knowledge deepens over time. You learn which paths are risky, which resources matter most, and where the world hides its secrets. It’s a tabletop format that encourages exploration for its own sake, not for victory points.

Theme and Tone

Tonally, Vantage sits somewhere between The 7th Continent, Sleeping Gods, and Breath of the Wild. It’s less narrative-heavy than Sleeping Gods and less puzzle-driven than 7th Continent. Instead, it finds its own space — slower, more introspective, and often unexpectedly poetic.

You’re not heroes or conquerors; you’re explorers trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t explain itself. There’s a quiet beauty in that simplicity. Some players describe it as a meditative experience, one where even failure feels like discovery.

The absence of a traditional campaign or scoring system means you define success yourself. Maybe you’ll settle down to build a shelter. Maybe you’ll uncover an ancient secret. Or maybe you’ll just wander, mapping landmarks through words and memory. All are valid outcomes in Vantage.

Who Will Enjoy It

Vantage is a game for explorers, storytellers, and curious minds. If you’re drawn to emergent narratives, roleplay, and discovery, this will feel like a dream come true. It’s ideal for players who enjoy Sleeping Gods, Lands of Galzyr, or The 7th Continent, but wish those games were more open-ended and less prescriptive.

If, however, you prefer tightly structured Euros or competitive strategy games — the kind where you can calculate moves and optimize efficiency — Vantage probably isn’t for you. It’s too fluid, too unpredictable, and too reliant on interpretation to scratch that itch.

The game shines brightest in small groups that enjoy conversation, storytelling, and world-building together. It’s also one of the most engaging solo experiences of the past few years, offering a genuine sense of exploration that few tabletop titles achieve.

Verdict

Vantage isn’t just another adventure board game — it’s an experiment in how far the medium can stretch. It replaces maps with memory, replaces campaigns with curiosity, and replaces winning with wandering.

It’s not perfect. It can be slow, meandering, and occasionally confusing. But those imperfections serve the experience rather than undermine it. The game doesn’t want to hold your hand — it wants to hand you a world and ask, “What do you see?”

For players seeking a sense of discovery, Vantage delivers something rare: true exploration. Every session feels different, every story is yours, and every outcome feels earned through curiosity rather than optimization.

If you’ve ever wanted to step inside a science-fiction novel, to lose yourself in the unknown and find meaning along the way, Vantage deserves a place on your table.

– David

Scratches: 8.5/10.0