Jo and I played Vantage today. Minor spoiler on pic 2, but it's literally the first turn of the game, so you might see it. Or not, there are a lot of opening locations.

This is a weird game to discuss. It's impressive, a ton of fun, but also hard to recommend to others. It's an open world game that's focused on exploration. But sometimes you aren't going to find what you need to reach your goal to win. There are alternate ways to win, if you care about winning, but it's really a game that's rewarding to just play and wander. It's also impossible to fail an action, but you can lose the game. Hard to explain, but that's the best I can do 🤣. It's pretty rules light and extremely quick to set up, but there's a lot of confusing situations you can get into. You read one short passage from several different books each turn and pull a lot of cards to use and simulate exploring.

If you are interested in it, I suggest watching a YouTube playthrough. The good news is, there is a TON of content. It's possible you'd get spoiled by something in that video, but this planet is so huge and open, you may never see that part. Only watch it for a short time if you worry about that thing, you'll get a good feel for how it plays at the very least, and to be honest, if you don't think it looks fun,, it's not for you.

Good news for us is we love it. I've played solo, 2, and 3 players (Aleksia joined us once.). It can play up to 6, but that seems insane. While the reading is short, the more players you have, the longer it takes to get back to your turn. I think 4 max, but 2 or 3 has been great. I didn't enjoy it solo as much, but that was because I liked having others to share the experience with.

I tend to enjoy games from @stonemaiergames and this is another great one. But buyer beware, this may be more polarizing than many of their games, or just more polarizing than many games out there in general. But I am loving it.

#BGG #BoardGames #ExplorationGames #FamilyGames #Playing