Eight years of design work just paid off in spectacular fashion. Jamey Stegmaier's Vantage has taken both Innovative Game of the Year and Solo Game of the Year at the 20th Golden Geek Awards, the rare dual win in two of the harder categories to crack.
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Start organising for freeVantage is Stonemaier Games' cooperative open-world roguelike for 1-6 players. Each player explores a different corner of the same alien planet from a first-person perspective, with nearly 800 interconnected location cards and over 900 discoverable cards mapping out an entire world. Players are scattered across the map, communicating to coordinate moves, with sessions running 120-180 minutes. The format is unusual enough that reviewer What Board Game called it a landmark moment in board games, and it currently sits at 8.32 on BGG with a strong solo following.
For Stegmaier, the man behind Scythe (over 100,000 BGG ratings) and Wingspan (one of the most-played board games of the modern era), winning the Innovation category matters. Most of his catalogue is polished but conventional euro design. Vantage broke from that mould, took eight years to make, and ships in a heroic box. The dual win for innovation and solo play vindicates the gamble.
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Set up your group for freeStonemaier shipped Vantage to backers last year and copies are now showing up in UK retailers. The game rewards a regular crew willing to commit several sessions to mapping the planet, so if you're hunting one, find a cooperative-leaning group on Backseat Gamer and book the next few months of game nights in advance.
Sources: BoardGameWire | Opinionated Gamers | Stonemaier Games
