Yesterday I announced a new game, Vantage, despite the game only being in the late stages of blind playtesting–it’s on track for a mid-2025 release. So why start talking about it now, and why are we already selling metal coins for the game?
I’ve spent the last 7 years creating this massive open-world game, and while I’ve mentioned it in various videos, it’s very much been in flux. At this point, however, Vantage is finally almost complete. Here’s what it is:
Vantage is an open-world, cooperative, roguelike adventure game for 1-6 players designed by Jamey Stegmaier. Vantage features an entire planet to explore, with players communicating while scattered across the world. With nearly 800 interconnected locations on cards and over 900 other discoverable cards, the world is your sandbox.
You begin each game of Vantage on an intergalactic vessel heading towards an uncharted planet. After crashing far from your companions, you have complete freedom as to how you explore, discover, and interact with the planet. You view your location from a first-person perspective–you can communicate with and support other players, but you are separated by vast distances, so only you can see your current location.
Vantage is not a campaign game, and it is completely self-contained (no expansions, just a few accessories like metal coins).
A long time ago I made the mistake of talking about a game (Charterstone) while it was still evolving. With my vision of that game uncertain, the ensuing online conversations created distractions and red herrings for the design process. It also made me feel like I had deadlines to meet. I was also surprised at the time to see some retailers start to accept preorders for the game (a game that didn’t have a price or release date–I hadn’t even finished designing it yet!)
Ever since, I’ve been very careful not to publicly share information about a game until I felt the time was right. Typically this is after all uncertainty for the game is removed–that is, after production is complete and the game has arrived at fulfillment centers. But sometimes it’s earlier: I designed Rolling Realms essentially in real time via Facebook Live, and the creation of the Wingspan Nesting Box was a fully collaborative, public process.
Vantage’s Status
With Vantage nearing the end of the playtest process and on track to start production later this year, I know exactly what the game is. I could have waited until closer to the 2025 launch on our webstore to announce the game, but I’m really eager to talk about the 7-year journey of research, inspirations, worldbuilding, and design. I didn’t want to try to cram 2,555 days of stories into our standard 10-day pre-launch reveal.
So in a departure from our norm, yesterday I announced Vantage with a page on our website, a BoardGameGeek listing, a Facebook group, and a monthly design diary newsletter. It felt great to finally speak openly about the game, and I hope it provides a fun experience for anyone who is curious about Vantage. Subscriptions and followers–especially of the newsletter–will help us gauge first-printing demand for this game so we can have a copy for everyone who wants one at launch. Plus, it’s nice to solidify and publicly move forward with the trademarked name.
Metal Coins
In addition to all of the above, yesterday we launched a small initial batch of the metal coins–available to ship within a few weeks–that will also be available as add-ons at the same sale price when the game launches on our webstore in 2025 (and, soon after, from retailers on the release date). The metal coins are completely optional–there is no pressure to get them now or later.
Selling the coins now might be one of the oddest parts of this early reveal, right? A few months ago when I started planning for this announcement, I decided to fast-track a small batch of the metal coins so that we could offer something tangible to bridge the gap between now and the game’s launch in 2025. The coins can be used for other games in the meantime–in fact, even if you get the metal coins now, there’s no obligation to get the game later if it isn’t a good fit for you (I’ve provided and will continue to provide plenty of details about the game so you can make a fully informed decision).
Also, whenever we have smaller products to release, we try to group a few of them together so people can consolidate shipping (yesterday we also launched Libertalia promo tiles and new packs for Rolling Realms). Last, while we will stock the metal coins upon launch of the game at the same sale price, sometimes demand exceeds supply for accessories–this happened recently with Wyrmspan even though we made 25,000 upgrade packs (of course, if there’s demand for a product, we’ll make more; reprints of Wyrmspan’s upgrades will arrive in late June). So if you already know you want the coins, this is a chance to have full control over when you get them.
The Future
Will we take this approach in the future? It always depends on the game, but I think it’s highly unlikely that any other game we make will take 7 years to design! In general, I still prefer to keep a much tighter “anticipation gap” for new games–announce, reveal, launch, and ship it within the span of about a month–but hopefully people will still be excited about Vantage in 2025.
As for the future of Vantage, I’m excited to share stories about the creation of the game and details about how the game works in a monthly newsletter starting very soon (subscribe here). I’ll post these stories on our website, Facebook, and BGG as well.
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What do you think about this departure from our normal method of announcing games? I’m very excited to finally talk about this game, and I hope you enjoy the journey.
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26 Comments on “Vantage: We’re Announcing a 2025 Game Now?”
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Hi Jamey!
I have a quick question; do you know if any of the cards in Vantage will be the 57mm x 57mm size? I just ask because it looks like Sleeve Kings will be having a sale on sleeves soon and they sell that size sleeve. If you can’t answer that right now I understand. Thank you very much for your time. I am very excited for Vantage! 😄
Thanks for thinking ahead, Nick! We haven’t entered the graphic design phase yet, so the size of the cards hasn’t been finalized. Also, the cards in Vantage are never shuffled and will take up almost the entire box, so sleeves aren’t necessary and will most likely be a burden.
Awesome to know, thank you so much Jamey! 😄
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Wow! Awesome! Although, how will I be able too sleep tonight as excited as I am for this game??
Oo, that’s a tough one, but I hope you figure it out…it’ll be about a year before Vantage is released, and that’s a lot of sleepness nights!
I hope the game will have some competitive scenario. I thought about “Outdoor Survival” from Avalon Hill…i don’t know the rules and mechanics of this game, but the premise would be perfect for some “escape first” or “find something before” and so on…unfortunately that “cooperative” word kills my excitement every time i see it in a potentially good setting.
I appreciate that, though Vantage is 100% a cooperative game (and it doesn’t have scenarios). Perhaps there will be something fan-created, but officially it’s built from the ground up as a game where you collaborate with other players. You do, however, have complete agency in Vantage to pursue the things that are important to you.
This feels very exciting and quite different to the way that you launched Wyrmspan. I can’t grasp the time, energy and mental effort you must have put in over the last 7 years to get to this point, whilst running Stonemaier and launching all the other games you have done in that time. Hats off to you and thank you for the enjoyment all of the Stonemaier games we own bring to our table each week.
I, personally, enjoyed the tease to launch time period for Wyrmspan. It was short and sharp, worked for me. This will feel slower but I don’t think any different from the perspective of building anticipation. I am still looking forward to the gradual reveal and the way that you are able to bring us through this development journey through the design diaries and other forms of engagement.
Customer engagement means a lot and the way you are doing it feels very much like the approach a board game fan would take (certainly I think so). Ultimately, keep doing what you do. :)
Thanks Paul! I completely hear that, and in general, the Wyrmspan method is my preference too.
One of the challenges of roguelikes is the disposable nature of your playthrough; you are meant to die and restart and not get attached to this session. That seems counter to atmospheric adventure games which focus on building deep experiences and moments of wonder. How will the game balance those opposing pressures?
That’s correct! Vantage offers that sense of wonder every time you crash on the planet, with repeat players building a greater understanding of the world every time they play. Thanks to its roguelike nature, the game allows players to quickly progress and become powerful within a single session (unlike campaign-style “atmospheric adventure games”, which typically offer slow progression spread over many hours of play). There’s nothing wrong with the campaign format, but we found that Vantage is far more satisfying as a game where you start fresh mechanically each game while leveraging your accumulated knowledge every time you play (I can say as the person who designed all 800 locations, all 900 discoverable cards, and all 7000 actions and has played many dozens of times that it’s too big of a world not to be surprised by whenever I play).
You can learn more about this on the Vantage FAQ: https://stonemaiergames.com/games/vantage/rules-faq/
I’ve always thought that board games were capable of pushing the possibilities of what’s possible even more than they already do. Vantage is the first board game announcement I’ve heard, in a long time, that I feel does this. A roguelike open world game where you explore an intergalactic planet composed of 1,700 cards. This is an impressive commitment to pushing the limits of board game design. Well done Jamie :)
Thanks Steve! I definitely set out to create something wholly new, and I hope people enjoy the final version. :)
Great announcement, super excited! Cant wait to see some reveals, it sounds like a very interesting game. I love that it isnt a campaign game, yet is open world. Good luck Jamie, keep your passion going strong ❤
Thanks Amy!
Hello! I feel like you implemented Kelp’s strategy of selling a promo/expansion/accessory in advance as you described here:
https://stonemaiergames.com/prelaunch-promos-accessories-and-expansions-ks-lesson-281/
with selling the metal coins in advance. Would you say so?
Looking forward to learning more about the game.
Cheers,
Marlina
That originally got me thinking about the idea, but I think this is quite different. We’re not asking for your money now for something you’ll get far later (and not something that only functions if you get the game, and not something that’s a different price now than later). We’re asking you to pay now for something you’ll get now, something you can use with any game, and something you can wait to get later at the same price. Would you say that’s significantly different than the comparison?
Yes, it‘s definitely different in those aspects. I think, the psychological effect of having already invested in something will probably be similar. It‘s just a feeling, I can‘t back that up with science. I don‘t really like that way of marketing. I think Stonemaier games speak for themselves and don‘t need it.
Cheers,
Marlina
I hear you, but this is genuinely not a marketing ploy. There’s absolutely no pressure in any element of selling and shipping the metal coins now for someone to also buy anything related to Vantage in the future. This has been my passion project for 7 years–I’m just happy to finally offer something tangible to people as I start to open up about this game I love! :) Plus, it actually solves a problem for people who want the coins: There’s no gamble as to whether or not they’ll get this accessory upon launch as usual (like what happened with the Wyrmspan upgrade pack).
I can feel both your excitement and anxiety to announce a game you’ve been working on for so long. It must be a huge relief to finally talk about it publicly. I’m looking forward to seeing more, but rest assured we would all rather wait for your game to be up to your expectation. It sounds very promising !
Thanks Florian! There’s definitely still work to do, but the game is close enough that I’m quite happy to talk about it. I will, however, wait to show the components until the final graphic design is applied. :)
I think this was code “Wild” if I’m not mistaken, I’ve been wondering when that project would ever be announced and I’ve been excited ever since I heard you mention an open world game in the past. Looking forward to it!
Indeed, this was codename Wild!
The fact that you’ve kept it hushed this long (seven years, wow! you must have been bursting at the seams!) is a credit to your high degree of self discipline and discretion. I have already ordered the coins, as they are just the thing I have been looking for – for a very long time – in order to enhance my sci-fi themed board gaming. All other options I’ve found online have either been substandard or too high a quality to make their price prohibitive. Thank you so much!
Thanks Jonathan! I’ve had lots of internal dialogs (in my mind) during that time, so I’m quite eager to discuss the game with others now. :) I’m glad you like the look of the coins and the price point!