Rules & FAQ
At the garden’s centre would be a raked, gravel ‘sea’ with a mossy mountainous island rising from it…. It’s almost a year since we dug the pond – the first stage of a Japanese-inspired garden. Fortunately with our woods between us and the coast, the house and garden have been protected from the worst of the easterlies and the snow didn’t drift too much (not that drifts stopped Lola when we were out on walks – seeing them more as hurdles to be leaped). Wherever possible I have also grown from seed (with limited forrrestarrow.com success I have to be honest) or transplanted self-sown seedlings from other parts of the garden. I must have been in a very optimistic mood when I started out as I thought that it would only take me a month to create – even against the backdrop of a busy summer of guests. This summer I finally embarked on the main project – to create a larger gravel garden that would also house a BBQ, fire pit and eating area away from the house (partly to provide a new space but also to ensure that any flames are as far away from the house as possible – especially after some guests decided to use a throw away BBQ on the room five deck and set it alight).
After announcing Vantage as a “roguelike” game, we heard feedback from some who believe that roguelikes must be dungeon-crawl, procedurally generated games; Vantage is not at all procedurally generated. The action system involves some storybook text, though I really focused on keeping the text per action to 1-2 sentences for most of the 7,000+ actions in the game (not long paragraphs). Also, because the various actions on each location are spread out across 7 different storybooks, it isn’t possible to accidentally spoil the other actions while reading your selection. Can I use a digital app to look up Vantage cards, storybook text, or location images?
“There is nothing to describe the first time you see a whale breaching.”
More than any game I have played in a while, this one is all about the triggers. Beneath louring skies and surrounded by the halted spires of old temples, I did start to get my own bearings. There’s no map in The Pathless, no waypoint or fast-travel systems that might make navigating its daringly large fantasy forests and steppes a little easier. Emma enjoys reading, spending time socialising with friends & family and loves a roast dinner!
It’s worth persevering though (it’s not far from Southwold) to see 15th century vision of the Day of Judgement. Blythburgh – one of the gems of Suffolk loved both for its beauty but also for its location – looking out over the Blythburgh marshes. Although it’s partly the sheer volume of grasses but also the way that I choose to do it. However by the end of the winter the wind will have taken their toll (though many are tough enough to emerge pretty much unscathed) and they need to be cut down before the new season’s growth starts to come through. It’s been so useful having Chris’s advice on how I can improve – I’m progressing all the time.
If you burn a bridge at a location, you can’t then cross that bridge. Why can you only perform one location action per location? If a player can explain everything on their location card, including the actions they can perform, why can’t they just show their location card to the other players? Only audio is necessary (in fact, it’s more thematic that way). If you have a copy of Vantage, you can play remotely with anyone else who also has the game. With all that said, if you’re someone who dislikes these types of intrinsic motivations in games, you can instead pursue the mission (the reason you came to the planet in the first place) or a destiny.
This is a game that trusts your intelligence and asks you to use your eyes (and the shared knowledge of the group if you’re playing with others). If the topic of a location is about a gap between one place and another, “assemble” is probably referring to a bridge. The heavy playtesting of Vantage ensured that the action verbiage is intuitive to the game (rather than being a game about guessing what Jamey was thinking when he selected this word).
Nearly every location (of close to 800 unique locations) allows you to move in any direction as your turn. Also note that even though you’re always facing north, you can still discern from the terrain shown near the bottom of your location as to what you’ll find to the south. It is only after you commit to moving north or west on this location that you will learn the difficulty, perform the action, and go to the resulting location.
“The vibrant city of Saint John is the perfect base for exploring the varied Fundy Coast.”
I’ve designed and playtested the game to sing just as well at higher player counts as it does at 1-2 players. There’s a mechanical scaling element via the number of challenge dice in the game. The only persistent element from game to game is your increased knowledge of the world. The cards in Vantage are never shuffled (this is not a randomly generated world; i.e., if you’re on location 623, it will always lead north, east, south, and west to the same specific locations), so they do not need sleeves. I recommend not spoiling these cards before finding them organically; if you find them in a game of Vantage, you’ll probably notice that something is a little odd, and hopefully that will bring you here! There are a few of the 1700 cards in the game that function just fine but have one little detail incorrect.
Sadly following redundancy just before COVID, she then went on to work in a busy café in Bournemouth, so she could spend more time with her daughter, whilst successfully completing a HR Course. Emma started her career in childcare and then moved on to work for a successful energy provider in Bournemouth. She’s happiest by water, whether it’s the sea, a lake or a hidden New Forest stream. When she’s not working, you’ll almost always find Rachael outdoors -on a board (whether it’s wakesurfing, snowboarding, surfing or skateboarding), climbing, rollerskating, playing tennis, running, cycling or hiking. A keen traveller, Nic relishes researching the places she visits—whether it’s diving into books by local authors, hunting down Lonely Planet recommendations, or using social media to uncover hidden gems and new hotspots. You will develop upper body strength from pulling the bow; hand-eye co-ordination from aiming; a good walk to collect your arrows; posture from standing up straight to get the correct line; patience, from when you get it all wrong and feel like giving up.
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Once the land is cleared you have to start digging to create the footings, add drainage, insulation etc … That said we hadn’t quite realized just deep we would have to dig as there is quite a difference in height between the drive and the back door. Before we could start building we had to clear the area including our neighbour’s Leylandii hedge. So about a year ago we sat down with our architect friend John, and started to map out a fairly modest extension to give us a little more space and a generally nicer environment in which to live. Bruce and I have been together for seventeen years and given that we spent seven years renovating our house in Peckham, we have only spent one year of our time living like ‘grown ups’.