Vantage Upgrades: Player Mats, Metal Coins, and Wooden Skill Tokens
When assessing how video games should be packaged for the consumer, I have waivered a lot on what I think should be included and how optional add-ons should be handled. Selfishly, I love well produce board games that include metal coins, and that’s why I often go the deluxe board game route when using Kickstarter or Gamefound. But I also know that not everyone has that kind of money, and with that in mind, I love how Stonemaier Games handles addons for their games, and we will explore this using Vantage as an example.
For a variety of reasons, Stonemaier Games doesn’t do crowd funding campaigns. They have in the past, but don’t have plans on doing so in the future. So using them as an example is perfect as they are as straight to retail company that understandably won’t be producing multiple versions of their games. Stonemaier Games always creates and releases phenomenal looking games; I think if you took one look at the BASE (and only) copy of Tapestry, you’d understand what I’m talking about. Vantage is a game with a TON of cards, and it’s already expensive to produce for that reason alone. But Stonemaier has provided options for players that want to add a few extras to their experience. These extras don’t change how the game is played, and are purely (in almost all cases) cosmetic improvements, although at times you could say they are gameplay improvements as well. Ultimately, it’s a a way for players to take a $60 board game and make it at $120 board game; but Stonemaier has done this in such a way that those $60 base games are still always an option for everyone.
Let’s take a quick look at the upgrades you can get for Vantage, and why I’m happy they aren’t included in the base game, even if folks wish they were. Spoilers, it’s about costs and accessibility (through finances). 
Metal Coins: Metal coins is an easy one to discuss. All games that have metal coins as an extra addon always include cardboard coins in the base game. There is NOTHING wrong with cardboard coins, and in almost every situation they are very functional. I actually really enjoy the design and look of the cardboard coins in Vantage, but come on….I need to have metal!
Player Boards: I’ve seen a lot of discussions around how Stonemaier Games should have included these player boards in the game with everything else. These 9-card sized boards are really nice, dual layered play spaces that keep your 3×3 grid of items and character cards really neat in front of you. But let’s not make this out to be more than it is: this is purely a table organization tool. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t just lay out your cards in a 3×3 grid. Tons of games, like Earth and Everdell, do this; Vantage can, and does, do this too. Why add a $25+ addon into the base box that just makes it harder and harder for people to afford?
Wooden Skill Tokens: This is the only place where I question whether these should have been included in the base game, and again I fell down on the side of costs. Wooden tokens are just more expensive than cardboard, and ultimately you don’t need the wooden pieces to make this game work; I think it makes Vantage feel a bit more premium, but still not required in my opinion.
Overall the upgrades are worth it, but do add to the overall cost of your Vantage experience. So to that end, I’m glad that Stonemaier is attempting to widen the number of potential consumers with a cheaper base game price with add-ons for extra cost.
Article By Adam
