How exactly do these sentient beings accomplish said feats? The knight has to explore, level up, gain equipment, and eventually slay the dragon by piercing his armor. The goals merely motivate and move gameplay. No other game to my knowledge achieves this level of asynchrony, and certainly no modern popular game. This asynchrony is what makes Vast fantastic. The knight wants to slay the dragon, the goblins want to kill the knight, the dragon wants to wake up and escape the cave, the thief wants to steal a bunch of treasure, and the cave wants to collapse and kill everyone in a glorious, rocky, and unique take on seppuku. What exactly is going on here? First, let’s talk about the goals of each character.

Yes, I said cave.īut I’m getting ahead of myself. The five playable characters in Vast are the knight, dragon, thief, goblin clan, and cave.

In Vast: The Crystal Caverns, players each begin with different characters, all with unique abilities, goals, rules, and strategies. Most board games start players off with approximately the same setup, and gameplay ensues in a linear fashion from there with everyone having equal opportunity for success or failure based on turn order, randomly revealed cards, or any other of several board game mechanics prevalent today.

Board game steal dragons treasure