Hostage Negotiator

Just a random dice-rolling game with zero strategy.

The board game is one of my favorite solitaire games and this app is a good, faithful adaptation. Beat the first the abductors and immediately bought the next three! Sure, it’s not the best-looking interface, and I’ve noticed a few small issues with the way the achievements are calculated and unlock, but the actual gameplay is smooth and bug-free. Great way to enjoy the game when in bed, on the throne, on the road. I only wish it was still getting updates. I’d gladly purchase any and all expansions they put out. More abductor packs, Crime Wave, Career Mode, all of it! And a few interface tweaks would be gravy. Like skipping or at least speeding up the card animations. Maybe another pass of polish on the visuals?

You make the right play, and in response you somehow always get a crappy die roll that ruins things for you, or just the wrong terror card shows up to undo everything you’ve accomplished. Always. There is no ‘AI’ in this game - it just cheats against you so it can ‘win’.

Still evolving strategies. Some insanely bad luck with dice at times but challenging. Quick game for times when you want to squeeze in a game in 20 minutes or less.

It is still quite stressful as games go, but with the physical version it is so easy to scrap a bad game when things seem like they are unrecoverable. I have twice now won in situations that seemed hopeless. The dice also seem to roll slightly more favorably than the real dice which makes this game easier to play. My preference here may have as much to do with the game itself as it does when and where I play it. I play the app when there is not much better to do and I am waiting for something. When I am playing the physical game, I have dozens of other options. Bottom line: it’s a good game turned into a serviceable app with an ugly interface and a good way to burn 20 minutes. There certainly worse ways you could blow 5 dollars.

This is a great adaptation of the board game. I wish there was more variety in the cards you have access to but it’s much better than most iPhone games. You can buy more villains to go against but other than that there are no annoying pay to win micro transactions.

I see the tutorial when playing on iPad but not iPhone. It is enabled in the settings but doesn’t actually come up when playing on phone

I have really bad luck with dice in real life, but I really think the algorithm for the dice in this game is designed to roll bad 90% of the time. Other then the this I like the game.

It is good at simulating the card game, but the software looks antequated and is a bit clunky on ipad. It was clearly made for PC and was hastily ported. It’s a fun, but not polished experience.

Although there are some good UI decisions (the drag and drop works well), cards are impossible to read zoomed-out, difficult to read zoomed-in. Some possibilities for zoomed-out: - no flavor text - title only - title with brief icon reminders - remove "face" on card because these are all the same anyway Some possibilities for zoomed-in: - scrollable with flavor text "below the fold"