Last updated on June 4th, 2023 at 10:30 am
Hostage Negotiator
Hostage Negotiator is one of the best $3.99 to play game in the App Store.
Developed by Peter Kossits, Hostage Negotiator is a Card game with a content rating of 12+.
It was released on 9th February 2018 with the latest update 25th February 2019
Whether you are a fan of Card, Strategy, games, you will find this game interesting and will absolutely like it.
Rating
40 people have rated 1.4.2
You can download the game Hostage Negotiator from APP STORE.
Description
Official app of the board game by AJ Porfirio and Van Ryder Games.
In Hostage Negotiator, you play the part of a law enforcement agent responsible for negotiating the release of hostages taken by an unscrupulous figure hell-bent on having his or her demands met.
Each turn in the game represents a conversation between you and the hostage taker. You’ll play cards and roll dice to increase conversation points, decrease the threat level, and release hostages. Hostage Negotiator uses a unique "hand-building" mechanism that puts cards you purchase directly in your hand for next turn rather than leaving you wondering when the cards will show up like in deck-building games.
In Hostage Negotiator there are multiple paths to victory, but the hostage taker has other plans. Will you try to calm him and get him to surrender? Will you stall and bide your time before sending in the team for a major extraction? How many hostages will you save? These are many of the exciting decisions you will make in a game of Hostage Negotiator!
Features:
Play against 4 villains, each, with their own personalities.
Interactive tutorial teaches the rules and basic strategy as you play.
The app tracks a variety of player statistics.
Updated on 25th February 2019
Minor Bug Fix – Against the expansion villain Gonzalo the button allowing you to play cards face down for a conversation point should not be available if the bus is moving through the Forest. If you have not purchased the Gonzalo expansion, you do not need to download this update.
Hostage Negotiator Reviews
This is a great adaptation of the board game. We wish there was more variety in the cards you have access to but its 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.
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. We 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. Our preference here may have as much to do with the game itself as it does when and where we play it. We play the app when there is not much better to do and we are waiting for something. When we are playing the physical game, we have dozens of other options. Bottom line: its 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.
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.
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"
We see the tutorial when playing on iPad but not iPhone. It is enabled in the settings but doesnt actually come up when playing on phone.
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. Its a fun, but not polished experience.
We have really bad luck with dice in real life, but we really think the algorithm for the dice in this game is designed to roll bad 90% of the time. Other then the this we like the game.
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 youve accomplished. Always. There is no AI in this game – it just cheats against you so it can win.
As much as we wanna say the dice are rigged, it’s a good game that works. We haven’t encountered any major bugs and the dice issue is fixed. The main problem we have with it is that it looks ugly. We’re not really expecting fancy graphics and animations but it would be nice to get a visual upgrade. But for $1, it’s a good game.
Im glad they insist the luck isnt dominant. When we finally win one game using the exact moves they suggest for us, then Ill believe their claim that you should beat the first abductor ~70% of the time. Lol.
Enjoying the app while waiting for the physical game to be shipped.
The game is great, or would be. The 3D dice consistently hit the sides of the screen so dont roll many times. The physics on them is a little off and sometimes they seem to slide as much as roll. They get hung up on each other, too, and when they dont lie flat (corner or side propped up) its usually considered a failure even when a success seems like what would be on top. Upshot is that the dice fail quite oftenseems like well over half the time, whereas it should be somewhat under one half for a pair. Even if theres not an actual statistical issue, the automatic rolling with no user input and ambiguous results lead to a helpless and frustrating experience. Instead of rolling the dice to win, youre watching the game roll the dice to beat you and wondering if its cheating/buggy or not.
Tried to play 4 games, each ended a game breaking bug. It would be fun if it was playable.
We have always loved the board game Hostage Negotiator and have purchased all of the content for our game table. We feel this app has captured the game extremely well and we love playing.
The game is very frustrating, to be sure, but very compelling and original. An interesting strongly themed dice rolling card game with light deck building. We really appreciate how the game’s handy advisor doesn’t simply suggest moves but fully explains its reasoning in most cases.
We have the physical game with all expansions. This is a great way to enjoy the game "on the fly" during our commute, waiting for meetings, etc… Like most all new apps, it needs a little polish. The recent update (hopefully) fixed the irritating issue found in other games with 3D dice rolling – they roll around forever and often get "stuck" on an edge. It would be great if in the settings you could just turn off 3D dice. We would rate the app a full star higher if it weren’t for the microscopic (and incomplete) card titles. We realize it’s not possible to show card text at the app’s resolution and that holding on a card magnifies it however, if you can’t read the name of the card in the first place (the names are literally incomplete) then you wind up having to press and hold each and every card, each and every time.
You know, when you have one zoom feature, thats good. When it uses less than a third of the screen, thats bad. When you have TWO zoom features, you are already saying that your first zoom was just rubbish. And when the second still uses less than half, you are just nuts. Overall, a very bad use of screen real estate makes this feel like there was no attention at all to visual design.
This legitimately on of the greatest solo games ever designed for tabletop and theyve done a tremendous job getting the app to match the experience on the table.
The game itself is pretty good, but it’s luck heavy dependent on dice rolls. The app looks a little dated. When you roll the dice, the dice move really slow. Also, if the dice roll onto a corner, it’s automatically considered a failed roll. They should be rerolled because it pushes the already bleak odds further away. Animation of the cards could be improved, but more importantly, there should be an option to either turn them off or dramatically increase their speed.