Hostage Negotiator is a solo board game franchise dating back to 2014. Over 1100 backers have supported the original campaign and now we can witness the final expansion called “Career”. And I have to admit: it looks really, really good!
Freeing Hostages
Hostage Negotiator lets players become specialists tasked with freeing people from the clutches of various criminals. If you’ve seen “The Negotiator” (1998) with Samuel L. Jackson, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t – hurry up and catch up 😉
The mechanics are simple and based on cards and dice, although the game has many smaller rules that you have to keep in mind. Gameplay consists of a number of rounds, each divided into 3 phases: conversation (playing cards), spend (buying new cards, that increase your abilities) and terror (actions of the criminal). The difficulty is quite high, and the randomness may hurt you, but with a task as hard as negotiating with maniacs, desperates and panicked criminals – it makes a lot of sense.
The game has an unique atmosphere, supported perfectly by the mechanics. This mix makes Hostage Negotiator a really wonderful solo title.
Your Own Career
The Career expansion merges all boxes of Hostage Negotiator into one huge campaign. The player has 10 years to deal with kidnappers, events taking place between cases, and his or her own private life. The campaign is supposed to last for about 4-6 hours and the system makes it replayable and randomized. Each time you will face completely different challenges!
New Stressor Cards, Career and Personal Cards add fresh gameplay elements and new decisions to make. There’s also the negotiation phase taking place between these, and it equals to… an entire game of Hostage Negotiator with a randomized kidnappers.
During the course of the game we will advance in ranks, earn rewards, gain new character traits, fight personal life / job related stress etc. Everything ends after 10 rounds – so after 10 games. That is unless too many hostages die, which can make you end your “career” prematurely.
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Kickstarter
Hostage Negotiator: Career requires everything that was released in the series so far, but luckily you can get all of the previous content in the campaign.
The expansion with two Abductor Packs (and all of the unlocked stretch goals) is priced at $40. If you want a mat added to your game, you need to pledge an additional $20.
If you’re only starting your adventure with the series, for $100 you can get all the content required to experience Career. That means: the Crime Wave expansion, Career itself and 7 Abductor Packs of your choice.
There’s also the “all in” pledge for $130, and it will get you everything released so far in the Hostage Negotiator franchise.
Shipping is planned for March 2020. The campaign will last until May 18th.
