Konieczka is currently wrapping up his second title for Unexpected Games – which he promises is “ very different from The Initiative. We won’t be talking about it for a while now, but the tone and style are quite different than anything I’ve done in the past. Then I’m turning my attention to game #3 and beyond. It is exciting times.”

Players move about the board, looking to collect clues that they can use to work out the codes. These might be simple pictograms that lead to a phrase. Or something that helps them translate the hieroglyphics on the key phrase board. Final Score: 4.5 Stars – One of the most innovative games in quite a while. A wonderful mix of cooperative gameplay, story, and puzzles. Close attention to the comics and other game materials revealed secret messages that sometimes changed the story or permanently affected gameplay. Analysis And as with any game that looks to give you the opportunity to fail forward, there are multiple endings to the campaign. Changing the world might be a youthful urge, but this game seems to be a product of Konieczka’s own maturity. With that comes the approach to failure in the game. Failing a mission isn’t the end of the game, but like life, there’s no restarts.

Is The Initiative Replayable?

The game is a narrative puzzle game, set in the 80s/90s – or at least the blurry cultural memory of those times – and focuses on teenagers. It’s not just a Stranger Things style riff on the time period though, it’s got a little bit of Jumanji about it. This wasn’t the case with The Initiative. My friend and I breezed through in three play sessions. And, while it would be difficult to fully reset the campaign due to some of those legacy elements. The game does come with twenty-four extra missions that also promise another meta-puzzle within them. Though I haven’t tried these yet. After you beat the campaign, there is still tons of content to explore. There are dozens of bonus missions that include their own secrets and mysteries. Some of these really turn the game on its head.” Players use strategy and a unique card system to collect clues, avoid traps, and try to solve the mission.” The Initiative is a big deal. It’s the inaugural release from Corey Konieczka’s Unexpected Games. He is known for 13 years of prolific design work at Fantasy Flight Games, crafting absolute classics such as Star Wars: Rebellion and the Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game board game. But this game feels radically different.

The goal was to keep challenging players and to keep the game fresh all the way through the campaign.” The Initiative is a cooperative campaign-style game that unfolds throughout fourteen missions (and there is more to explore after the main story). While there are more than a handful of cooperative legacy games these days, The Initiative goes about things a bit differently. So let’s dive in and see what it’s like. Gameplay Overview: And the first one is this, The Initiative, or if you look at the game’s box, The [crossed out] Initiative. So, what is it? The Initiative offered a few game-changing moments of surprise that evoked the same feeling of wonder as the best play-at-home escape games—or even real-life escape games. Some of the early missions’ answers were on the easy side for experienced players, with many of the puzzles on the secret cards relying on common ciphers. But they were still satisfying to solve, and once the campaign got going, the complexity of the puzzle layer revealed itself. After a few missions, we could really appreciate the intricate design.Time cards provide the same tension as a time limit without the stress that comes from having to actually play fast.