The Initiate 2: The First Interviews

Review

You are Samantha Blake. You awaken to a voice broadcasting information about your past in an unfamiliar room. Slightly dazed, you gain your composure and get to your feet, questioning the voice as to where and why you are there. The voice tells you that for now, you must find a way to escape from the room, and that they will return later. Exploring the room for clues, you search for a way out. The first room is not overly challenging and you soon find your way into the second room. The voice returns and informs you that things are going to get a lot tougher. There are many puzzles to solve in order to open each exit. As you make progress, you find out that you're not alone in being held captive, and that you must work together with this new person to find a way out. As we continue unlocking rooms, we soon find ourselves with an additional member in our group. Now the 3 captives must work together if they hope to find a way out of this place. But there are things they do not know about each other. When the time comes, making necessary choices will not be easy. The fate of these 3 souls rest in your hands; will you earn another chance at life?

Released and self-published on Oct 16, 2018, by the developer Deceptive Games Ltd, this is their 6th release on Steam since July 2016. This indie title is a thriller, escape room, puzzle, choices matter, adventure game with an emphasis on puzzle-solving. It features a system of choices matter with multiple endings, a multitude of puzzles to solve, multi-character control, well-done graphics and sound to aid in an immersive experience. Along with being fully voice-acted, there is a professionally produced score to complement the title. There is a large base of objects to interact with, that may or may not be of use to you in escaping. Its unusual story is pieced together as you play, which makes you question the outcome long before you reach the ending.

Quite a remarkable puzzler; the way some puzzles can only be solved as you progress in the game is brilliant! So, you not only have to work to find your way out of the room you are presently in, but you are also putting needed pieces of the puzzle together for your ultimate escape. I do feel the lack of multiple save points with having multiple endings would be better suited with a multi-save system, even if it were limited to three. I feel my end game save was bugged, as it did not load to the state my game was in when I saved. This could have been bypassed with a multi-save system. Sometime in the future, I may have another go and try to 100% the game myself, as I have 3 hidden achievements I did not achieve during my 6.5 hours of gameplay at the first ending. Achievement hunters should note there are hidden achievements that will require more than one playthrough to 100% the title. For settings, they are mainly graphically related, the exception being mouse sensitivity. There are no audio or control settings at all.

The game can be challenging but rewarding; I did like the fact that most of the puzzles were logic puzzles, and that if you really got stuck you could google for a little help to set you in the right direction. One of my boys and I played through together, as yes, two minds are better than one. I do admit that we also bypassed a couple of the puzzles for which we didn't the find all the pieces, simply by trial and error, until we solved it (not the most proficient way of getting through, but when we weren’t sure what to do next, it worked). However, this will not work for most of the puzzles; just some. Working between multiple characters was an interesting mechanic that is not something you normally see in escape room scenarios such as this. I do have a recommendation for you . . . keep a notepad and pencil handy - you will want to keep notes!

Review written by DamageInc.for Zeepond.com!