Chaos & Confetti

Almost Innocent by Kolossal Games is a cooperative adventure which has players using their deductive skills to navigate an evolving story.  After a crazy night that players can’t quite remember, they have been accused of crimes that they’re probably innocent of doing.  Now they must use the fragments of information they do have to piece together each others’ solution and get out of trouble.

In Almost Innocent, everyone has the solution for another player.  Each player must figure out their own unique solution, consisting of an offender, a victim, a crime,  a piece of evidence, and a crime scene.  In the middle of all players is a 6×6 board that contains all the possibilities for each solution spread across the grid.  Players will take turns asking questions about the number of solutions or the types of solutions in rows and columns.  Thankfully, any question that is asked, gets answered by all players, including the asker.

Everything needed for this campaign-style game is contained in the box.   

Almost Innocent is recommended for 1-4 players, aged 14+.  Each game should take around 30 minutes.   

OUR THOUGHTS:

The Puzzles: An evolving deductive puzzle that requires careful teamwork

Almost Innocent is a deductive style game whose puzzles revolve around how to best convey information to your teammates while also gathering the information needed for your own solution.  Players need to balance asking questions that may signal important facts to others, while also taking care of their own needs.

Players will use their gathered information to eliminate solution possibilities, and hopefully come to their one true answer.  

Since this is a campaign style game, more rules and game mechanics will be added as players progress through the story.  These new elements create extra challenges as players must work within limits such as number of questions asked, types of questions asked, and more.  The board layout changes with each scenario too, which keeps players on their toes as the game finds interesting ways to use answer placement in the grid.  

There will also be a few player abilities that will be unlocked which may be helpful if used wisely and strategically.

The deductive-style puzzles are entertaining, and often provide a good amount of challenge.  The challenge level can also be adjusted to players’ liking, increasing or decreasing the number of questions they get each round, and how forgiving the game is of mistakes.

The Narrative: Short story setups add a little flavor to each scenario

Almost Innocent is a campaign-style game made up of 12 scenarios (16 with the Kickstarter epilogue scenarios).  Each game of the campaign comes with some story setup and some occasional story follow-up for certain games.  Players will even get to make a choice or two to dictate how the story plays out.

For the most part, the story pieces are brief, consisting of less than a page of writing and adding simply a little flavor to the gameplay experience.  Players will get to become pretty familiar with the world and characters of Oshra (the setting of Almost Innocent).  

Overall Fun: Quick setup and fun gameplay equals an enjoyable experience 

Players should have a lot of fun working through Almost Innocent’s scenarios.  The game provides a good level of evolving and adjustable challenge. The introduction of mechanics to both hinder and help players keeps the journey interesting and entertaining.  

The quick setup and gameplay makes this an easy game to hit the table and to play multiple rounds of in a single play session.  

The campaign is replayable, or any scenario can be played on its own as a stand-alone adventure. 

WRAP UP:

Puzzles: An evolving deductive puzzle that requires careful teamwork

Narrative: Short story setups add a little flavor to each scenario

Overall Fun: Quick setup and fun gameplay equals an enjoyable experience 

Recommended for: Those who love deductive puzzles and who are looking for a fun cooperative experience to playthrough with friends.  

Website Link – https://kolossalgames.com 

Price –  $30 (currently not available online, but hopefully soon! Also check your local game stores)

Disclaimer: we purchased the game with our own money, this review is not sponsored. All thoughts are our own.