Thursday 15 February, 2018

Game Log 2 Part 3 – This Is the Police

More happened during this session than the last. After repeatedly refusing to help the mafia, I got murdered in my kitchen one day. This led to a game over, and I had to lose several days of progress in order to keep playing. On the bright side, this meant I could save a few officers that ended up killed by the mafia, at least for a couple more days until they were all killed on another job.

At this point, the main character has gotten pulled into a war between two crime organizations – the Sand family, and some guy named Vargas. I decided to help the Sands because I at least knew a bit about them, but I’m sure this is going to end up with me having huge problems with the law later in the game.

I did figure out this time that I can send less effective officers along with more experienced officers, and everyone gets a boost to their skills when they succeed. This was helpful when I got two new hiring slots by letting some guy sponsor them on the condition that I hire and never fire his terrible nephew. The nephew is still useless on his own, but so long as he doesn’t get murdered, he’ll eventually get up to par with the rest this way.

Having played for a while now, I can say this game is on point in terms of design. Everything is terrible, but it’s supposed to be terrible, and each component of the game drives that point home, from the narrative snippets, to the directives from the various factions, to the personality of the main character. Corruption is the only way to get by in these situations, and that in itself illuminates why people might become corrupt. You’re casually asked to do terrible things, and people die when you don’t.

This wraps up my gamelog for this game, but I am going to keep playing. Even if there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel for this story, I want to see how the choices I’ve made affect the ending. If nothing else, I want to see if I can keep the main character alive long enough to even get there. Given how things have gone with him, it’s going to be quite the challenge.

Good job with these game logs, they're really detailed and show you thought about what this game's message is for the player. It's interesting that everything is terrible and that decisions often come down to the lesser evil. perhaps the game has a utilitarian perspective, with the greater good often being the root of most decisions?