Thursday 8 November, 2018

This game is now beginning to get a bit annoying. Nothing to note on the narrative front, as only one scenario has presented itself. The mechanics, however, made up a frustrating bulk of this log. Up until this point, I have completely avoided the “green” objectives, which order me to help out various citizens throughout the city, as the descriptions listed did not seem even relatively important, except for one in which I had to bounce a club, which resulted in one of my officers quitting. I do one now, and I end up getting paid. How was I supposed to know that payment would be an end result, since the first one resulted in the loss of an officer? This should’ve been detailed within the tutorial. Alongside this, more difficult choices presented themselves, with no context as to what the right choice would be. I ended up failing several crimes as a result.
Overall, considering that this is my final log of This Is The Police, this game needs serious improvements in both the narrative and gameplay fronts. Heck, to me, the story is so insignificant that it can be removed entirely, with only the gameplay being in place. A fantastic iteration of the game would be a continuous one, in which days pass by one-by-one, and management of the police is required all the way up until the player fails at a certain point. Before starting a game, the player would be able to choose between various cities to manage forces in, each with their own rating as to how difficult crimes will be on that playthrough, and the game will then start. The player will start off with a relatively small amount of officers, and as the game goes on, officers will increase, but so too will difficulties faced with crime. Each crime presented will have a rating to indicate to the player how hard it will be. This game would be much more enjoyable than the one I’ve played over the last few days.
In relation to what we’ve been discussing in-class, the game most definitely relates to our discussion on cheating, not in terms of modifying the game’s files in some manner, but rather, cheating embedded in mechanics, more specifically, the player character’s deal with the mafia. As a result of such the deal, the player is implored to engage in activities that go against the principles of the police department, such as intentionally not getting involved with crimes, as well as assisting the boss as needed. In this case, we are intentionally going against the rules of what it means to be a police officer in the name of acquiring money that will satisfy the $500k requirement at the end of the game.

You have some interesting analyses of the systems of the police management aspects of the game as well as critiques on the un-importance of the game’s narrative. As for your discussion on mechanics/gameplay moments that relate to class you have two particularly interesting questions in your 2nd gamelog: “Let’s say a worker got drunk one night, and requests the day off. What would be the moral decision here, let them go, or make them stay at work?” and “Alongside this, what strength rating would quantify firing an officer, and what would be the morally right choice to make when an officer asks for help?” Both of these questions at their core are asking about the ethics of boss-employee relations and what the bosses duties are to the decisions they make for their employees. These are two ethical dilemmas that have interesting ramifications regardless of the decisions being made. I could see going further into the ethics on the game’s handling of these types of ethical dilemmas as an interesting direction for the OPA. Additionally, your discussion about having the player character cheat, with their deal with the mafia, could also have some interesting analysis in terms of ethics.
You’ve got some material to work with here. Next is finding an ethical question or ethical statement for the OPA thesis and there should be some good things to reflect on from there.