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Keep the Peace : an in-depth law enforcement strategy game


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Hi Everyone,

 

My name is Nick Morris and I'm president of Deliberative Entertainment and a video game developer in Canada. Because the community here has an obvious interest in both law enforcement and gaming, I wanted to seek out your feedback about an in-depth law enforcement strategy game called Keep the Peace that we are currently prototyping. The game puts players in a combo role of Police Chief, Dispatcher, and Incident Commander, responsible for the safety and security of their town, city, or region. Players will make difficult decisions about the type of police force they want to create and the way they'll approach crime, disasters, and other issues in their jurisdiction. 

 

I'm here because I'm looking for your feedback. Many folks on these forums are extremely detailed-oriented and critical, and that's precisely what we need. I know you've all watched a litany of mediocre police games come and go -- especially simulators, but probably a few "strategy" titles too -- and I won't allow Keep the Peace to join that list. It either gets done well, or not at all. But I need your help --  your ideas, your feedback, your advice -- to make it the best game it can be. 

 

We're currently at a very early stage of development, which makes it relatively easy to incorporate feedback. We do have details about the current vision for the game and we've assembled a video and some screenshots describing that vision in more detail. If you've gotten this far and are interested in more information, here's a little bit more about the game.

 

Just some of the things you'll do in Keep the Peace:

  • Hire officers that are right for your department based on dozens of skills and characteristics
  • Customize vehicles, tools, and weapons, to equip your officers appropriately for the tasks you'll be throwing their way
  • Assign your units to patrols and prioritize their time between preventing crime, reacting to crime, and traffic enforcement
  • Dispatch your units to the scene of dangerous emergencies -- break-ins, bank robberies, vehicle pursuits, shootings, natural disasters, car accidents, and much more, each with virtually infinite possible variations -- and decide which incidents get which resources first
  • Choose tactics your officers should use for complex incidents. Should they negotiate with a hostage taker, or break down the door? Will you allow a growing protest to proceed unimpeded, or will you assign units to stand in the way? A variety of factors could affect your decision in each unique situation.
  • Set policies (e.g. regarding the use of force), implement programs (e.g. DUI checkpoints), and expand your capabilities (e.g. with a crime lab, a motor pool, new training facilities, or new technologies)
  • Train and promote your officers, and manage their physical health, mental health, and morale.
  • Deal with long-term crises. Although Keep the Peace is an open-ended sandbox game, like SimCity or Civilization, various narrative elements will keep it interesting and novel. A serial killer could terrorize your streets for months or years; a new gang could come to town; a new mayor could withhold key resources and make your life difficult.

 

We've uploaded a little teaser video to YouTube: 

 

And here are a few screenshots based on the prototype:

ppss0009w.jpg

ppss0012w.jpg

ppss0019w.jpg

ppss0018w.jpg

 

Though the video and screenshots are still very rough around the edges (just a prototype, after all), and you can expect the models and textures to be completely rebuilt during actual production, I would love to get your feedback about the overall game. For example:

  • Are there features you see here that excite you?
  • Are there things you see here that you do not like, or feel could be improved/changed?
  • Are there things you'd like to see that seem to be missing?
  • What strengths or weaknesses have you seen in other games that could provide a lesson for a game like Keep the Peace

 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! I'll try to monitor this thread closely. You can also find more screenshots and information about the game, and you can reach out to me directly if desired, via our website (see signature below). 

 

Thank you in advance!


Nick

 

 

Creator of Keep the Peace (http://playktp.com) an in-depth law enforcement strategy game

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This seems AMAZING. I'd definitely buy it and think I may help out on kickstarter! 

 

I saw the one area being depicted but would there be other cities added or something along those lines?

56 minutes ago, deliberative said:

Hi Everyone,

 

My name is Nick Morris and I'm president of Deliberative Entertainment and a video game developer in Canada. Because the community here has an obvious interest in both law enforcement and gaming, I wanted to seek out your feedback about an in-depth law enforcement strategy game called Keep the Peace that we are currently prototyping. The game puts players in a combo role of Police Chief, Dispatcher, and Incident Commander, responsible for the safety and security of their town, city, or region. Players will make difficult decisions about the type of police force they want to create and the way they'll approach crime, disasters, and other issues in their jurisdiction. 

 

I'm here because I'm looking for your feedback. Many folks on these forums are extremely detailed-oriented and critical, and that's precisely what we need. I know you've all watched a litany of mediocre police games come and go -- especially simulators, but probably a few "strategy" titles too -- and I won't allow Keep the Peace to join that list. It either gets done well, or not at all. But I need your help --  your ideas, your feedback, your advice -- to make it the best game it can be. 

 

We're currently at a very early stage of development, which makes it relatively easy to incorporate feedback. We do have details about the current vision for the game and we've assembled a video and some screenshots describing that vision in more detail. If you've gotten this far and are interested in more information, here's a little bit more about the game.

 

Just some of the things you'll do in Keep the Peace:

  • Hire officers that are right for your department based on dozens of skills and characteristics
  • Customize vehicles, tools, and weapons, to equip your officers appropriately for the tasks you'll be throwing their way
  • Assign your units to patrols and prioritize their time between preventing crime, reacting to crime, and traffic enforcement
  • Dispatch your units to the scene of dangerous emergencies -- break-ins, bank robberies, vehicle pursuits, shootings, natural disasters, car accidents, and much more, each with virtually infinite possible variations -- and decide which incidents get which resources first
  • Choose tactics your officers should use for complex incidents. Should they negotiate with a hostage taker, or break down the door? Will you allow a growing protest to proceed unimpeded, or will you assign units to stand in the way? A variety of factors could affect your decision in each unique situation.
  • Set policies (e.g. regarding the use of force), implement programs (e.g. DUI checkpoints), and expand your capabilities (e.g. with a crime lab, a motor pool, new training facilities, or new technologies)
  • Train and promote your officers, and manage their physical health, mental health, and morale.
  • Deal with long-term crises. Although Keep the Peace is an open-ended sandbox game, like SimCity or Civilization, various narrative elements will keep it interesting and novel. A serial killer could terrorize your streets for months or years; a new gang could come to town; a new mayor could withhold key resources and make your life difficult.

 

We've uploaded a little teaser video to YouTube: 

 

And here are a few screenshots based on the prototype:

ppss0009w.jpg

ppss0012w.jpg

ppss0019w.jpg

ppss0018w.jpg

 

Though the video and screenshots are still very rough around the edges (just a prototype, after all), and you can expect the models and textures to be completely rebuilt during actual production, I would love to get your feedback about the overall game. For example:

  • Are there features you see here that excite you?
  • Are there things you see here that you do not like, or feel could be improved/changed?
  • Are there things you'd like to see that seem to be missing?
  • What strengths or weaknesses have you seen in other games that could provide a lesson for a game like Keep the Peace

 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask! I'll try to monitor this thread closely. You can also find more screenshots and information about the game, and you can reach out to me directly if desired, via our website (see signature below). 

 

Thank you in advance!


Nick

 

 

 

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Quote

Are there features you see here that excite you?

  • Literally all of them
Quote

Are there things you see here that you do not like, or feel could be improved/changed?

  • It looked like Auxiliaries were assisting officers on pursuits (they set up the roadblocks) would never happen in real life. Unless you change their title to reserve officers, or maybe have the ability for a reserve unit with different types of reserve officers. Fully trained, and less trained ones that would handle stuff like parking complaints. The fully trained reserves can fill in when an officer gets hurt, killed, suspended, and etc. But their access to you is for a limited time.
Quote

Are there things you'd like to see that seem to be missing?

  • Administrative stuff:
    • Internal Affairs aspects.
      • Have a dedicated internal affairs division or detective (depending on size) that respond to different scenarios that spring up if the morale and mental health of officers is too low. Maybe investigate some high level complaints or a video gone viral. Place officer on investigation and take them off the streets, suspend them, fire them.
    • Union
      • Union negotiations on things like policy and salary. Have morale affect union relationship. Maybe negotiate pensions so that if you get a new mayor who messes it up you'll have a morale problem and you'll see lots of cops leaving/retiring. A nice little challenge that happens in real life.
  • Proactive patrol events?
    • Are there going to be dynamic events that your patrol officers will stumble upon based on the neighborhood?
  • Ability to customize uniforms as well. Color, external vest or not, what type of hats, etc. Maybe have certain things requested by the union which affects morale.
  • Types of shift schedules that you'll need to experiment with to maximize officer morale, effectiveness and keep their health in check.
  • Community events that change the relationship with citizens and how good recruits are for your town.
Quote

What strengths or weaknesses have you seen in other games that could provide a lesson for a game like Keep the Peace

 

  • With games like these, try and make as many dynamic situations as possible. I've played and seen other sims like these, and shit gets boring real quick. So even if you have lots of different scenarios, try to come up with as many different aspects for them as you can. Arrest warrants for as many different things as you can think off, different motives for certain crimes or suicide. Just keep it as fresh as possible.

What's the biggest population setting you're considering? I feel a population of like 5 million would be a nice challenge but incredibly overwhelming, but I think you should support populations up to 1 million if you haven't considered it yet.

 

Overall, I'm very excited. I think you guys hit the perfect balance for a sim like this. In depth, while being completely engaging.

Edited by Black Jesus

YouTube:Black Jesus                                                   

 

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This is really interesting. 

 

Black Jesus made a bunch of good points I'd like to build from, and introduce my own.

 

City sizes (both population and area) would pose different challenges. I'd like to see a small metropolitan area with the various culture groups; having to deal with the various language barriers that are directly associated with it. Additionally, large area maps that make you spread out your resources and deal with long response times and remote access to specific location. If you have an option for a map designer/city builder - this could pull some pressure from you for meeting everyone's specific needs.

 

Coming from that, I'd be curious to see what kind of modding support you'd have. Would you release the game on Steam and support workshop endeavors? As you can tell the community here has been know to outperform themselves when it comes to modding for further immersion and activities. 

 

Sheriff's Office and other tidbits - I'd like to see where the player character is the Sheriff and not the Chief - being directly elected by the people. This would allow that character to go against, or with, the local/county government to gain funding and fight against municipalities for funding and officers. This would create a dynamic where you have to keep the people happy to stay in office, risking going against your government, all while remaining competitive to recruit some of the best LEOs in the area. Additionally, some dynamic to demonstrate the current issues that law enforcement agencies face with local/county/state and federal governments. Attempting to keep everyone happy while maintaining your own morale and manpower. (And, that's still nothing about housing inmates and the judicial system).

 

Policies - I like the concept of setting policies and hope that they're open to a lot of customization. This would allow for some international use (looking at the UK) for a completely different play style. Additionally, differences in pursuit polices, when helicopters are utilizes, specialty unit call-outs, and things along those lines would be interesting to tweak to your person (or familiar) standards. (Granted, along the lines of what your gameplay actually allows.)

 

Overall, I love the concept and would by into it - even at this phase. But, like Black Jesus said, I think you're on the cusp of gaining a lot of positive attention in relation to your project.

 

 

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Wow, thanks everyone! Words can't express how much this encouragement and feedback means to me! I'm really excited, and hope you all are too!

 

 

On 5/1/2018 at 10:10 PM, SeniorPepper said:

I saw the one area being depicted but would there be other cities added or something along those lines?

 

Yes! And I not only want to do different maps, but different *types* of maps, which will present the player with different challenges. You could have a small town surrounded by interstates, and as such your primary responsibilities relate to highway patrol. Or you could have a busy metropolis, with rough inner-city neighborhoods. Or a college town. And ideally, players would be able to create their own maps either using a built in map editor, or something easy that's fairly easy to use. This would require additional effort so no promises, and it would probably come later on.

 

On 5/1/2018 at 10:12 PM, Black Jesus said:
  • Literally all of them
  • It looked like Auxiliaries were assisting officers on pursuits (they set up the roadblocks) would never happen in real life. Unless you change their title to reserve officers, or maybe have the ability for a reserve unit with different types of reserve officers. Fully trained, and less trained ones that would handle stuff like parking complaints. The fully trained reserves can fill in when an officer gets hurt, killed, suspended, and etc. But their access to you is for a limited time.
  • Administrative stuff:
    • Internal Affairs aspects.
      • Have a dedicated internal affairs division or detective (depending on size) that respond to different scenarios that spring up if the morale and mental health of officers is too low. Maybe investigate some high level complaints or a video gone viral. Place officer on investigation and take them off the streets, suspend them, fire them.
    • Union
      • Union negotiations on things like policy and salary. Have morale affect union relationship. Maybe negotiate pensions so that if you get a new mayor who messes it up you'll have a morale problem and you'll see lots of cops leaving/retiring. A nice little challenge that happens in real life.
  • Proactive patrol events?
    • Are there going to be dynamic events that your patrol officers will stumble upon based on the neighborhood?
  • Ability to customize uniforms as well. Color, external vest or not, what type of hats, etc. Maybe have certain things requested by the union which affects morale.
  • Types of shift schedules that you'll need to experiment with to maximize officer morale, effectiveness and keep their health in check.
  • Community events that change the relationship with citizens and how good recruits are for your town.

 

  • With games like these, try and make as many dynamic situations as possible. I've played and seen other sims like these, and shit gets boring real quick. So even if you have lots of different scenarios, try to come up with as many different aspects for them as you can. Arrest warrants for as many different things as you can think off, different motives for certain crimes or suicide. Just keep it as fresh as possible.

What's the biggest population setting you're considering? I feel a population of like 5 million would be a nice challenge but incredibly overwhelming, but I think you should support populations up to 1 million if you haven't considered it yet.

 

Overall, I'm very excited. I think you guys hit the perfect balance for a sim like this. In depth, while being completely engaging.

 

Fantastic, thank you for the detailed feedback! Excellent call on the aux units, and that was poor naming on my behalf. You'll be able to request support from state police or other neighboring agencies if you don't have the resources to handle a particularly complex call (especially when you're first starting out). I'll make sure units like that are more appropriately named in future demos! That said, it's an interesting idea to have a reserve officer program, I could definitely see that making its way into the game.

 

Complaints, inquiries, internal investigations, and lawsuits -- definitely! Your decisions will affect the frequency of those things occurring in the first place (based on the types of officers you keep on staff, the situations they find themselves in, your departmental policies, etc.) and your decisions will affect their aftermath (whether you apply punishments, whether you voluntarily compensate complainants, how you handle the press, etc.). 

 

Union relations are an area I'd thought about but never really finalized which pieces I wanted to incorporate, so it's nice to have some feedback there, and those are interesting ideas. I want players to feel like they've invested a lot in their officers -- most will start out very green, and will gain competence through training and experience -- so the implications of morale problems that lead to attrition should be painful for the player. Which would make those dynamics quite interesting. 

 

Dynamic patrol events: definitely. Everything from traffic stops (which can go in all sorts of different directions), to crimes in progress (or suspected ones), to Terry stops. What pops up will depend on the unit's patrol priorities (traffic enforcement? community policing?), your policies, and the neighborhood the unit finds themselves in. 

 

I definitely want players to be able put their own personal spin on their department, and I think customizing uniforms will be a good way to help do this. Especially since in one game you might run a Sheriff's department responsible for long stretches of highway...in another you might run a big-city department...most people would expect to see different uniforms. And vests and such would certainly have a practical impact on officer safety though maybe -- at least for the sake of interesting game decisions -- there would be a small cost to officer mobility. Interesting tie in with union relations there, hadn't thought about that!

 

Thought long and hard about shift schedules as well, and ultimately decided to abstract them out of the game. Officers will be able to be on the road 24/7. There will be so much other complexity in the game already, I decided there just wasn't room for shift scheduling, and the way the time system will work, units would spend too much time just starting and ending their shift (though I recognize there's realism to that). *That said*, there will be time management, in that you'll constantly be making tough decisions about where you want to allocate your units (proactive patrols? responding to incidents? investigating past crimes? running initiatives like DUI checkpoints or buy-busts?). Also, if you keep sending officers, especially inexperienced ones, to extremely stressful situations (especially alone), you will see it eat away at their health and morale, and you might eventually have no choice but to bench them for a period of time (assuming something more dramatic doesn't occur first). 

 

Completely agree with you about the need for dynamic events. The set up will be that event types (say, an arrest warrant) are "templates" rather than blueprints. There will be many different variables within each -- some will be random, some will be quasi-random because they could be influenced by the neighborhood, crime patterns, etc. -- that dictate things like (a) the background/context for the event (what crime is the arrest warrant for?), (b) the location of the event (indoors, outdoors? every single place in your jurisdiction could host any type of event, as long as it makes sense) and with that the layout of the area, any fortifications, the surrounding terrain, potential approach and escape routes, (c) the nature of the "opposition" (how many people are in the house? are they armed? are they fully willing to surrender, or would they rather die than be apprehended?). And then there could always be other mitigating factors....are there innocent people in the area? Is it day or night? Weather? Are your best officers on the other side of the city? And some event templates would be programmed with many different contingencies. A peaceful protest, for example, could go in many different directions as it progresses, and you'd have to be prepared to react quickly to anything.

 

TBD on population, but to your point, I think the limit will be what players decide is overwhelming. And that will have to come from playtesting. That said, I've taken a lot of influence from the grand strategy genre, and there are opportunities to help the player automate routine tasks as they master them and the game progresses, so they can focus their time on bigger, more interesting things. For example, in the beginning, you might have to personally dispatch your units to every car accident and domestic disturbance. But as your responsibility grows, maybe you can choose to automate that task so you can focus on other things. 

 

Thanks!!!

 

 

Creator of Keep the Peace (http://playktp.com) an in-depth law enforcement strategy game

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On 5/2/2018 at 1:31 AM, ArchangelTwo said:

This is really interesting. 

 

Black Jesus made a bunch of good points I'd like to build from, and introduce my own.

 

City sizes (both population and area) would pose different challenges. I'd like to see a small metropolitan area with the various culture groups; having to deal with the various language barriers that are directly associated with it. Additionally, large area maps that make you spread out your resources and deal with long response times and remote access to specific location. If you have an option for a map designer/city builder - this could pull some pressure from you for meeting everyone's specific needs.

 

Coming from that, I'd be curious to see what kind of modding support you'd have. Would you release the game on Steam and support workshop endeavors? As you can tell the community here has been know to outperform themselves when it comes to modding for further immersion and activities. 

 

Sheriff's Office and other tidbits - I'd like to see where the player character is the Sheriff and not the Chief - being directly elected by the people. This would allow that character to go against, or with, the local/county government to gain funding and fight against municipalities for funding and officers. This would create a dynamic where you have to keep the people happy to stay in office, risking going against your government, all while remaining competitive to recruit some of the best LEOs in the area. Additionally, some dynamic to demonstrate the current issues that law enforcement agencies face with local/county/state and federal governments. Attempting to keep everyone happy while maintaining your own morale and manpower. (And, that's still nothing about housing inmates and the judicial system).

 

Policies - I like the concept of setting policies and hope that they're open to a lot of customization. This would allow for some international use (looking at the UK) for a completely different play style. Additionally, differences in pursuit polices, when helicopters are utilizes, specialty unit call-outs, and things along those lines would be interesting to tweak to your person (or familiar) standards. (Granted, along the lines of what your gameplay actually allows.)

 

Overall, I love the concept and would by into it - even at this phase. But, like Black Jesus said, I think you're on the cusp of gaining a lot of positive attention in relation to your project.

 

 

 

Thanks @ArchangelTwo! Agreed on all those points! I want different maps to be more than just a different collection of streets and buildings -- they should introduce different challenges to the player, and require the player to adapt their strategies accordingly.

 

Ideally, as much modding support as possible. I love the potential that modding provides, not just because it can exponentially increase the content for your game, but even more so because it can exponentially increase the community surrounding your game. I think there's a ton of potential here for modding -- people might introduce new vehicles, new types of equipment, new skins, new incident templates, new scenarios/narrative arcs, new maps. Maybe people go crazy and you see total conversions that set you up in the 1920s..or the 1850s..or the 2050s... :ohmy:  That said, incorporating modding support certainly requires additional effort, so it may depend on how successful things like the Kickstarter are, how much support we can get together, but we'll definitely be building with that in mind. 

 

This Sheriff's Office thing is very interesting... I had planned for a political element, in that mayors would come and go and different ones would have different platforms/priorities (and you could potentially influence popular political opinion to some degree), but hadn't thought about the player being an elected individual. As you say, it would shift who you're directly accountable to, and thus add a whole other dynamic to the game. Very interesting!

 

Policies -- yep! I really want players to be able to design whatever type of police force they can imagine. At the very least, that needs to permit mimicking popular police forces from around the world. Ideally players can experiment with some bleeding-edge / radical ideas as well.

 

:thumbsup:

 

On 5/3/2018 at 2:28 AM, xPredatorz said:

I would buy it and play it. Looks like a better version of Police Tactics: Imperio

 

Thanks!

 

On 5/3/2018 at 2:01 PM, Constable Lego said:

It certainty sounds and looks great. I have been dreaming of a police RTS type game for years. 

Though I will admit the talks of Kickstarter makes me cautiously optimistic. 

 

Best of luck with the development though. Hope we'll see more soon. 

 

Thanks for the support @Constable Lego and I appreciate your sentiment. Kickstarters, like Early Access releases, are tools which, in the right hands, and for the right type of project, can be extremely powerful and beneficial for everyone involved. In the wrong hands, or with the wrong type of project, they can be utter disasters. And then most probably net out somewhere in between... I have several options when it comes to funding this project. I chose to try Kickstarter because it helps build a large community of supporters (and future playtesters :teehee:) from Day 1, and it doesn't make me beholden to anyone but my team members (gotta keep the crew healthy and happy) and our player community. 

 

Creator of Keep the Peace (http://playktp.com) an in-depth law enforcement strategy game

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So after looking into this further I am curious on Officer Development and had some thoughts.

Do you have plans for Quirks that can effect an officers performance and may even trigger "Off Duty" Issues.

IE Officer Snuffy has a drinking problem and got pulled over for a DUI. How would you like to proceed with cause and effects based on your choices?

Also since you can hire officers with experience already, do you plan on incorporating where you are hiring Sgt Snuffy from?

IE Sgt Snuffy is a 5 year veteran of Nearest Major Police Department or County Sheriff's Office. He specializes in areas XYZ from his time there. 
This could also lead into being able to save officers you have grown attached to with their own unique backstories etc to hire on as you progress to different areas. 

IE Officer Snuggly from Map 1 was a good clean cut straight shooter and after 2-3 years on patrol in your little township you decided to send him to State Academy to train to be a Sgt. Once you did you Exported him to a recruitment pool to save for later and quit that township and decided to load a small city of 10k people. Your first act as the new Chief was to bring in a trusted officer you know to manage your shifts etc. Maybe even starting off with a negative buff as he gets used to managing say a 5 man patrol for the rural area to now working in a small city with a group of 15 officers under him. 

I dont know how indepth you want the management of personal to be but frankly I think doing something like that would make the Officers you hire more "Yours."

Officer Snuggly graduated the academy last month. He started his career with 3 years with Golf PD was trained and promoted to SGT transfered to Hotel PD where he continue his career for 4 more years and attended SWAT school and LT school. He then Transfered to India County Sheriff's Department and continued he career for 3 more years and attended Capt school.  

Another thought as your looking and developing your Department. Once you reach what I would think the limits of the game engine will probably be before you have to worry about managing sub stations or Districts etc is about 100k population. You mention wanting to build training academies for your department for in house development. Maybe adding a way to improve your in house training past the default "State Academy" and open up potential income streams from other nearby departments sending their officers to train at your academy. You could also then potentially open it up to officers from around the World coming in. IE your SWAT team training is top of the line with the latest and greatest in wiz bang shit. The FBI HRT team wants to send 2 guys to train at your school. The Moscow PD wants to send 3 guys to train and take some of your tactics home with them etc. Then give you options while some of those guys are in town training to recruit them away from their departments. 


Also are you considering using steam greenlight at all once you have  a working game?

Edited by xPredatorz
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Damn things keep popping in my head the more I think about this. Some other thoughts. You plan on having mod support and I love that 100%. Are you thinking about having a character creation tool built in? Think like XCOM where you can create the person and their background story initially and assign them their specialties. All created characters start as a state academy graduate. Give the option to upload them to something like Steam Workshop and people can share and download officers that have progressed etc.

 

As the game progresses you can overright the save when you export.

 

For things like when your using your SWAT team:
I dont know how hands on you want tactical tactics to be but you could implement something like Breach and Clear or DoorKickers where if you have the layout IE Public buildings you can plan your assault. For Home assaults your generally not going to have an accurate layout so the team is going to have to "Flow" to clear.

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On 5/5/2018 at 9:43 AM, xPredatorz said:

So after looking into this further I am curious on Officer Development and had some thoughts.

Do you have plans for Quirks that can effect an officers performance and may even trigger "Off Duty" Issues.

IE Officer Snuffy has a drinking problem and got pulled over for a DUI. How would you like to proceed with cause and effects based on your choices?

Also since you can hire officers with experience already, do you plan on incorporating where you are hiring Sgt Snuffy from?

IE Sgt Snuffy is a 5 year veteran of Nearest Major Police Department or County Sheriff's Office. He specializes in areas XYZ from his time there. 
This could also lead into being able to save officers you have grown attached to with their own unique backstories etc to hire on as you progress to different areas. 

IE Officer Snuggly from Map 1 was a good clean cut straight shooter and after 2-3 years on patrol in your little township you decided to send him to State Academy to train to be a Sgt. Once you did you Exported him to a recruitment pool to save for later and quit that township and decided to load a small city of 10k people. Your first act as the new Chief was to bring in a trusted officer you know to manage your shifts etc. Maybe even starting off with a negative buff as he gets used to managing say a 5 man patrol for the rural area to now working in a small city with a group of 15 officers under him. 

I dont know how indepth you want the management of personal to be but frankly I think doing something like that would make the Officers you hire more "Yours."

Officer Snuggly graduated the academy last month. He started his career with 3 years with Golf PD was trained and promoted to SGT transfered to Hotel PD where he continue his career for 4 more years and attended SWAT school and LT school. He then Transfered to India County Sheriff's Department and continued he career for 3 more years and attended Capt school.  

Another thought as your looking and developing your Department. Once you reach what I would think the limits of the game engine will probably be before you have to worry about managing sub stations or Districts etc is about 100k population. You mention wanting to build training academies for your department for in house development. Maybe adding a way to improve your in house training past the default "State Academy" and open up potential income streams from other nearby departments sending their officers to train at your academy. You could also then potentially open it up to officers from around the World coming in. IE your SWAT team training is top of the line with the latest and greatest in wiz bang shit. The FBI HRT team wants to send 2 guys to train at your school. The Moscow PD wants to send 3 guys to train and take some of your tactics home with them etc. Then give you options while some of those guys are in town training to recruit them away from their departments. 


Also are you considering using steam greenlight at all once you have  a working game?

Steam Greenlight is gone. Steam Direct will be used once the game is finished and working.

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@xPredatorz : Loving it all, and I think we're really on the same wavelength with a lot of things! I definitely would like to have a career mode where you can progress through multiple maps while still existing in the same "world" with the same pool of officers and such. When you take on a new assignment, depending on how big it is, you could potentially bring X number of officers with you (which you'll probably want to do since you invested so much in them), but you could also potentially hire others in the future later on in their career, when they pop up in the candidates list. 

 

I hadn't thought about opening up your in-house training, or potentially helping other agencies (only had really thought about other agencies helping you) but I think that's very interesting. Budget management will be very important, since it can be the case that $$$ = boots on the ground = everything, so creative ways for you to earn some extra money (was talking with someone the other day about RICO seizures) could be extremely important, and could make you a little less dependent on the local government.

 

No guarantees yet about how in-depth the character creation will be, but that's definitely something I'd like to talk more about once we get further into development. I agree, there are a lot of interesting things that could be done there.

 

Regarding tactics, the current plan isn't to be as detailed as either of those games (which, if I may say so myself, are a ton of fun). But you could define parameters for your entry team -- should they go in fast ("dynamic") or slow ("deliberate"). Should they use any special equipment (CS the place first?)? Should they split up to clear the building more quickly, or stick together? And if you can get your hands on the blueprints, or better, get a live camera feed of the interior (and different "technologies" or programs could help you with both of those things, even potentially for private dwellings), that would improve your team members' chance of success. Or might help you make decisions about which entry parameters to set, or how many people to send in. 

 

That make sense? Let me know what you think!

 

 

Creator of Keep the Peace (http://playktp.com) an in-depth law enforcement strategy game

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Christ, this looks cool!

 

I hope that this will make it on to Steam eventually, for workshop support and all that!

Suggestion:

Buying/selling/re-using equipment and weaponry.

Say that there is a local weapons or equipment manufactory in town, they're a tad more expensive to buy things from but if you do, the people and city hall gets happier. The other choice would be to buy equipment from China or some place, which is cheaper but will affect equipment reliability and community relations.

 

Additionally, if you have a surplus of old weapons that have been replaced by newer models, you can either scrap it or sell it (perhaps to the black market if you want to play a corrupt chief :devil:)

 

Another idea would be that you could re-use vehicles, equipment and weapons that you've seized from criminals, if you're a small department with a low budget.

Really looking forward for more updates!

Edited by lovkal

lovkal

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  • 10 months later...

Hi everyone!

 

A very belated update... but for anyone who may have been curious where this went and hasn't come across our updates elsewhere, I wanted to let you know a (very) early playable prototype is now available for supporters, and we're releasing updated versions approximately once per month. Here are some recent screenshots from the prototype, and you can also check out some videos on YouTube (both on our official channel: https://www.youtube.com/KeepThePeace and from various streamers if you search for Keep the Peace). 

 

KTP-20190326-173949-312.thumb.jpg.8eb8d612c9f4cb6c24a47a89a82a70ce.jpg

 

KTP-20190326-174900-751.thumb.jpg.52b6ff71104e682f0f7e0cb90ac42dfd.jpg

 

KTP-20190326-175512-444.thumb.jpg.e1d14bc3de84a0af0a6bde7928f219b0.jpg

 

 

Check out the website for more info and you can also visit us on Discord if you want to chat or have any questions!

 

All the best,

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creator of Keep the Peace (http://playktp.com) an in-depth law enforcement strategy game

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