In Prison Empire Tycoon, players would manage several high-security prisons. It was a different experience watching inmates being escorted to their cells, their everyday activities as dictated by a strict schedule, changes in their behavior with each passing hour and finally riots, which occurred probably because an inmate’s high stress levels.
Idle Police Tycoon expands on Codigames’ cop-criminal theme and offers a unique perspective on the police department. Instead of managing prisons, you will oversee big police stations where criminals are chased and brought to justice by alert cops.
You won’t see high-speed car chases here, but you will certainly know how a police department functions as you will be tasked to manage several departments within a police station. Your goal will be to stop crimes in every district until you are promoted to a new city, where controlling crimes will be way tougher than before.
Codigames have created another awesome idle game. Check out our TV Empire Tycoon Review to find out what’s so unique about their latest idler.
Contents
Gameplay
The game begins to get interesting when you know how everything works, from registering complaints, processing files to catching culprits. You will have to recruit the right employees, purchase necessary items and upgrade them to make sure interns, clerks, officers and receptionists work efficiently and try your best not to delay in bringing offenders to justice. Along with that, your job will also be to keep the money flowing, pay wages to employees and make sure there aren’t any losses.
The in-game tutorial explains the basics pretty nicely. Chief Wilson Mcgee walks you through major departments in a police station, explaining everything from hiring receptionists for registering citizen’s reports to recruiting detectives and officers for investigating crimes and catching offenders respectively. You will also learn the importance of interns, as it’s their responsibility to move case files from one division to another. The short tutorial will also show you how the entire process works:
- Victims register complaint with the receptionist at the front desk.
- Interns take the case files from the front desk to the detectives.
- Detectives investigate the case files and identify offenders.
- Officers hired to catch criminals arrest offenders identified by the detectives.
- But the game does not stop here, and it’s not as easy as it seems to be from the basic tutorial.
High-profile cases that can’t be handled by regular detectives and average cops need to be handed over to the forensic team and the special task force. So, there will be a separate fraud/counterfeit division in which special detectives will be tasked to investigate fraud cases. The files of such cases will then be transferred to a special “tactical unit” division that arrests offenders based on these advanced crimes. Then there’s the laboratory and the major crime division. You will have to build these because complex cases will keep piling up in the front desk lockers and normal officers won’t take them.
Want to increase earnings, arrest most-wanted criminals and manage divisions efficiently? Our Idle Police Tycoon Guide will help you do this.
The profits earned in Idle Police Tycoon is very different and quite simplified if you compare it with other titles from the same developer.
The state will pay you every (in-game) hour for every offender kept in jail. However, offenders will spend few in-game hours behind bars until they are rehabilitated.
Because offenders will be put into cells and released every few hours, your income will fluctuate every now and then. There will be quite a few items and upgrades that grant permanent income (example: Security cameras around jails). The income generated from these items will be added to the jail income. But the jail income paid by the state will change based on how many inmates are in the jail and how many have been released.
If you want a steady flow of money or funds from the state, make sure you have a robust police force, detectives, receptionists and interns so that the jails are filled with offenders. Also, keep an eye on the number of employees and the wages paid to them. You don’t want a negative balance and to avoid this, you may have to fire those that you don’t need.
Of course, there will be boosters such as “Increase Profits” that doubles the income for a few minutes and a special bonus from the mayor pleased by your progress. But to obtain these quick cash boosts, you will have to watch video adverts.
You will also have to purchase and upgrade items that ensure efficiency and proper work across all divisions. For example, without police vans, it will take a lot of time for officers to catch the culprits. So, you must purchase 2-3 vans for chasing and arresting the offenders fast. If cells are overcrowded, upgrade them to put more offenders in them. Everything is interconnected in this game and so you should pay attention to each division and whether all items have been purchased/upgraded or not.
Navigation and Exclamation Marks!
While Idle Police Tycoon is a pretty solid game, there are certain quirks that re slightly confusing. I couldn’t understand what are those exclamation marks above record clerks at the fraud/counterfeiting division. Tapping on the clerk shows a warning – “Overworked! Processing overly complicated cases.” I guess it’s because it’s not a simple case, like a traffic violation case and hence requires more investigation, which is why the gauge above the clerk fills up slowly and he/she takes time to investigate before handling the case file to the authorities. I tried upgrading all desks and items in this division to max, but to no avail. Either I am missing something or this is just an in-game feature that one can ignore and focus on other things. Anyway, these exclamation marks are a bit baffling. I understood the reason behind exclamation marks which I have explained in this article – Idle Police Tycoon Game: Tips to Solve Complex Cases.
Another gripe with this game is the lack of navigation between various divisions. The police department is huge and with every new city, it will get bigger. In the first city, Twin Hills, it took me some time to find the tactical unit division after it was constructed.
The blue house badge on the bottom-right corner of the screen shows a list of divisions built so far, but there is no way to quickly navigate from one division to another by tapping on their names in the list. You will have to scroll the screen to find one. Also, divisions are not named, which makes it a bit difficult to identify them. While these are small problems, it will make gameplay smoother if addressed in the next update.
There are lots of things to learn in this game and this beginner-level guide will help you increase profits and manage departments:
Should you opt for IAPs?
You should if you hate to watch ads to get those earnings boosts, want a lot of diamonds for unlocking common and rare cards and looking to increase the offline, idle earnings time limit. Premium benefits are shown on the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Cards speed up investigation/arrests and permanently boost income per hour. But IAPs aren’t mandatory. You may not go for these premium benefits if you love taking your time managing a police department and won’t mind slow progress.
Being an idle game, it lets you earn funds even when you are not playing. The offline earnings time limit is only 2 hours. You can increase this limit. But if you are happy with the 2-hour earnings always make sure to double the amount. You will have to watch a 30-sec advert to do so.
Can’t Play When You are Offline
Yes, unfortunately. You can’t play Idle Police Tycoon when you are offline or switched on the airplane mode. You must have an Internet connection to play it.
The Verdict
Just like other Codigames titles, this game feels more like a simulator than a plain idle game. And this is the reason why it will get more challenging as you progress and move to another bigger police department. But that’s the specialty of this developer. Their games feel closer to real world scenarios.
I loved the 3D low poly graphics, and they look very different from other games by the same developer. Overall, it’s a good game and while there are a few quirks, such as identifying various police department I found the game play very satisfying and engaging. While the earnings part is simplified, managing various divisions in Idle Police Tycoon won’t be easy for first-timers.
Last Updated on December 9, 2020 by Jude