"I turn on the infinite time and the detection highlighter," he told me. "Then, before I open the car, I try to guess where the hidden stash is based on the paperwork alone. I guess. Then I use the wallhack to see if I was right. I do this for 200 cars. Then I turn the wallhack off . Now I know exactly where to look based on the behavior of the NPCs."
It’s the moment after you’ve handed the driver back their passport. You’ve checked the tires against the manifest. You’ve run the VIN number. You’ve eyeballed the fuel tank for a false bottom. And yet—your cursor hovers over the "Search" button. Your gut is screaming. The stats in the top-right corner say you have a 97% accuracy rate. If you’re wrong, your career score tanks. If you’re right, you might find a brick of cocaine wrapped in greaseproof paper.
The developer, Crazy Rocks, built a game that simulates the pressure of the job. The trainer, ironically, simulates the competence of the job. It allows you to skip the "rookie making mistakes" phase and jump straight to the "seasoned inspector who sees the bulge in the spare tire from three meters away" phase. There is a puritanical streak in gaming that insists using a trainer is "cheating yourself." But in a single-player, non-competitive title like Contraband Police , the only currency is fun. Contraband Police Trainer
The standard Contraband Police experience is a grind. A beautiful, atmospheric, anxiety-inducing grind. You start in a leaky shack with a flashlight. You miss a hidden compartment because the texture clipped weirdly, and the Chief screams at you. You run out of time because the 3 PM shift change happened while you were measuring a tire tread.
Contraband Police is a game about control. The state controls the border. The player controls the flashlight. The trainer is simply the player taking back control from the developer's difficulty curve. The Contraband Police Trainer isn't a sign that the game is broken. It is a sign that the simulation is deep enough to be worth dissecting. "I turn on the infinite time and the
He is using Contraband Police like a flight simulator uses an instrument panel. He isn't playing the game; he is drilling the mechanics.
There is a specific, nerve-wracking silence that happens in Contraband Police . Then I use the wallhack to see if I was right
Because "cheating" is the wrong word. Augmentation is better.