Preview: Cocaine Dealer

The monotony of selling drugs

If you read the description for the game it will be EXACTLY!, what you are getting with this game, no more no less. It's enough that you watch a trailer for it and that's basically what the game will be about. You or your underlings scooping cocaine on a scale, packaging it and selling it. That is what 90 percent of the game is. Occasionally you will get a call from a customer that wants to buy a couple of grams from you directly instead of your underlings peddling it on the street with the risk of them being caught by the police or killed. Sure your entire enterprise can be derailed by the police, in case they ever decide to make a raid on you but that is if you ever get to that stage where you are famous enough that they hear about you.

There is a reputation system that you are supposed to build on to expand your business and recruit more dealers. For that to happen though you need to buy stuff that shows your wealth. Stuff like expensive jewelry, clothes, cars and houses can be bought for you to increase your reputation. Get carried away with your shopping though and you will get unwanted attention from the police. Reputation can also be lost, how you lose reputation is never really explained, this is added as another element to keep selling more drugs. Even though you have expensive clothes and jewelry it doesn't mean that your reputation will stay the same forever. Instead, you need to keep earning that cash and continue buying stuff to stay relevant. This in turn will see to it that more people will be willing to work for you and even further add to your drug selling and cash generation.

Shourded in mistery, for no reason

Apparently, the dealers working for you are supposed to be kids that you use to do your bidding but you never really know what they are because all character portraits look like hooded mannequin dolls without any faces. This also goes for the people that you buy your drugs from. Everyone that you are supposed to see is shrouded in shadow for some reason. Even a real drug dealer would be able to see who he was doing business with.

As stated earlier you won't do much else than keep scooping cocaine packaging it and selling it to buy stuff and gain a reputation. That's the game's core loop and might be fun for about an hour or so after that it quickly becomes boring. This might be intentional though from the developers' part to highlight how unglamorous the life of a drug dealer really is. Still though, even if this might be the case it's a game and games are supposed to be fun. The game is very much still in early access and will surely be improved upon but in what ways, isn't clear. Updating the character portraits for the various individuals you meet would be a great addition and also more scripted events that pop up randomly. There is a map of various places but that seemed like something that was still being implemented.

The bling fades quickly

My biggest gripe with this game, apart from the ones mentioned above especially since it is in early access is that it costs 3.29€ on Steam. This is simply inexcusable for a game that is in a state like this. With a sea of games that are free to play and will provide immensely more value, there just isn't anything here to justify the price tag. Hopefully, when it gets ready for launch it will have been improved upon to the point where the price tag is justified if not then there is no reason for anyone to put their money on this.