Traffic Police Simulator

You are the officer at a roadside checkpoint, and it is the middle of the night.

A car rolls up to the cone. Its window may already be down, or you may have to ask. Behind it, five more sets of headlamps are waiting, and every second you spend being thorough with this driver is a second the queue behind spends flashing, honking and — eventually — shouting at you.

WHAT A STOP LOOKS LIKE

Everything you can see is on screen from the moment the car stops: a helmet that is not being worn, a phone in a hand, a plate you cannot read, tyres worn down to nothing. Everything else has to be asked for.

Ask for the licence and check the class against the vehicle, and the expiry date against tonight. Ask for the registration and hold it up against the car itself — the make, the colour, the plate. Ask for identification. Call the plate in on the radio, because a theft report is not something the glovebox will tell you. Call the driver in, because a warrant is not something a face will tell you. Hand over the breathalyser and watch the number climb.

Then write the ticket. Or give a verbal warning. Or send them on their way.

THE THING THAT MAKES IT A GAME

Getting it right is not the same as being harsh.

Miss an offence and it costs you. But charge a driver for something that was not there and they complain, your standing drops, and standing is what your rank is made of — a good officer can be demoted for writing tickets that will not hold up. Charge something that was true but that you never actually checked, and you get half credit, because a charge without evidence is a guess with a signature on it.

A verbal warning is the middle road. On something small it earns you goodwill. On something serious it costs you, and the radio will tell you exactly what the car you waved off did next.

FIVE VEHICLES IS A NIGHT

Each shift is five stops, then a report: what you caught, what got past you, what you charged unfairly, and whether you have been promoted or busted down a rank. Ranks run from the newest cadet to the top of the roster, and they take both score and standing to climb.

TEN COUNTRIES

Pick your country when you start. You get its language, its money, its names and its number plates — Turkey, the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, Russia, Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. The first four also carry their own drink-drive limits, which are genuinely different and genuinely matter: a professional driver is over the line at a lower reading than a private one, and in Germany the limit behind a commercial wheel is zero. The other six share the common European pairing rather than pretending to a researched figure they do not have.

Thirty-two offences, from no seatbelt to a stolen vehicle. In Turkey they are written with their real article numbers.

HAND-DRAWN, NONE OF IT PHOTOGRAPHS

Every car, every face, every document on screen is drawn by the game itself, line by line, at whatever size your phone happens to be. No two drivers are the same person twice.

WHAT IT COSTS

The game is free. A day's work is one shift of five vehicles, and the next shift opens the following day. There is a full-screen advert between every second vehicle. Hints are optional: one free every night, one more per vehicle for a rewarded advert.

A single one-time purchase lifts the daily limit, removes every advert and makes hints unlimited. It is not a subscription, and nothing in the game is closed off without it.

No account. No sign-in. Works completely offline. Nothing you type leaves your phone.