What’s Up With The Cop in ‘Ooblets’?
After a few years in development, which included signing a publishing contract with Double Fine Entertainment (which has also been acquired by Microsoft in that time) and a store-exclusivity deal with the Epic Games Store, Ooblets from developer Gumberland finally entered early access last Wednesday. I’ve been really excited about getting my hands on it ever since it was announced back in February of 2017. I hate making “blank-meets-blank” style comparisons but for those who don’t know, Ooblets is essentially Stardew Valley meets Pokémon meets Animal Crossing. If you know me, you’ll immediately understand how a concept like that is extremely my shit.
A basic overview of the gameplay that is you’ll spend each day tending to crops, chatting with or completing tasks for villagers, buying clothes, decorating your house, and training your team of the titular Ooblets to compete in dance battles. The amount of things a player can accomplish in a single day is only governed by the in-game time, and how much of their character’s energy they expend. Again, it really is those three games thrown into a blender. If you like those games, you will like Ooblets.
Farming in Ooblets
Dance Battles in Ooblets
Cooking in Ooblets
I think that it’ll shape up to be a pretty strong game once its reached the end of the early access period. There are some pretty severe pacing issues when it comes to the opening hours of the game, and I’ve found some of the daily tasks which are required for progression to be a bit monotonous at times but there’s enough there to keep me coming back. For example, the ways in which the farming and Ooblet collecting are intertwined. Players collect seeds from winning dance battles and plant them to grow new teammates so that they can build the perfect squad or crew of farmhands. It’s high concept, but also ensures that all of the game’s systems support one another in an organic way.
The aspect that I was most enamored by was its presentation. Sometimes Ooblets falls victim to being a little too obsessed with “smol bean” or “lil birb” type internet speech but the rest of the presentation is so easygoing and pleasant that it’s hard to dislike. All of the Ooblets themselves are well designed, the clothing and furniture is good enough to encourage the necessary grinding to acquire it, and I especially like the music that accompanies your time spent in the land of Oob. The world presented here is one of peaceful relaxation, and carefree fun; which is why I so surprised when I met a certain resident of the island.
Among characters like the sarcastic barista or energetic young mayor is a cop named Officer Zuffle. I know it sounds silly to try and build critique around a character with such a harmless and silly sounding name, but everything in the game sounds like that so it’ll be pointless to talk about this game if I get hung up on it. Anyways, it’s obvious to say that the place which police have in our society is very much at the forefront of everyone’s collective consciousness and we’re having those conversations in all sorts of spaces, even if they’re happening far too late. Now I understand that this game has been in development for three years which is why I mentioned it earlier in this piece, but that doesn’t change the environment or context which Ooblets is releasing into. It’s a world where society at large is asking itself questions like, “what benefit do the police actually serve to our society?” Or, “what does our world look like without police in it?” In fact, those questions aren’t just being asked- but answered as well by people who are far more well-versed in topics such as defunding the police or the abolition of the prison system than I am or could ever be in a piece like this. Those people are out there, and you should seek them out. Regardless, it’s so confusing to me when a game like Ooblets presents us with a world that appears to be one which would have already solved those issues- or more realistically never had any need to discuss them in the first place and yet still includes a character like Officer Zuffle.
Examining his characterization, Officer Zuffle seems to be just as confused about his place in Badge Town (the village where Ooblets takes place) as I am. Whenever you talk to him he constantly remarks that there is little to no crime on the island, and that he’s never actually made an arrest. Basically he has nothing to do and he’s well aware of it. This means that his characterization as a police officer was done without thought for what that could represent. I don’t think that this is a choice which was made with any kind of ill intent behind it, but it does seem emblematic of a development team which is ignorant to the struggle of those who are living under the subjugation of the police in this nation. This unintentional ignorance is even further reinforced when we look at the role which Officer Zuffle plays within the actual mechanics of Ooblets.
When we look at what Officer Zuffle accomplishes mechanically there is even less reason for him to be a police officer. Each of the citizens on the island of Oob essentially act as quest givers and typically reward you with currency, building materials, or even access to new parts of the island. However, completing these tasks gives you progress towards another set of collectibles as well. This comes in the form of a set of stickers which correspond to each townsperson. You earn these stickers by completing tasks and talking to each person every day, filling a sort of reputation bar, and bettering your relationship with them. Basically, it’s any friendship system from Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley minus the marriage. Unlike some characters such as Mayor Tinstle or the scientist Rugnolia, Officer Zuffle ostensibly doesn’t have any purpose within the community outside of sticker collecting; which is the case for many of the NPCs you meet in the game, but again this begs the question of why he would need to be a cop in the first place. What this means for the player is that they can’t achieve 100% completion in the game (something which I’m not sure there’s even a reward for at this stage in development) without becoming friends with a cop, and that isn’t going to feel good for anyone who views police as the embodiment of systematic oppression in the United States, or further than that, a person who they would potentially be at risk of being killed by in real life.
The Police Station in Animal Crossing.
The interior of the Police Station in Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
I would be remiss not to mention the fact that Animal Crossing, one of the games I mentioned previously as an obvious inspiration for Ooblets, also features characters who are cops that live within the player’s village. The police station is a building which is featured in two of the series’ mainline games, those being Animal Crossing for GameCube (or N64 depending on where you’re from) and Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the 3DS, released in 2001 and 2013 respectively. It’s where the player can find NPCs named Copper and Booker, two dogs who are also cops. Within the world there isn’t much crime to speak of aside from Crazy Redd who is a character that canonically attempts to sell stolen or counterfeit goods to the player. This makes Copper and Booker’s characterization as cops a little more “justified,” however they will obviously never actually take action in stopping Redd so it also begs the question of if it’s worth the representation.
Mechanically the police station acts as a sort of lost and found which gives these characters more of a purpose when compared to Ooblets, but then again, there are other games in the series where their services are not required or even missed for that matter. The police station does not appear at all in Animal Crossing: Wild World, City Folk, or New Horizons with little to no adverse affect on gameplay. However in Wild World and City Folk the two dogs act as guards standing at the gate to the player’s village which is used to access multiplayer. This is a whole other issue with representing the concepts of closed borders in these games, but that’s an entirely other issue. It’s also worth noting that the police station in Animal Crossing: New Leaf is an optional “public works project” which will only be built in the player’s village should they choose to commission it. I think this choice presents an interesting wrinkle on the notion of police having a presence within these games, however there is no other way to access the building’s services if the player doesn’t build it.
The presence of police in Animal Crossing also takes on a different connotation when it’s considered that the series is more-so a reflection of Japanese culture than it is American. My cursory understanding of the way that the police operate within Japan and public opinion on the matter is so superficial that it would do more harm than good for me to comment on that specifically, so I won’t. There are, again, people on the internet who know more about that subject than I do and you should seek them out. I can only speak to how an English localization of Animal Crossing reads to me, an American consumer. I think that the inclusion of police in Animal Crossing is also very strange for most of the same reasons that it is in Ooblets, however I think that the villagers being entirely animals abstracts the concept enough to make it somewhat palatable for American audiences. Although that is likely just my privilege as a white person coming through, but let me be clear, I think it is still undoubtedly a good thing that there are no cops in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the series will be better off without them going forward.
Other players are not happy with the inclusion of Officer Zuffle.
Doing a simple search for ‘Ooblets + cop’ on Twitter reveals that this is not an uncommon sentiment.
There is still time for Gumberland to respond to criticism about the inclusion of Officer Zuffle, seeing as the game is in early access and making changes is exactly what that concept is all about. However to my knowledge, the developer has yet to do so. I think that Ooblets is a good game, and I plan on playing more, but that doesn’t absolve the massive mistake being made here on the part of the development team. It’s a different issue entirely from the one that Animal Crossing presents because rather than being a case of retro-fitting one culture onto another within media, this is a situation where the creators are ignorant of their own culture. The inclusion of Officer Zuffle is not only detrimental to the game itself, but it also represents a misunderstanding of the ways in which the police are perceived by anyone other than the privileged, who are by and large white people. Officer Zuffle is emblematic of how creators with privilege can so easily remain ignorant to the feelings of anyone outside the sphere of privilege, and how that ignorance can alienate parts of their audience. Just because it was likely an honest mistake doesn’t mean that they should be let off the hook, because doing your due diligence with these subjects is your duty as a creator.
Lastly, how do I propose they “fix” Officer Zuffle? I don’t know, that isn’t my call. It’s easy to say that the developer could change him into a park ranger or a firefighter. But I think before that work is done, there should be some introspection as to what kind of authority figures exist in the world of Ooblets, and more importantly why. It’s the same kind of introspection that needs to happen across all media, and be done by all creators- no matter how big or small. Corruption and oppression are endemic to the very notion of modern policing in America, and trying to normalize its existence is just as bad as creating intentional propaganda, even if its done through ignorance. It isn’t just something to consider, because the time for that is long past. Minds are made up, and this is how we need act going forward.
Change has to happen at all levels. Even on fictional islands with dancing mushrooms.
Note: I live in Portland. A city where the police are aggressors, agitators, and white supremacist sympathizers. A city where the establishment has worked to undermine and oppress the minority population since its foundation. A city where recently, its been made clear that change is not going to come easy, which is why I think its imperative that those with privilege should do what they can to elevate voices who will lead the way to progress.
Below, I’ve included a swath of resources which can be used to help those who have been fighting for their lives on the streets of Portland for over fifty days.
If you’re not from Portland, consider finding ways to support your own local efforts. And if you don’t think they exist, then you’re not looking in the right places.
