welcome to my game development blog to follow the creation of an isometric point and click adventure game!

Synopsis

Trafficking is an adventure game that takes place in New York in 1990.

You play as a detective solving a mystery trough series of interviews, with tens or hundreds of lifes at stake.

These interviews play out as flashbacks, where you get to be the interviewed person, giving you more insight into the events.

Your actions during these flashbacks affect the storyline and the ending of the game.

Features

• Classic point & click gameplay
• Branching storyline
• Multiple endings
• 10+ playable characters
• 10+ hours of playtime
• Modern low polygon graphics
• Open world
• Vehicles for fast travel

Crash course

Get to know the basics fast.

The journey begins!

September 10, 2020

For years I have been talking about this game I am going to make. What the gameplay will be like, how the story will unfold, what locations would be cool, what king of experiences I want to craft…

But what is the game about?

September 10, 2020

The game is a mystery adventure. You are investigating what happened during a span of time through a series of interrogations. All of these interrogations you experience as gameplay flashbacks during which you will play as the interrogated person.

Art style guide

September 12, 2020

Now that I have been working on the project a while, a set of rules for the art has started to formulate in my brain. I will attempt to externalize it as much as possible.

Discord

October 20, 2020

I know it is early, but I still already set up a Discord server for the project. The server is sure to come in handy for gathering ideas for plot points and puzzles!

The origins of the game

December 19, 2020

This is the story of how the idea for the game came to me during an 8 year period.

Recent posts

Read about the latest happenings

Pushing a car into the ocean

April 15, 2021

In this post I will tell about the game scripting in more detail. We will start by pushing a car off of a container ship.

Planar Reflections and Patrol Boats

February 24, 2021

After modeling a small patrol boat I realised that I need real reflections in the water!

Isometric, large location learnings

February 15, 2021

After working on the ship location for a while, I ran into some issues that came from the fact that I was working on a game that had fewer spatial limitations than adventure games usually have.

Very early gameplay

February 12, 2021

I started to work on the actual story content after making the first script for the opening act. I captured some footage of that progress.

Procedural tools introduction

February 8, 2021

I added procedural level creation tools into the mix and set up the ship level to test them!

Uncharted charts

December 26, 2020

Creating a vertical slice of the game with around 1 hour of gameplay is my goal for 2021!

The origins of the game

December 19, 2020

This is the story of how the idea for the game came to me during an 8 year period.

Ship location update 2

December 14, 2020

I did a quick pass on the ship location populating some areas.

Evaluating asset packs

December 13, 2020

I stumbled upon some high quality asset packs that were close enough in art style to what I was going for that I figured I'd try them.

Apple Silicon M1 vs Intel i5 & i9 vs AMD 3960X

December 8, 2020

I decided to get the new MacBook Pro M1. Here is how it compares to the Mac it is set to replace and my Threadripper.

Project progress

Project overall progress.

The project is still very early. I have decided upon a general story idea and main character. I have already settled on most of the tools for the project and the 3D modelling style has been locked.

I have also outlined the first 2 episodes of the game and already know the locations (police station, cargo ship, beach under a bridge and harbour back entrance), the characters and main puzzles.

The whitebox version of the first location is around 70% complete and I have made a first pass of all of the puzzle design in that location.