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A downloadable game for Windows

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The Smuggler is an urban, modern, single-player, grindy, stat based RPG that will provide hundreds of hours of gameplay filled with rewarding and substantial leveling. Set in an urban environment, you can forget about crafting, magic, and archery; instead, spend your time leveling your larceny, pick pocketing, cage fighting, drug dealing, and narcotic manufacturing levels. Build your drug empire, unlock powerful permanent stat boosts, purchase real estate, and take over the city.

The path you take is your choice.

  • Start from nothing - dig through trash to find empty bottles to sell, or get money through illegal means
  • Become a world champion bare knuckle boxer
  • Become a drug lord and have a massive grow operation
  • Fight gang members and find weapons, loot, and rare drops
  • Beat up unsuspecting drug dealers and cops in the city who get in your way
  • Get a job at the mall and work your way up the corporate ladder
  • Purchase a high-rise building with your own personal spa, arcade, penthouse, strip club, and more
  • Skim credit cards and sell them on the dark web for cryptocurrency
  • Master the arcade games and earn tickets for sweet prizes
  • Keep your heat low to avoid arrest
  • Pickpocket unsuspecting civilians
  • and so much more...

Do it all in The Smuggler.

Skills:

  • HITS
  • STRENGTH
  • ACCURACY
  • DEFENSE
  • BOXING
  • STAMINA
  • STEALTH
  • LUCK
  • HACKING
  • PICKPOCKET
  • LARCENY
  • COOKING
  • GROWING
  • DRUG MAKING
  • WORKING
  • DRUG DEALING
  • GAMING
  • HUSTLING

Inspired by the grind of the original, classic, oldest version of RuneScape.

Need help? Comment below and I will answer any questions about gameplay. Please remember to rate and comment!

StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows
Release date Sep 08, 2021
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(3 total ratings)
AuthorStrigopStudios
GenreRole Playing, Adventure
Made withUnity
Tags3D, Crime, Endless, grindy, Open World, Singleplayer, stats, Unity
Average sessionA few hours
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard, Mouse

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

The Smuggler (Paid).zip 76 MB

Development log

Comments

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Sir, thank you for  the amazing game you made, I hope this picture will please you at least half how much it pleased me to play this game.

Thanks for sharing this, awesome to hear from someone who enjoyed the game! Much appreciated!

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Do you have a bitcoin address to send you some money for this great game? I found only 1 other game close to this but it's in damn french...

That is very kind of you, the game has only brought in $34 in 3 years haha. While of course not required, any amount is greatly appreciated. Your comment and enjoyment though means the most, thank you again for letting me know you enjoyed playing!

BTC address (Bitcoin)
3QUichR5wiHqS3vpsivuT842p8eTqx1zhG

(1 edit)

Sorry for delay, I was trying to send you now 25 euro but the network fee is 30 euro :))

You have a LTC address? If your BTC address is through Coinbase, it should be quite easy to get a LTC address.

I'm really sorry that your work was not paid, this game is a gem, I want to make something similar in UE5 and I learned from you that 1. Marketing is super important, I think that's why your game flopped, I foudnt he game from mistake so many years after release... Probably if you did devlogs during development, you would have had a sizeable community to even get you greenlit on Steam. Also they could have funded you through Patreon, YT memberships, etc. 

2.Add an easy mode as an option. For example 5x xp for who wants that. Or cheats, I am 99% sure so many people love bethesda games because they have cheats and mods. I know you're hardcore but not everyone is and not everyone knows to use cheat engine.

If you don't have LTC address, I'll pay with card when I get the salary at end of month.

Thanks for the reply and generous offer. Please see below:

LTC address (Litecoin)

MAfPSvF3kaQDqB6C4v36rJmbM6Zoz5VVX8

Also to your points:

1) Yes I hate marketing and I am not good at it, I completely agree with you.

2) Also a good idea, I basically built the game for myself because I couldn't find what I wanted to play and just kept replaying the early parts of RSC to get my grindy fix

Thanks a ton!

how do I start the game? I can't click "New game" or "Load (0): Empty: No play time" or anything

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It looks like one of the text labels may be overlapping the 'New Game" button on slot 0, please click New Game on one of the other load slots (1, 2, or 3) while I make the adjustment within the next few days. Sorry about that!

OK it should be fixed now, please download the new version and let me know if there are any issues. Thanks!

Is it just more or does it take an insanely long time to get boxing up. I feel like you have to level everything up at the same time eventually to do the things you want to do in the game, I don't want to fight and box when I just wanna do drugs or what ever. I'm 8 hours in, got a house for 2k that I can't find and that's about it. Boxing is at 6 and hacking is at 41. Combat skills are around 10-14 everything else is 1-5 besides any of the stuff like drugs I actually wanna do. Also can't even find who is willing to buy drugs. Don't get me wrong, I looooove the idea and gameplay of this game but man the grind is insane.

(2 edits)

You are correct that all skills tie into each other. You can certainly specialize, but skills relate to each other in important ways an ultimately you will need to get multiple stats leveled. For boxing, are you training in the gym or just fighting in the arena? Training gives you way more EXP, because it is training haha. There are drug spots and drug dealers guarding them, you need to knock them out before you can sell there. Sounds like you need to explore more and interact with more parts of the world and discover new things! If you have any questions though feel free to ask :)

As for it being a grind, it is an entirely level based grindy RPG, you are correct.

As for spending $2k for a house, do you mean you bought the empty lot? That's not a house, it's an empty lot as the name describes it. It's so you can build you drug warehouses on it. It's in the gang area, but until you buy fences and buildings, it will remain just an empty plot of land.

Where is the house? I just bought it and have been searching for about an hour trying to find it. "in gang area of city acRoss the water" can't find it

(1 edit)

What house are you referring to? There is no house. If you mean the high rise building, it is in the main city right where you spawn when you load into the game.

hey just wanted to say that I’ve been having a blast with this game I’m almost maxed on all my stats and just love the grind ! You’ve created a wonderful gem , having a hard time finding 3 stuffed animals tho lol I refused to go to new game + without my stuffed animals lol

I really appreciate the kind words of support and am so happy to hear that you are enjoying the game! If you need assistance with the 3 stuffed animals just let me know :) So cool to hear someone beating the first play through, it requires a lot of work so good job!

made it to NG+ last night haha yea that was a really fun grind ! Love this game 

Congrats!!! After 3rd+ NG plus, the exp and multipliers get ridiculous haha it gets crazy fast crazy quick. To my knowledge, you are the only player other than our beta testers and myself to make it to NG+ :) We have only made $34 from the game over the course of like a year haha. It seriously means a lot to me that you are enjoying the game, thank you very much for sharing with me!

how do i sell credit card and how do i level up

I think this question is a bit too vague I recommend that you just play around with the game a bit and refer to the help button in game. I am confident you will get the hang of things. Best of luck!

how do u fight

Enemies are in the gangland area of the map, so you need to use the subway / stairwell system

how do i find a computer

You can find one in the pawn shop in the gangland area

Can someone tell me where is the gym pls

you may want to find the train station on the left side of the park in the main city

enter it and you will find it between the river and the gang members level 1

To be precise, this was the issue I was talking about. Do you have a configuration file for the Itch store to tell it what is what so-to-speak?

And yes, the download does show up normally if using the other method.

Thanks for the screenshot. There actually is not an installer - you just unzip and play. Maybe that is causing the issue? Have you tried just clicking Install? It looks like the button is clickable.

Just clicking the Install button will not work since the “Install” drop-down is empty (no options to install).

Like I said …

OK please check again, it is fixed now. Thank you for letting me know!

Solved. Thank you.

Apparently The Smuggler is unavailable for download by using the official Itch app. Just putting this out that you can find out how to make your game compatible with it by using the official Itch developer section just for it.

Thanks for the heads up. Can you please try again? There was a UnityCrashHandler exe in the root folder, I think that was confusing itch because there were 2 exe files. Please let me know, thanks!

Accidentally did NOT use the proper “Reply” feature when posting the reply here. My apologizes. ^w^;

1 hours of hardworking 

4 high-rise 

haven't got any clue whether I in mid-game or not




You're doing awesome! Make sure to keep your passive productions going at all times, you don't want to run out of fertilizer or drug ingredients, or else your exp will stop as well. Those produce over time, so you want them going so you can earn exp while you level other skills.

Also, you may want to shift your focus away from the high rise for a bit and invest in your drug operation (which will end up making you more money in the long run). 4 high-rise unlocks is a lot for lvl 13 growing. Very impressive though! You're doing awesome

Also, you are going to hit a wall on your drug making with a low combat level, because those ingredients are found on higher level enemies. In the meantime, I would recommend focusing on Weed, because it only needs 1 ingredient and can be purchased with CCs

Hey, how did you get tickets with no gaming exp? Did you steal them using hacking? That is crazy funny, I didn't even think someone would ever get to level 66 hacking but be at 1 gaming, that is very unique! I love how you have a totally different play style than me, super cool to see.

I got plenty of tickets using hacking and be honest, that quite long :D

can someone tell me were the dang pawn shop is. be great if i could find it

dang pawn???

(2 edits)

perhaps you may want to find this train station next to the park 

enter the station

and then from where you spawn you take a left turn at the end of the road

( in the direction i'm facing)

then you go to the end of that road you will find the shop on your right

(1 edit)

Thanks for helping out Dorkness! You can also get to it from the hospital in the main city. If you go to the hospital / police station, the subway entrance there will take you to the pawn shop

Do you have any suggest on floor upgrading and also this new form of letter is kinda hard to read

Each floor has different benefits depending on what skill you want a boost to. You can get 30 minute buffs to different skills depending on the floor. I personally like to start with the Arcade or the Gym so I can get buffs to combat or gaming skills, and also get access to the claw machine in my home. Spa is also good for health and quick healing though, club for a variety of crime skills. Cyber for hacking. Penthouse for convenience and status. All of them are good! 

Also I am experimenting with the new page font. I may change it back but I also like it for the crime theme! I appreciate the feedback

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I have the vat but have no idea what its uses and also how can I hire others to work for me
I have 165 before but it disappeared 

The drugs won't produce without ingredients in the vat, so you need to keep your weed vat filled with fertilizer for the plants to produce. Workers are hired as upgrades from the computer.

So i gotta upgrade 6 floors first???

And any other ways to get package to pack marijuana other than level 1 gang members and pickpocketing

First before what? You don't need to upgrade 6 floors for any of the marijuana upgrades

about buff
can i receive many buffs at once

Deleted 2 years ago

Nope, you can only have 1 active at a time. If you apply a new buff it will get rid of the old one.

got it

and about gaming at the store in general and at my house, did you actually put the exact rate 
I mean 1/80000 is like god rate and haven't got any despite 85 luck or I need 99 luck

The rate at the arcade is supposed to be near impossible. The claw machine at your house is better odds. Also, the odds get better with gaming lvl, not luck

What fences do and do I need to buy these upgrades

(+1)

Yes, fences surround your base, and you can't purchase drug warehouses without them (since they protect your drugs and privacy). Definitely an important upgrade.

Can you give me hint about first cooking recipe, having hard time finding out and if you are higher level in larceny, you can find more rare stuff such as fentanyl at level 1 hospital or somethings like that, right??

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Sure, no problem. There are a couple options for cooking at lvl 1. One is to use the low level fruit with the blender in the cafe (you need to work there first). You combine tomatoes + carrots near a blender and it will make a smoothie. This works for other fruits as well. You can also cook shrimp from the meat counter using a frying pan and a stove.

For larceny, yes, you will find higher level drugs such as fentanyl, oxy, and more at the hospital as your larceny increases. Correct. You can also steal from ambulances, cop cars, and more to find other rare drugs.

Also, please spread the word about The Smuggler to any friends / family you may know who would enjoy the game! Thanks again for playing!

That explained why
I have told some of my bros but they're not hardcore type. But I got other ones and they may get interested in this

Very much appreciated :) Thanks for playing and for helping to get more players!

It's a real challenge to find out what to do in the beginning but it's become more interesting when got to the mall
I don't know whether the mall keeper has bug or something but when I fought her, my health went from 6 to 3 
The city kinda empty, hope you will put more things into it
This game has plenty of potential 

Thanks for the comment and feedback,  I will address each item below:

  • I like games where you have to learn and accomplish things without hand holding, so the beginning can definitely be confusing, but as you figure things out and discover new locations, it gives you a bigger sense of excitement and pride rather than everything just being shown in a "tutorial island" type of scenario.
  • So the Health changes to Chin when boxing, since boxing is a separate form of combat, so the numbers are different. The reason for this is that boxing uses different calculations for hits. After boxing, you will see "Chin" change back to your normal "Health" label and the number will revert. This is intended, so no bug!
  • The city has a lot that you haven't found. There is also a gangland filled with enemies, shops, gyms, and real estate for you to purchase. The city is packed, I promise

Let me know if you have any questions. Game on!

Can you guys add more stuff into deep web store
I think it is a OP system since credit cards can be easily collected but too few stuffs to buy in beginning 
Got spike knuckle for 100 but costs 500$ or 1000$ something in the store

(2 edits)

So there are multiple ways and paths that can be taken. You're doing CC Skimming early, which is a smart path that I like to take as well. However, if you spent that time stealing and pawning, or pick pocketing, or boxing, or several other paths, you could have earned the money needed instead of the credit cards. Both are viable paths, and it may seem OP but that is because you focused energy on that path. Skimming is powerful, and you can definitely get good weapons that way, so skim away! Functioning as intended :) You won't think credit cards are too easy when you start needing to buy fertilizer and other ingredients, just wait haha. The web stores are balanced, there are many important things there that will become relevant later. 

Keep me posted, thanks for playing! I am happy to answer any other questions you may have.

PS - Part of the reason I added powerful weapons to the dark web is to encourage players to skim early. Skimming is a semi-passive skill since it produces over time, and if not started at a decent time, can drag you down late game.

Rob and shoplifting are very cool but not pickpocketing 'cause there is low chance that you can pickpocket someone and the level needed for higher class is also high
Process is kinda slow or perhaps I haven't found any way for quicker pickpocket yet

(1 edit)

and also there is 2 ATM I found near the river that can be use for quite long time than others in the city

P/s: It kinda funny when after 2 hours of gameplay that I found I can jump

(+1)

You can inspect the person's level before attempting to pickpocket them. Then, you need to follow them and continue stealing from them. The closer you are to the minimum level for that person, the harder it is to pickpocket. Then, it gets exponentially easier. For example, if you are level 1 and the person is lvl 1, then you chance of succeeding may be 5%. If you are level 2 and they are 1, it may be 15%, if you are level 5, maybe 50%. It gets easier and easier. So if you turn level 10, you may not want to rush to a level 10 person just yet. Level up a bit first. I don't call it grindy for nothing! It's a grind, especially at the early levels. Push through!

Great game, but is there any map available? Took me literally 2 days to find that there is fight club, and still not able to find any spot where you can buy food

(1 edit)

Thank you so much for the support, I am glad to hear you like the game! Nope, no map. I know the game doesn't do a lot of hand holding which was my intention, I wanted the game to reward exploring and trial / error. It's a throwback to the RuneScape Classic and Minecraft style of gameplay where it drops you in and let's you go immediately. The help button mentions the importance of the subway system / stairwell system to encourage the players to find new areas. I would be happy to help though! Food cannot be purchased, only stolen, found, dropped, etc. It sounds like you need to make your way to the mall which contains a grocery store full of delicious fruits, meats, fish, and snacks that you can steal and cook with. The mall is the stairwell entrance guarded by a level 1 boxer at the top of the main city. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask. Thanks for playing!

Also pro tip: smoothies are very healthy for you ;)

Oh, thanks, got the mall already unlocked, but I thought there might be a way to buy some food inside rather than stealing it. 

One important missing feature would be to autopickup stuff or at least give option to pick items up from list rather than having to click each item individually from the floor. Also huge fan of OSRS here :)

Thanks for the reply. I was considering allowing purchase of food, but then it would diminish the importance of Larceny so I decided against it. Just a heads up, some Larceny spots unlock new items as you level. For example, the meat counter is Larceny lvl 1; however, as you level higher and higher, you find better and better meats. The EXP you get from the spot is based on the highest level of item found, not the level of the spot. For example, if you are level 30 Larceny, and steal from the lvl 1 meat counter spot, if you find a lvl 1 food, you get low exp, but if you find a lvl 30 food, you will get much higher exp. 

Also, thanks for the feedback on the autopickup. I have considered this as well; however, I ultimately decided against it because I wanted to create more of an opportunity cost associated with item pickup. I wanted it to be a little bit of a pain in the ass, so the player has to decide if it's worth picking up, especially if you are surrounded by aggro enemies. If you let items build up on the ground while surrounded by aggro enemies, it can be risky and difficult to pick them all up later.

Let me know if you have any other questions or suggestions. I appreciate your feedback and love hearing from players!