Drive now, think later.

Granulait's (1997 | she/her) murdersim project https://trunkload.carrd.co/

[trunkload]

TRUNKLOAD

A psychological horror visual novel ❝ You're driving. Alone, or so you wish. ❞

There's something -someone- in the trunk. Your hands are steady on the wheel, but your mind is blank. You don't know where you're going—only that you can’t stop.

And then, two hitchhikers appear by the side of the road. Now they’re in your car. In your life. In your head.

One won’t shut up. The other barely talks. They're not normal. But neither are you.

The longer the night stretches, the more cracks appear. In them, you’ll glimpse the truth. When morning comes, you’ll remember who you are.

Maybe you shouldn’t have stopped. But you did. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🎮 Features:

🧠 Psychological horror : unravel your own identity and morality through layered choices 🚗 Road trip through the unknown : a single night, a long drive, no map 🕹️ Choices matter : multiple hidden stats influence your perception, dialogues, and endings 🌈 80s atmosphere : neon lights, tape hiss, and heavy smoke 🔀 Multiple endings : no clean escape, only consequences 🧩 Dynamic narrative : who you are depends on what you do ---------------------------------------------------------------

⚠️ Content Warnings:

Violence (80s) Discrimination Manipulation / Mind break Paranoia / Hallucination Death / Murder Implied abuse Non-Con ---------------------------------------------------------------

Work in progress, more to come. Player discretion advised. Reblog appreciated.

trunkload_vn

All trunkload links: a visual novel with psychological horror, night road trip and body in the trunk in progress.

[trunkload]

Hi, still alive.

I missed two monthly updates for the simple reason that I hadn't made any progress on this project and I was ashamed. It's silly, there must be only about ten people in the world who know about this project, and I feel obliged to move forward.

In a way, I have made progress.

In one of my posts, I talk about the two notebooks that I always carry with me. I write in them regularly for the game, but also for another project. Matt and Jake aren't just murder simulators who have a taste for killing in their veins.

In fact, before the game, I was writing a story: the story of their childhood and their past, up until they became who they are in the game. A story of a new wave cult, violence committed in the name of faith, control over a gullible village, and how Matt and Jake managed to escape this hell.

I have a whole lore just waiting to be written properly into a story and, let's be crazy, hopefully published one day. I've been writing almost every day for a month now, sometimes a little during lunch, sometimes several pages late into the night. Once again, my job takes up a lot of my time. But I don't want to give up. I don't. And I'm afraid. I'm afraid of putting so much heart into these projects, of having waited so long, only to be disappointed by the result. I think that's what I fear the most. Sorry for this not-so-cheerful update, I needed to get it off my chest.

[trunkload]

Game progress: october 2025

Monthly update time! No major progress, I'm slowly recovering from a bad burnout. However, I still plan to do Spritober, but later. I'm happy to see that some of you have decided to join this challenge, I love seeing what you're doing: keep going, you're awesome!

See you on the road!

[trunkload]

More "behind the scene": Pinterest

In the category of invisible work: the Pinterest board. I like to start by gathering images to capture the vibe I want to give the game, as well as several references that I will use for the art.

[ghosby]

Hi there! :D

Day 16 and 14 of Spritober!

[ourloveiselectrifying]

Spritober day ???

[trunkload]

little “behind the scenes”

In my daily life, I always carry two notebooks with me. In the first one, I collect techniques for writing stories (from author interviews on YouTube), and I work on the story of Matt and Jake. Because yes, I have pages and pages of their backstory that I would like to publish one day. But that's another project. The second notebook is divided into two parts: in the front, I write short scenes with my OCs. It's a hobby when I'm on public transportation, in a café or else.

The back of the notebook is dedicated to Trunkload. There are choice tree diagrams, random scene ideas, lines of code, and the remains of the post it notes I used to outline the five chapters (chapter names in pink, endings in yellow, and locations in green).

[ghosby]

Hi there! :D

Spritober day 9 and 10. Kinda late, but here it is!

I’m also working on a close-up sprite that appears when the character is talking but out of sight. It’s still a WIP, but you can get an idea of how it will look :) 

Also, unnecessary info, but my laptop broke a couple days ago, and I could not use it or draw. I was unable to open it because some fuckass part broke, and I was afraid of breaking it even more because it made a disgusting screech every time I tried opening it, and the frame was getting ripped apart. I was so sad thinking that I couldn’t keep making progress on evil heroes and participating in Spritober with this issue. Thankfully my dad managed to open it, and now I don’t dare to close it. But yeah, nothing is stopping me anymoreeeeee.

[trunkload]

Love seeing WIPs and sketches! (Zara is so beautiful omg) Good luck with your laptop

[trunkload]

Hi, I don’t know yet if I'm going to leave this post here. I mostly need to write it down for myself, to take stock of things.

It’s been five months now that I think about Trunkload every single day, and nearly two years that I’ve been trying to bring to life the game I fall asleep and wake up thinking about. I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent writing in my little notebook or on dozens of Word documents, gameplay ideas, dialogue, lines of code. So many small bricks forming a joyful mess, just waiting to be put in order. But well… even with overflowing motivation, daily life always catches up.

I won’t go into details about my personal life (especially online), but lately my job has been taking up most of my time. I easily work 11 hours a day without breaks, sometimes I don’t even have time to eat. It’s a job I do out of passion but it’s slowly draining me. I come home exhausted and, on my days off, I barely have any energy left to do anything. Let’s just say burnout is showing up at the door.

Before, Trunkload used to be my escape. Now, I get frustrated when I can’t even bring myself to draw a simple sprite. I’ll have some time off soon and I hope I can finally breathe some life back into my project.

I have no intention of abandoning Trunkload. I already had to give up my previous project once and I never want to go through that again.

I want Matt and Jake to exist somewhere.

I think it matters so much to me because finishing Trunkload would help me close a chapter of my life. Matt and Jake were both born during a difficult period and I still feel a special tenderness for them. Maybe I’ll talk more about that one day but not today.

All this to say, I think I’ll start sharing my progress a little more often. There’s a huge part of development that stays invisible : footnotes, drafts, sketches… all those little traces that might not be very “aesthetic,” but still matter deeply. So don’t be surprised if you see more unpolished posts in the future. I need to remind myself that every “small brick” has value.

Sorry for the long post.

(And I haven’t forgotten about Spritober, I hope I can continue it during my time off)

[ourloveiselectrifying]

Spritober day ???

[ghosby]

Hi there! :D

I did the sad sprite for Zara with some variations to it! One with her mouth closed, and another with it slightly open for when she is talking. And some relieved happy/sad expression.

[ghosby]

Hi there! :D

I’ve started doing one of the first backgrounds. And I’ve 3D modeled it! It’s not finished since some more objects and textures are missing :’) 

This bg is right outside the mc's apartment, and it will appear if Zara fails to correctly kidnap you. Idk if that would be considered a spoiler or not, XD sorry.

Doing the background in a 3D space is something I’ve been thinking of doing for a while. I still don’t know if it will end up 100% looking good, but I’ll try, because if so, then I’ll have the same room from all angles for when I need it. If it ends up catastrophically bad, I’ll just go back to 2D drawings, but first I want to try this.

Zara for scale

[ourloveiselectrifying]

Spritober 2/3

This has like a few parts to it I can't show so I'm counting it as multiple days ajsdjsjd

[ourloveiselectrifying]

OLIE NOT SO MONTHLY UPDATE!! :3

Our Love is Electrifying (THE DEMO) by KactiiKitty

An 18+ deadly dating-sim!

Not much of an update,,, I've been doing side quests (Playing video games and starting new projects asdasd)

I've got plans though! I'm gonna try and lock in for Spritober! :D

Post by @trunkload · 1 image

💬 1  🔁 10  ❤️ 24 · #SPRITOBER · October’s almost here and instead of ink, let’s fill it with game dev progress. Here’s the deal: ▸ Post one

Since I'm just doing cg/sprite art right now, I'm just gonna try and do a piece of art everyday, for this event I'll post some heavily cropped pictures of the art I do :3 (Also I'm late, so I'll post twice today asdsdsd)

Spoilers

[ghosby]

Yesterday I didn’t manage to finish the sprite in time, so today I’m uploading the 1st and 2nd prompts together :’)

Decided to start with Zara's sprites since she appears first.

Intro sprite.

Happy sprite.

And a neutral one wich I used to make the other emotions and poses :D

[trunkload]

the skin texture is perfect

[trunkload]

still a mockup but it's called progress!

[trunkload]

#SPRITOBER

October’s almost here and instead of ink, let’s fill it with game dev progress.

Here’s the deal: ▸ Post one piece of progress per day (tiny steps count just as much). ▸ Main focus is art (sprites, UI, CGs, backgrounds)… but writing, coding, or even worldbuilding totally count. ▸ Miss a day? Doesn’t matter. The goal is consistency, not exhaustion.

Each prompt combines a graphic element + a theme. You can stick to one, both, or ignore them altogether. Interpret them however you want.

If you stick through it, by the end of the month you’ll have: 11 sprites, 7 GUI elements, 5 CGs, and 7 backgrounds.

Please reblog, use the tag #Spritober and/or share this post on instagram so we can all cheer each other on.

So… who’s in?

[trunkload]

One week left!

[trunkload]

Are we ready ?