Traffic Department 2192

Year 1994, a shareware floppy disk from a friend, and the first launch of a game that seemed to me like something between an arcade and a film. Traffic Department 2192 from studio P Squared isn't a big name — but there are games you simply don't forget, even if you'd have a hard time explaining why.

The story takes place on planet Seche in the year 2192. A twenty-five-year war between the Traffic Department and a ruthless faction called the Vultures. You're part of it — a hovercraft pilot who isn't just a silent hero, but a real character with a voice, personality, and opinions. An unusual ambition for a shareware action game from the first half of the nineties.

Mechanically, it's a top-down shooter where you control a hovercraft and fly through missions full of enemies that need to be eliminated before they eliminate you. The entire game features over fifty missions divided into three episodes, with the first one released as shareware. The controls are straightforward, the hovercraft responds nicely, and there's enough weaponry to keep the player from getting bored. But what really makes TD2192 different is its story layer — inter-mission dialogues full of character, sarcasm, and surprisingly believable dynamics between characters. Text cutscenes weren't anything special back then, but here they were genuinely entertaining.

Why do we remember it? Because at a time when most action shareware told stories like "go right, shoot, die," this game offered something like a pulp sci-fi comic book. The graphics are functional, not dazzling, and the music does its job. What aged poorly is the repetitive design of some missions and the fact that without the context of all three episodes, the story doesn't graduate the way it could. Anyone who only played the shareware portion saw an introduction without an ending.

Today TD2192 works for anyone who wants action that knows it has something to say. Playing it in a browser through DOSBox makes it accessible without any installation, and the entire first episode is freely available — the ideal way to find out if the world of Seche will captivate you the way it did me thirty years ago.