Pedestrians and tourists, take shelter because the streets are about to become even more reckless! Jump into the booth and hurry up to find the craziest customers, and drop them off as fast as you can. With Taxi Chaos, we want to bring back to PlayStation 4 a classic and almost forgotten arcade racing genre from video game history.
Traffic is pouring through the streets, pedestrians crossing sidewalks and passengers of all kinds anxiously await your pick up. Welcome to New Yellow City, a city where everyone has too many places to be, but never enough time to get there. The team did everything in their power to create the perfect arcade town.
Much like the classics, Taxi Chaos gameplay centers around picking up passengers and transporting them to the destination of their choice. Navigate the crowded streets, avoid pedestrians, and walk through the park to find the fastest way to drop them off. To bring something new, we’ve also given players the ability to defy gravity and even jump over rooftops. The main challenge is to find the best shortcuts throughout the city, to be even faster and to avoid time running out.
Design a new yellow city
Before the team got down to designing the city, we all asked ourselves, “What would be the best city to inspire for this spiritual successor?” It wasn’t long before the iconic taxi capital, New York City, became the obvious winner. We always start by researching iconic key locations and city maps to decide what should be included. At the same time, we dive into similar titles for inspiration – in this case, classic taxi games.
We first wanted to divide the city into two parts: a main island and a smaller island connected by two bridges. The point was to really get the player to think about which passengers they wanted to pick up based on their destination, as taking a trip on the bridge could endanger your time limit. Then the idea arose to extend the bridges into a giant highway that would encompass the whole city. It would be difficult to enter, but easy to jump. In the end, we ditch both ideas and focus on something new: a hopping cab.
1: The original plan for the level design, 2: The final city plan for New Yellow City
When we started to focus on the main island, some things became very important to us. We wanted to bring that New York feeling to the city first, including iconic landmarks but giving them a little unique touch. Players will be able to visit Freedom Park, Aeonian Square, Memorial Park, and many other locations (three guess what their inspiration was). Next, we wanted to make sure that the line of sight between them was clear, so that players could easily find them and learn the different routes through town.
The next step was to add side roads to give players the chance to take even more risks and find unique and insane shortcuts. When the foundations were laid, we started experimenting with the mechanics of jumping, because what could be crazier than rolling over buildings? We’ve added ramps, low buildings you can jump directly onto, and various roofs you can walk through. Taxi driving will never be the same. Curious about where are the right shortcuts? Keep an eye out for green scaffolding on buildings, there might be a crazy opportunity out there.
Passengers with a personality
Of course, driving and jumping isn’t all there is in New Yellow City. Much like its inspiration, it is filled with unique citizens, each with their own story. To bring the city to life, we decided to give them all a unique voice and dialogue. There are also various special passengers that you can take multiple times to get to know them better each time you meet them. You can choose a hipster, a plumber, a rockstar and many more. Make sure you visit each rooftop because you never know who you are going to meet.
We all hope you join us on a cab ride of a lifetime as Taxi Chaos rushes to PS4 tomorrow.
