Doodle Taxi - (in VCS Store)

[+SabertoothRetro]

Doodle Taxi from Escape From PoPo dev Metgan Games is out now in the VCS store for $7.99.

 

Here's a gameplay only first look at the game.

 

 

[+SabertoothRetro]

It's a bit of a strange concept.  You are a taxi driver in a story book world. A witch curses you and takes the color out of the world.  To restore color, you have to pick up fares and earn money.  As you progress, color is slowly added back to the world.  You can also use your cash to unlock cars.  There are leaderboards for the game.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

Its actually a really decent game when you figure out you have to drive clean and carefully to color the world! Very nice looking game.

[metgangames]

Thanks for sharing!

Here is a short gameplay video for quick look as well

 

[livingonwheels]

This is a must buy in my book. Finally another modern looking, 3Dish game. I'm so tired of the "retro inspired" 2D score chasers on this console. Though I do enjoy the Recharged series. Only issue I have with Doodle Taxi is the information screen upon picking up or dropping off a customer disappears way too fast. I don't think I've been able to read a single one completely yet.

EDIT: I just discovered that you don't need to slow down or even stop to pick up or drop off passengers. Perhaps that's why the information screen flashes by so quickly. Your actually still moving, it would be blocking your view otherwise.

Edited May 27, 2023 by livingonwheels

[metgangames]

1 hour ago, livingonwheels said:

This is a must buy in my book. Finally another modern looking, 3Dish game. I'm so tired of the "retro inspired" 2D score chasers on this console. Though I do enjoy the Recharged series. Only issue I have with Doodle Taxi is the information screen upon picking up or dropping off a customer disappears way too fast. I don't think I've been able to read a single one completely yet.

EDIT: I just discovered that you don't need to slow down or even stop to pick up or drop off passengers. Perhaps that's why the information screen flashes by so quickly. Your actually still moving, it would be blocking your view otherwise.

Actually that info screen only meant to cover up for "there is no get in/out animation in game, even car doors are not separate models, therefore we can't animate such a thing". So yeah, they are only for distraction. Once you deliver the customer, actual info screen appears as in how much you earned and what is time bonus etc. And I'm glad you enjoy it so far 

[MrTrust]

Crazy Taxi it ain't.  So I got enough money to buy the fastest car and made the world 100% color.  Now what?  Just loop infinitely?  Are there any other maps besides this one very small one?  Is there anything to this that I haven't seen within the first hour of play?

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

It might not be Crazy Taxi, its not trying to be, but for a game made by a single game developer its very very impressive. Once you color the world 100 percent you pretty much try to keep the run going as long as possible and you have leaderboards to entertain you should you want more of a reason to keep playing. I think for a game of its price range its a fairly large map on offer, sure it could be bigger but again its a low priced game, pick up and play fun. Even Crazy Taxi gets to point where its an infinite loop LOL all these games do 🙂. I would love to see some more cars to purchase in Doodle Taxi and a different in game sound track and that's about it. Maybe an update to the game in the future could add these in.

[metgangames]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Crazy Taxi it ain't.  So I got enough money to buy the fastest car and made the world 100% color.  Now what?  Just loop infinitely?  Are there any other maps besides this one very small one?  Is there anything to this that I haven't seen within the first hour of play?

Exactly, loop infinitely. Once you made coloring 100%, it doesn't necessarily you can't go lower. If you deliver a customer at red bar (on top of screen), you'll lose color back. Goal is keeping colorful & deliver as much as you can. Score calculation is money x color percentage x delivered customer count. And your comment sounds like you're bored already but what i can offer is having 1-2 hours of fun time. After that, I am aware it can be boring to do same thing over and over. This is why game has a relaxing background music actually. After experiencing initial fun of a new game, typically you would play this game to just blow off some steam. Sorry if I made it look like it promises more

[metgangames]

1 hour ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

It might not be Crazy Taxi, its not trying to be, but for a game made by a single game developer its very very impressive. Once you color the world 100 percent you pretty much try to keep the run going as long as possible and you have leaderboards to entertain you should you want more of a reason to keep playing. I think for a game of its price range its a fairly large map on offer, sure it could be bigger but again its a low priced game, pick up and play fun. Even Crazy Taxi gets to point where its an infinite loop LOL all these games do 🙂. I would love to see some more cars to purchase in Doodle Taxi and a different in game sound track and that's about it. Maybe an update to the game in the future could add these in.

I noted these as well, thank you man! Also I saw your score (BIC Rich sent me a photo of his high score), it was near to 800k. May I ask how long it took?

[MrTrust]

3 hours ago, metgangames said:

And your comment sounds like you're bored already but what i can offer is having 1-2 hours of fun time.

 

Yeah, pretty much.  If the map were bigger, I would probably get into score chasing on the leaderboard.  As-is, it's so small that there's not much variation in the routes.  

 

3 hours ago, metgangames said:

Sorry if I made it look like it promises more

 

Well, the problem with the VCS store is it doesn't give you much information about the games, and the ratings are pretty worthless owing to the tiny and overenthusiastic user base.  Plus, there are no comments to give you a better idea of what you're getting.  

 

If I'd been more informed, I would have skipped this.  Maybe gotten Escape from Po Po or something instead.  Even in the small pond that is the VCS store, there are many ways to stretch that 8 bucks further.  I understand there's a patronage element of supporting this console, but there is a baseline level of expectation, and this is really a demo being sold as a full game.

 

But, hey, I appreciate you being honest about the game and taking the critique in stride.  I think that's something we could use more of from small developers.

[metgangames]

3 hours ago, MrTrust said:

 

Yeah, pretty much.  If the map were bigger, I would probably get into score chasing on the leaderboard.  As-is, it's so small that there's not much variation in the routes.  

 

 

Well, the problem with the VCS store is it doesn't give you much information about the games, and the ratings are pretty worthless owing to the tiny and overenthusiastic user base.  Plus, there are no comments to give you a better idea of what you're getting.  

 

If I'd been more informed, I would have skipped this.  Maybe gotten Escape from Po Po or something instead.  Even in the small pond that is the VCS store, there are many ways to stretch that 8 bucks further.  I understand there's a patronage element of supporting this console, but there is a baseline level of expectation, and this is really a demo being sold as a full game.

 

But, hey, I appreciate you being honest about the game and taking the critique in stride.  I think that's something we could use more of from small developers.

I have to disagree with you about game’s situation. It is a full fledged game, the map size is just an indication of my abilities and design choice. For future projects, I’ll try to put estimated completion time of story mode (or whatever default mode is) in info section.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

15 hours ago, metgangames said:

I noted these as well, thank you man! Also I saw your score (BIC Rich sent me a photo of his high score), it was near to 800k. May I ask how long it took?

I think it took me just over 1 hour 30 mins for my high score. I actually had no idea my score was so high, it could have been much higher but i had to stop playing as it was past my bed time so i pulled over and let the timer run out LOL i could easily have kept playing all night if i didn't have to get up so early the next day 🙂 such a fun game i love it and gave it a little shout out on my Instagram letting my followers know about it and to check it out.

[metgangames]

41 minutes ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

I think it took me just over 1 hour 30 mins for my high score. I actually had no idea my score was so high, it could have been much higher but i had to stop playing as it was past my bed time so i pulled over and let the timer run out LOL i could easily have kept playing all night if i didn't have to get up so early the next day 🙂 such a fun game i love it and gave it a little shout out on my Instagram letting my followers know about it and to check it out.

That's so cool of you, thank you man! Also a little tip, to not loose your progress, you can either drive to garage and get in or just return to main menu from pause menu ^^

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

33 minutes ago, metgangames said:

That's so cool of you, thank you man! Also a little tip, to not loose your progress, you can either drive to garage and get in or just return to main menu from pause menu ^^

Excellent ill keep that in mind when I'm playing the game 🙂

[Mockduck]

Looking at Doodle Taxi: 
 

 

[metgangames]

Hi everyone, Doodle Taxi received a major update. New update includes a brand new unlockable map. Please go check out the update!

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

1 hour ago, metgangames said:

Hi everyone, Doodle Taxi received a major update. New update includes a brand new unlockable map. Please go check out the update!

Looking forward to trying this out 😃

[metgangames]

4 hours ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

Looking forward to trying this out 😃

Have you tried? 😃

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

4 hours ago, metgangames said:

Have you tried? 😃

Not yet. I have downloaded the update though, I'm hopefully going to get some free time this afternoon to finally sit down and play for a few hours and cant wait 😅. 

[metgangames]

10 hours ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

Not yet. I have downloaded the update though, I'm hopefully going to get some free time this afternoon to finally sit down and play for a few hours and cant wait 😅. 

I hope you'll like it 🤞

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

1 hour ago, metgangames said:

I hope you'll like it 🤞

I love it! I've played for just under an hour so far and saved the game to continue later, I'm hoping to put up a decent score on the leaderboards again. The game is definitely levels and levels above the previous build, i love the new features like having the option to grab fuel and such it makes the game more intense 😅. I still need to check out the new map which I'm guessing ill unlock as i keep progressing, the new soundtracks are much appreciated to really liking them so far.  

[metgangames]

On 8/12/2023 at 10:12 PM, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

I love it! I've played for just under an hour so far and saved the game to continue later, I'm hoping to put up a decent score on the leaderboards again. The game is definitely levels and levels above the previous build, i love the new features like having the option to grab fuel and such it makes the game more intense 😅. I still need to check out the new map which I'm guessing ill unlock as i keep progressing, the new soundtracks are much appreciated to really liking them so far.  

Glad to hear this. In my opinion, v2 is 4 times better than v1. And thanks Obsidian Contraption for gathering all these awesome indie musicians for this soundtrack 😍

[82-T/A]

I'm definitely buying this. Is it available now? I'll look for it next time I log into my VCS.

 

[Smell Dawg]

Love that the graveyard is called "Amico Graveyard" 😀