Cab Hustle (Sven Krasser)
Game title: Cab Hustle
Game description: Cab Hustle is inspired by games such as Space Taxi, TurboRaketti, and Crazy Taxi. The goal of the game is to make as much money as possible by transporting passengers with your ship between platforms before time runs out. To transport a passenger waiting on a platform, land on that platform and press fire. The status display in the bottom left will show the destination platform and the remaining fare, which decreases as time goes by. To drop off the passenger to the desired destination platform, just land on the right platform. Any remaining fare will be added to the score. If there’s more than $0 left in fare, then you will also get a time bonus. The longer the distance between platforms was, the bigger the time bonus will be. Red passengers want short-haul flights. Yellow ones are slightly longer. Green ones are yet longer, and blue passengers look for long-haul flights. Any time you thrust, you burn fuel. The fuel gauge in the status display shows how much fuel is left. There are fuel platforms throughout the map. You can land on those at any time to refuel. Without fuel, you can no longer thrust but you can turn your ship. If you manage to land on a platform by coasting to it without fuel, you get some emergency fuel (200 units) but also incur a 10 second time penalty. If you collide with obstacles, the ship is destroyed. You will respawn (without any passenger) in the starting room of the map (with platforms 1 and 2). In addition, there is a 5 second time penalty. You will start with the same amount of fuel you had before the crash. If your fuel was very low, however, you get emergency fuel (200 units) and a 20 second time penalty. There’s a fuel platform going down from the starting room where you can refuel
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Production - 65%
65%
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Fun - 50%
50%
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Depth - 55%
55%
Summary
Cab Hustle might be best described as a game of missed opportunity. The overall game design concept is good and the challenge of picking up and dropping off passengers is well executed but the control mechanism kills off what is potentially a high quality game.
I found the application of thrusters to be overly sensitive which often results in your spaceships sliding its way across the screen out of control – it feels more like its travelling on ice than in space.
It’s a shame that more game worlds were not included to add variety to the game play. Sonically, the game comes up short – there is no in game music and you really are wanting some digitised speech to be thrown in (given the nod to Space Taxi).
Cab Hustle is a solid game but has so much potential to be something a lot more lasting with a bit more development and a revised thrust/gravity mechanic.
Overall
57%User Review
( vote)Pros
- Good game design concept
- Aesthetics are suitable
Cons
- Control mechanism feels too ‘slippery’
- Only one game world
- No in game music
