Taxi Life A City Driving Simulator | Developer Blog #9
Hello Drivers!
We hope you had a great holiday season, and we’re looking forward to sharing some exciting news with you in the new year! In the last milestone, we worked on the company management panel, improved pedestrians in Barcelona, and more. So let's dive right in!
New Car
We’ve added a new electric vehicle into Taxi Life. You can only view it from the outside for now, though; we’ll show you how it looks from the inside next time. Until then, here's a picture of the new car:
Company Management
We added a new panel where you can assign cars to drivers. Of course, this is still in the early development of the Company Management system and we're working hard on fleshing it out as much as we can before the full release of Taxi Life.
Collectibles System
We’ve talked about this system before, but now we’re making some real progress. In Taxi Life, aside from company management and the missions you’ll be able to do, there will also be fun things to do on the side, like collect some special items throughout Barcelona. When you want to take a break from grinding and working your business, just step back and enjoy the city skyline as well as other amazing sights there are to explore in Barcelona.
Things we’ve fixed
Development is never a straight path. When one aspect of the game improves, another can become unstable. While some of these issues have been addressed, we wanted to share a few things that we improved upon since last time.
Pedestrians were a big part of Taxi Life. They made the game feel more alive and more like a real city. We were happy to finally have them in the game, but they left a lot to be desired. So, we took some time from our previous milestones and made them better.
Destruction system: In the last sprint, we implemented a system for external damage to your car as well as your surroundings so it feels like you ran over a trash can instead of just hitting it.
Vehicle AI: Another aspect of Taxi Life we're working on is realistic traffic scenarios. The player should feel like he's experiencing realistic traffic scenarios as he drives throughout the city. The AI for the cars is turning out great, and it's getting better and better as we add more and more functionality to it. For example, the AI now knows how to approach an intersection and let pedestrians cross the street.
Save System
Finally, we're working on implementing a save system in Taxi Life. To start with, we've already begun adding the following features to the save function:
When you save your money will be saved
When you save your experience will be saved
When you save your position will be saved
When you save your time of day will be saved
When you save your vehicle damage will be saved
Happy New Year!
As you can see, we have been pretty busy throughout this time of year and now it’s time to relax and prepare for the new year. We wanted to thank the community for sticking with us throughout this entire year. We are starting to have a great little community surrounding Taxi Life and we’re excited to see it grow. If it’s your first time here, welcome and make sure to join our Discord channel and follow us on all of our socials.
On behalf of Simteract we wish you all a happy new year!
Hasta La Proxima,
Mike Simteract Community Manager
Taxi Life A City Driving Simulator | Developer Blog #8
Hello Drivers!
It’s been a while since our last Developer blog, and we’re excited to talk about some of our achievements during the last sprint. We started working on a variety of topics ranging from the company management panel, the saving system and polishing the first vehicle model that you are all aware of and among other things, the new shiny radial menu. So, let’s dive right in!
Company Management
(This image is a mock-up and not a final version of the company management panel and is subject to change during the development of Taxi Life)
The general premise for company management is something that our Train Life players might have some familiarity with, but with some functionality that has been upgraded. You’ll be able to hire/fire drivers, buy real-estate, as well as manage your finances. In Taxi Life, you’ll be able to play the game how you want, whether it’s enjoying the scenery of Barcelona or diving deep into the ins and outs of creating the ultimate transportation company.
Car 1 and The Save System
Taxi Life has come a long way since we started writing these blogs and going back in time a little bit, the functionality of the cabin in the first vehicle was practically non-existent. Now, we have fully fleshed out the cabin and everything should be working from the back-up camera to the in-game radio as well as AC so you can stay cool in the Barcelona weather.
Another thing we wanted to talk about was the saving system. We believe it’s super important for players to have the ability to manually save the game and not rely on auto saves. You ask and you shall receive! If you have any more features that you would like to see added into the game, we encourage you to let us know in the comments!
AI Destruction and The New Radial Menu
Not only are players going to notice significant damage to their vehicles when driving erratically but also to the AI vehicles as well, adding more to the immersive nature of Taxi Life. The new and improved radial menu can help you in avoiding crashes with AI by giving you the ability to quickly interact with your car. From lowering the window down at your clients request to turning on the AC, you’ll be able to swiftly decide without moving the camera around too much. Unless you’re into that kind of gameplay. Again, the choice is yours.
Steering Wheel Support
Probably one of the most asked questions in the community and we’re happy to say that we completed the implementation of steering wheel support. We did some tests with the Logitech 920 steering wheel in-house, and we’re proud to say that Taxi Life will support most steering wheels on the market as well as pedals and gear shifters.
You guys’ rock!
From the social media posts to the developers streams that we’re doing, it’s a true pleasure to see the community so passionate about Taxi Life. As time goes on, we’re growing our members and the general interest in the game and for that, we thank you! If you’re new here, you can check out our monthly community livestreams where we have some light conversations with our development team and share some “backstage” access to the production of Taxi Life. Usually, these streams are on a Monday @ 7PM CET. Check out our last one:
With all that in mind, we wish you guys farewell and until next time!
Hasta La Proxima,
Michal Simteract Community Manager
Taxi Life: Developer Blog #7
Hello Drivers!
Welcome to the 7th edition of the Taxi Life Developer blog! We’re going to be talking about some back-end stuff like the map, pedestrians as well as some changes in the 1st car model. By the way – in case you missed last Monday’s stream, we talked about all these things with our Lead Game Designer and producer! Check the stream out here.
Before we get into the details of this blog, please remember that you should take everything that we’re working on with a grain of salt as everything could be subject to change and iterated upon when the game fully releases at the end of next year. With that out of the way – lets get into it!
The Map
We added some map filters where players will be able to see a lot of details such as speed cameras, places of road accidents or roadworks as well as landmarks found throughout Barcelona. You can also create your own custom route by placing multiple points on the map so you can efficiently plan your next trip.
Pedestrians
Now, this may sound like a trivial feature to add into our game, but oh boy did we have to fight with this beast to make it work properly. This honestly took us a few months to get down correctly but once we got it, we knew we were headed in the right direction. There is still some kinks to work out here and there and if you noticed on the last live stream we did showcasing this, the pedestrians looked like something from the Walking Dead show (we did this on purpose to show you guys just in time for Halloween) but the animations and all that jazz will be getting a facelift in the future so no worries, you wont be getting attacked by zombies in Taxi Life.
https://youtu.be/6Ujf1F0pUDI
Car 1 – The White One
We added a whole new list of features when it comes to the first cars cabin. Everything ranging from a back-up camera, emergency lights, the cabin light as well as 3 new camera modes that will help with the immersion of driving a car in the big city. More features for the other 2 models of cars you have seen in the past will be added soon and you can bet we will let you guys know when that happens!
https://youtu.be/b_BdiRL8b7I
The Radial Menu
The Radial menu is going to complement the player when driving around the city of Barcelona. You will be able to do things like quickly and efficiently open the window upon your client’s request, turn on the AC or explore the other functions the vehicle has to offer.
Thanks!
Thanks to all of the current and future supporters of Taxi life! We believe in this project just as much as you do and with all the support we’ve been getting throughout our livestreams and social media posts – it gives us the motivation to bring you guys a driving simulation game that you all will play for years to come.
It’s been a while buy we’re finally back with another Developer Blog for Taxi Life! With Gamescom in early September as well as the release of our other game Train Life, it’s been hectic! But we’re getting back in the flow of things with keeping you guys updated on the development process of Taxi Life.
The last Developer Blog we sent was way back in July! With the name change of the game already in full swing, we have a lot to talk about in todays blog regarding updates and changes to the current build for Taxi Life. So, lets get into it!
Shake, shake, shake that camera!
Now, every time you crash into something, the camera will shake, giving you that feeling that you hit something. When you damage your vehicle, you should experience some wobbles when your in FPP mode in the cabin of the car notifying you that you should probably start thinking about visiting a repair shop.
3 new camera modes
We added 3 new camera modes to our new vehicle models and that’s in FPP (dashboard), FPP (Hood) as well as a complete FPP where you are on the bumper of the car. This should give players some good options to explore the streets of Barcelona in which ever perspective they want.
Random Events
We added random events into the streets that will have impact on your gameplay. For example, there could be a car that is broken down on the side of the road and this causes the traffic to become heavier. Better make sure you don’t pick up a passenger that’s in a rush!
Unfortunately, we don’t have any footage of this saved, but when I dig around, I will be sure to show you guys on our socials and Discord!
2 New unlicensed vehicles
Over the past 2 months or so, we added 2 new unlicensed vehicles. The van is going to be electric, where you will have to go to a charging station instead of a gas station. Looks futuristic, don’t ya think? Which one is your favorite?
The Pedestrians, they can cross the street now!
So, for a long time, the pedestrians in Taxi Life didn’t know how to cross the street. Maybe it was because they were scared or didn’t have a hand to hold on to. But now, after lots of therapy and the pedestrians will now cross the street impacting the gameplay of the player. No, you can’t run them over. Yes, you need to wait for them to cross if you don’t want to get a penalty.
https://youtu.be/6Ujf1F0pUDI
That’s all we got, for now…
We hoped you enjoyed this edition of our Developer Blog and make sure to follow us in all the places and deepest crevices of social media as well as join our official Discord channel!
Until next time!
Mike Simteract Community Manager
Urban Venture -> Taxi Life | We're changing the name for Urban Venture
Hello everyone!
With Gamescom coming up, we have some major changes coming to Urban Venture that we are proud to announce. From today, Urban Venture will now be called Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator!
The reason for this change is because we have signed a deal with our publisher Nacon to publish the game under their current "Life" series of games, which you can find here.
We go a little bit more in depth about the change in a press release, which you can find here as well.
We will have more news to share during Gamescom as well as on our social media.
We hope you all are just as excited as we are about this partnership, and looking forward we know we're going to be able to bring you a driving simulation game never before seen.
See you in Barceona!
Mike Simteract Community Manager
Urban Venture | Dev Blog #5
Hello Drivers,
Welcome to the 5th Dev Blog for Urban Venture. Time flies, doesn’t it? But this won’t stop us from keeping you guys up to date on the latest news from our development process. Today is going to be quite a short one to be honest, as during the past month we have been working on 2 major concepts that we brought to realization in our recent build. And that is new Police mechanics and a new vehicle model.
Keep in mind, everything that you see in this Dev Blog is subject to change or get iterated upon in the future. Nothing is final. With that out of the way, let's get into it!
Law and Rewards
Police in Urban Venture have made their way into the city of Barcelona. Now, you will be under the watchful eye of the law. But don’t worry, you have nothing to hide, right? There is a new system we implemented that will give you bonus XP after a certain time of following the rules of the road. If you break the law in front of a Police Vehicle, the siren will turn on, the player will get a ticket and pay some money from your funds. In case you’re thinking if you will be able to participate in a police chase, then no, you won’t. Remember this isn’t GTA!
New Vehicle Model
We’re going to keep this one short and sweet. We added a new “luxury” vehicle into the game. This car is better in every way that the first vehicle you guys are familiar with. Currently, we are only able to view the car in TPP mode and are still working out some kinks with the cabin and FPP. We will share more info on that once its ready.
That’s all for now!
Thanks for taking the time to read some small updates from our side. As usual, we will keep you guys updated on our socials with news and behind the scenes’ stuff from Urban Venture. Next Monday July 25th 2022 @ 7PM CEST we’re going to be doing another livestream with our producer Alex! Don’t forget to check out some gameplay we have to share on our Twitch channel! Until then, we hope you have a great weekend!
Urban Venture Developer Blog #4
Hello drivers!
Welcome to our fourth blog post for Urban Venture! Once again, we are happy to show our community some of the things we've added and have been working on since our last update. Today, we’re going to be talking about the in-game garage, new features for TrafficAI, as well as a new and improved night mode!
Before we get into the blog post, I wanted to remind everyone that everything you’re about to read/see is subject to change. Game development is a process, and everything can be changed or iterated upon at a moments notice.
With that in mind: I know you are all excited to see what we got in store this time around, so without further adieu, let's get into it!
The Garage
The garage is going to be one of the central gameplay features of Urban Venture. Everyone likes pictures or videos of WIP stuff in game development, right? So, take a gander at this beauty:
The main purpose of the garage will be for players to customize, repair, refuel and browse their fleet of vehicles. Car parameters such as your vehicles' endurance levels, tire pressure, and engine durability will factor into its performance. You will also be able to buy and sell your cars from here, as well other functions we are still working on. The placement of the garage is still something that we are figuring out where to put in the game, currently what you see in the video is a placeholder location for now.
Once we have some more progress made on the garage, we will share more, so stay tuned!
TrafficAI Features
TrafficAI™ is a term that we have thrown around in previous blog posts here and there - and it’s something that we think people will be excited over when they get a chance to play the game! When the game has driving at its core, we think players will really notice and appreciate our dedication to our traffic models to help with proper immersion.
For those that are reading this article for the first time, let me explain what TrafficAI™ is. TrafficAI™ is a technology that we developed in-house to teach real-life autonomous vehicles to learn how to drive. So, we figured, hell, why don’t we put that in our next game, and that’s exactly what we did. We even made some improvements...
AI’s stopped honking on red lights (believe us, this was a huge problem when all you could hear is honking throughout the entire game)
Honking is now based by the AI driver’s frustration.
Honking is now activated once AI is emergency braking.
The AI are now acting slower on the arcs – no more traffic jams at roundabouts and turns! (This is something that we noticed was a problem when the AI drivers were making moves at roundabouts. The cars would basically get stuck causing humongous traffic jams. Now this shouldn’t be an issue)
AI density reacts to the day cycle – there are more traffic jams in the morning and afternoon, much less during the nights
For us, the last point is all about player immersion once again. We want the player to experience full day and night cycles on the roads in the game, as you would in real life. The same goes with our dynamic weather system which will influence to how the world around the player reacts. When it rains, there will be less people on the street and braking distance is increased, cars might drive slower and so on.
Nighttime Improvement
Nighttime in Urban Venture is a tricky topic. When we started implementing a day/night cycle, we had the challenge of illuminating the roads with streetlights. At first, it was very dark, like too dark! We also had to adjust the traffic flow at night so there could be less cars.
In the pictures below, you can see some before and after examples of light density on the streets. Nighttime driving can bring its own set of challenges in any video game, but in Urban Venture, we wanted to bring as close to an authentic experience as driving in real-life nighttime as possible.
THANK YOU!
That’s about all from our side! We hope you’re enjoying our monthly Dev Blog updates and if you have any feedback to give about how we’re running things here please don’t hesitate to leave a comment under the post!
