A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine
Hello all,
it's with great pleasure that I announce the release of Mini Taxi!
The name says it all really, you're a taxi driver in Mini City and have to make the most money before time runs out.
Makes use of chipmunk and cocoslive, and of course cocos2d :)
Promotional Codes:
MFKXYETHMHNK
FMXWMLLFRP46
XART3AYJ6EEF
3RAKYXXXX7MH
KWX7763A3JRJ
As always, comments and suggestions are welcome, and a kind word in a review is highly appreciated :)
Thanks!
Patrick
Great game! I think I spend more time running over people than playing the game, love the sounds. I have 2 problems with it: the steering wheel is kind of hard to use, maybe allow control of the car using the accelerometer? The second problem I have is that the buildings only show up as white squares! (screenshot below)
I also left a review on the app store
EDIT: I am using an iPhone 3G running OS 3.0.1, I deleted it and reinstalled and the buildings are still white.
Congrats ! Just bought it. Will leave a review on the French store once I get used to the controls (why did you have to put buildings between the streets ? they sure act as taxi magnets on my iPhone).
I think it lacks sound effects (especially in the title/options screens). I would have liked bigger A and B buttons (since you touch them with your thumb). I like the GTA-style view very much. I believe you have a serious codebase to make a GTA-like game now.
Good luck on the store !
edit : unlike Zach, buildings show correctly on my iPhone 3G (running OS 3.0.1)
Thanks for your comments guys.
I've invested a lot of time and money in this, I just hope I sell enough to pay rent survive for another few months :)
I agree with all the points made, the steering wheel is damn hard to get used to, I tried accelerometer but I just didn't suit the game.
I don't know how to fix that white texture issues, it's only happened to one person before, seems like there's not enough ram or something, I'll look into that.
Also, more sound effects and perhaps some music will find their way in the next update.
Just for information purposes, game took 3 months to make, and approval time was only 7 days!
Cheers!
Just left a good review on the store. I have a few remarks though :
- I often managed (not on purpose !) to get my car stuck vertically between two buildings (see screenshot below). It's a nightmare to get out of there because every time the car touches either of the buildings (in a desperate maneuver to escape), it goes vertical again
- I'd like the potential customers to be displayed on the mini map so I know where to head when I just dropped a passenger (or just know where the person who yelled "taxi" is when no character is on the screen)
thesmileman
Member
I can 100% agree with Clain I always get stuck between buildings with the same problem. I love the graphics but I can not drive at all. would it be possible to just do directional based controls (follow the finger on the screen)? I think that might work millions of times better and make the game more fun.
Thanks for the pointers.
Yes I'm aware that the steering mechanism is hard to get used to, and that people keep getting stuck vertically in narrow alleys.
A future update will perhaps have that directional control mechanism, similar to other car games, I just don't like it that much :)
And perhaps also I'll remove those narrow alleys.
About the clients on the minimap, I decided not to include them, but perhaps I'll just put the ones that just yelled out taxi on it, that's not a bad idea.
Thanks for the review!
Patrick
Hum, haven't heard that one before, strange.
If you go into the summary page of your ipod/iphone, and go into the applications tab, is it selected as an app to sync?
You could try fiddling with that a bit?
I've not been reported anything similar and the game runs fine on OS 2.2.1 devices.
Please let me know how you get on.
If it doesn't work, I could provide you with an Ad Hoc build for your device.
Thanks
jugsvn
Member
The application is selected in the applications to be synched list but however I don't see the application in my phone after I synch. Also note that I am running a bricked version of the OS.
Quite strange!
I will restart my iPhone, iTune and Mac. I will keep you posted!
Thanks
Hi patrickC,
This is my feedback (similar to the other feedbacks):
- you have a platform with a lot of potential. You could build new games on top of it, specially race games
- the view, with 3d buildings is well done
- but I find it very difficult to control the taxi.
- the floor seems to flicker (ipod touch 2nd gen, sdk 3.0)
- the accelerate/brake buttons seems too close for my taste.
It would be nice if you could choose between "wheel drive" or "button drive" on the option's menu. And by "button drive" I mean a left - right button. I think it would be easier to control the taxi with buttons.
regarding the flicker: how are you rendering the tiles ?
cocos2d v0.8.1 includes a "spritesheet fixer" that copies the borders of your tiles to the spacing area, thus, preventing flicker when GL_LINEAR is used.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:tiled_maps#how_to_create_external_tilesets
@jugsvn:
I really don't know, I'll look into it, I would say ask Apple for support, but then again...
@riq:
Thanks for the feedback, to answer your points:
- thanks :) i used an older version of chipmunk (with cocos2d0.7.3), which doesn't support many of the functions of the newer version (gears,motors), I'll perhaps rewrite it with the new version of chipmunk and share the code with the community
- again, thanks, I've already posted the code I use in the forum here
- i know :) i'll try and improve it, there are many subtle aspects that influence that, it's hard to find a good balance
-that's very strange, it's not been reported by other people. I struggled a bit to get the tilemaps working correctly, since I'm using v0.7.3 I ended up splitting the maps into many smaller sections and only activating the ones that are visible on screen.
the flicker should not be present, I will definitely look into that, and try and switch over to the new tmx format you've just added support for
-i've been told this before, I'll space them a bit more and replace them with pedals
Also, next update I will add direction controls as an option.
I'll have a look at what's creating the flicker although it will be difficult to debug since I haven't encountered that problem with my current code.
Wasn't aware of GL_LINEAR causing issues with it so that's a good starting point.
Thanks!
@patrickC:
This is the flicker I'm talking about:
http://imagebin.ca/view/Cd9hlW.html
it's a pseudo-flicker.
as you can see from the screenshot, there are 3 possible lines that separates the tiles.
And when you start moving the taxi, these lines start to "flicker": they can have any of the 3 possible lines at any moment, depending of the taxi position.
here is a brief description of how GL_LINEAR works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilinear_filtering
and the filtering is done on the atlas, that's why it is important that atlas has some spacing between the tiles, and also, it is a good tip to apply the "spritesheet-fixer" so that the spacing is filled with the border of the tiles.
Ah yes, I see what you mean.
The problem, in this case, is that I'm using a higher Z value on the camera of that layer.
So, it's as if I were scaling the tilemap to 0.75
I realize this is a bit bad because it creates the sub-pixel effect that we see here, but I decided I could live with it for now.
Also I would have liked to use spacing in the tiles but didn't have time to implement it in cocos2d 0.7.3, and since you were doing work on it anyway I decided to wait.
I'll upgrade to 0.8.1, but I still think I'll get the flicker if I scale to 0.75 (or change Z in camera, same thing).
Or maybe not?
Thanks,
Patrick
thanks, glad you liked the game, yes crazy taxi was of heavy inspiration in making mini taxi ;)
this is the thread i was talking about: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/743
Hello again all!
Just a quick post to let you guys know the update of Mini Taxi is out.
I addressed lots of issues with the steering/physics, improved AI, did lots of cleaning up of the code and fixed a few bugs.
Overall the game is much more playable now, and doesn't feel as frustrating as it used to because of the difficult steering wheel.
If you get to play it and have any thoughts please let me know.
Here's a few promo codes:
34XH6AYW6NYE
6KH4JYJLM4LT
RKP9FXWANK3P
XW4TK9ALTK63
9JN73HMWWKPW
On a side note, approval of the update took 5 days!
Cheers!
Patrick
Hey Patrick, I played it yesterday, as soon as it was approved. I've finally made it to the top 10 (but not for long I guess). The menu buttons seems to work better now. I liked the steering wheel but it's much easier with the arrows. I would have liked a better/bigger visual feedback when either an arrow or a pedal is pressed. I think there's more traffic now and that's a good thing. The hailers on the map really changes everything.
I see a couple of things you could improve :
- if you manage to squish 3 or 4 pedestrians in a row, it should give you more money (sort of a combo bonus)
- it's very hard to go straight on a road (I mean, to be perfectly horizontal or vertical). And when I quickly tap an arrow, it doesn't do anything. I have to hold the arrow a bit longer, but when I do, the car turns too much. The best would be to implement something like in the first GTA : when you're running fast on a road and your car is close to being horizontal or vertical, the game automatically adjusts the car's direction to make it parallel to the road.
Love the update! A few notes:
* The arrow controls really cut down on the frustration factor, and after getting used to the car physics with the arrows I was able to go back and do better with the wheel!
* The peddles confused me at first. I thought they looked like dice! Once I realized that they WERE peddles, that illusion went away.
* Were the original taxis from Europe? ;) I noticed the steering is now on the left side for American drivers, which matches most controller layouts.
* I'm working on a very similar game (but I'm not in competition! It will be a free game for use in advertising a University). It's nowhere near complete yet, but I have decided to use an analog stick for the 'steering'. Point and gas. Just wondering why you decided to go with the Wheel/Arrows?
Great game, and I hope you make your rent! I was glad to donate my 99 cents!
Also, I am using a 2d map, but may be interested in you 3d-ish buildings for future projects.
What was the problem with the white buildings? The update seems to have fixed it, so I was hoping you could fill us in on the issue.
THANKS AGAIN!
Thanks for the comments guys.
@Clain: squishy combo, will do! auto align car is a good idea actually, I'll give it a shot, thanks.
@RedshirtRich: pedals/dice, I've heard that one yes, I'll let my artist know ;)
The left/right steering wasn't meant to be for UK drivers, although I am currently in the UK ;) It just seemed to make more sense to use the mini steering wheel with the right thumb, a bad choice on my part I suppose, it's now an option.
In the game you're making, you're planning on using analog stick like in playstation games for example? I had thought of that but then just decided to go "full" arcade with the arrows, a call of heart I suppose, but was still thinking of trying out the analog in the next update.
The issue with the white buildings was low memory. For the level (64 tilemaps) and the placement of all the elements (buildings, ai paths, spawn points, targets) I'd parse an XML file. To optimize, I now use arrays of struct in a header file (precompiled, you could say), and also PVRT instead of PNG everywhere.
That reduced memory consumption and loading time and fixed the texture loading issue.
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