I would never be able to hack it as a taxi driver; the constant idle chatter and long nights would drive me absolutely insane. I gladly, however, sat behind the wheel of Night Call from Monkey Moon and Black Muffin at this year’s Rezzed and discovered the best game about cabs since Crazy Taxi. That’s just about the best praise you can truly give any game.
Night Call wastes no time with its elevator pitch: after surviving an attack from a serial killer, you must work with the police to investigate who it could possibly be, one fare at a time. Such a narrative-focused game really shouldn’t belong at events like Rezzed, but I was immediately hooked and was sad to see my first night of investigation also conclude the demo.
You don’t actually drive the cab itself, you’re more in control of how the interactions with your customers play out. You have dialogue options to choose from which can either be invasive, empathetic, or entirely nonplussed depending on the personality of the person who you’ve picked up. My first fare, for instance, was a brash womaniser who thought the cab stunk but just ended up having shit on his shoe. I could have withstood his nonsense a bit longer and may have found a clue to help my investigation, but we just ended up butting heads and nothing of worth was discovered.
You can choose your own fares from a small map, which will then dramatically change the outcome of your story — every person you encounter will set you on a unique path. There are three different killers, so there’s plenty of replayability to be had. Even when you think you know who the killer is, they might not be the same person in another playthrough. According to the dev, there will be 75 passengers to pick-up with 200,000 words to experience across seven nights of work.
There’s also some slight business management with Night Call, though it’s very difficult to figure out just how intense or otherwise it is via a limited demo. You have to keep on top of your fuel and income, but this is something that will really come into play for the finished game. At the end of each shift , you can also return to your apartment and stitch the clues together.
From what I’ve played so far, Night Call will be an intriguing release when it drops sometime this Summer for PC that looks like a blend of Where The Water Tastes Like Wine and something like Papers, Please. I’m going on call until this one releases.
Check out the rest of our Rezzed 2019 coverage here.
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