Neo Cab is the dystopian, gig-economy Crazy Taxi we’ve always wanted, Ars Technica

Sequel: Neo Dog Walker? – Hey.

Arguably the best reason to try the new $ 5 / mo Apple Arcade; great on Switch, PC too.

Sam Machkovech –Oct 6, 7: 00 PM UTC

Yes, this passenger pukes in your cab's backseat. It's both the least and most of your concerns as a near-future gig-economy driver in the surprisingly stirring<em>Neo Cab</em>. — Enlarge/Yes, this passenger pukes in your cab’s backseat. It’s both the least and most of your concerns as a near-future gig-economy driver in the surprisingly stirringNeo Cab.

Chance Agency

Before I go into how much I really like the new video gameNeo Cab, I want to speak to the clever new way that some people can pay for and enjoy it.

Last month, I gave a nod to the video gameGears of War 5asa no-brainer reason to throw a few bucks at Xbox Game Pass. Instead of paying $ 60 and going into the game with high expectations, you could jump into the XGP subscription service at a promotional rate, sample the variety of Gears 5 solo and online modes, and get out unscathed , if not quite entertained.

This comes to mind when I recommendNeo Cabas a perfect bonus forthe new, $ 5 / month Apple Arcade subscription service. Do you own an iOS device and want an awesome, not-too-long game that leans into the limits of a tablet or smartphone?Neo Cabis arguably the coolest game outside the subscription service’s premiere deluge of quick-burst, twitch-and-tap games, and its brief, genre-blurring impact is easier to suggest within a reasonably priced subscription.

The other option, a $ 15 standalone purchase, adds just enough friction to a universal recommendation. (It’s this version I tested, launching this week on Windows, Mac, and Nintendo Switch after an Apple Arcade exclusivity period.)

Though the game swims in incredible atmosphere and hinges on a cool premise — you’re a gig-economy taxi driver in a dystopian future, determined to uncover a mystery — this isn’t a steering-wheel drive through busy streets. Think ofNeo Cabas “Emotional Conversation Taxi,” not the arcade classicCrazy Taxi. The result is one of the most unique and self-assured games of 2019, but its niche appeal is worth minding.

Capra’s in control

                      You play the game as Lina, a longtime gig-economy cab driver moving to a new, larger city. Unlike her old home, the city of Los Ojos is being overtaken by a robo-driver cab force, which sets a lot of friction into motion.

                      Use this interface to pick up “pax,” the slang term for cab passengers.

                      Everything you say or do comes with a question of how it might affect your livelihood.

                      Turns out, your conversations may also be paid forward with future encounters (positively or negatively).

                      Each ride ends with a rating …

                      … and an indication of how that affects your greater rating (which can affect which people you can or cannot pick up in the future).

                      Hopefully you get a financial tip.

                      You’ll also have to manage your electric car’s charge level, which can affect what routes you drive between passengers.

                      Occasionally, you’ll manage an SMS interface with friends.

                      Your sketchbook starts out with basic plot points.

                      It evolves over the course of your gameplay to offer plot reminders and specific doodles based on choices you made.

                      Augmented reality interfaces appear on many of your passengers.

                      In some cases, those interfaces augment how people look to the outside world.

                      When passengers start going down some crazy rabbit holes, your character Lina does well to respond with anchored, skeptical, and funny replies.

                      The synergy between the official city government and the Capra corporation is at its most stark with this fleet of robotic cops.

                      Lina eventually gets pulled into a radical anti-Capra organization. She can choose how much to align with them.

                      Certain dialogue options only come up when Lina’s emotions reach a particular state. (More on that in a second.)

How many years in the future doesNeo Cabtake place? It’s not entirely clear. Some of its citizens’ faces are smothered in high-tech headsets, which generate “augmented reality” grids of data or cover people’s faces with “digital beauty filters.” (That seems a bit more futuristic than even a folding smartphone.) And the game’s dense, handsome cities resemble the neon-lined vistas of your favorite far-future sci-fi. Yet the populace of Los Ojos relies so heavily on smartphone apps and handing data over to massive corporations that its conversations could easily be copy-and-pasted from the year 2019.

The mix makes for an dramatic setting to drive into as Lina, a struggling young woman who’s moved to the nearest big city to reboot her life. She’s a rare breed: a human gig-economy driver, as opposed to the automatic robo-driving fleet operated by a massive corporation (Capra) whose robo-claws are planted into every facet of Los Ojos’ infrastructure. (Capra runs the city’s gas stations, capsule hotels, apps, and even a surveillance force made up of everyone from robotic cops to gig-economy spies.)

Thus, the game opens with Lina setting up her Neo Cab driver account in the new city, then giving her day’s first ride to Savy, a longtime friend and new roommate. Lina and Savy immediately get into a fraught conversation, and an hour after their shared ride ends, Savy disappears. Whoops: there goes Lina’s sole connection to a giant new city, not to mention her free bed.

Thus, players spend the game as a car operator with a few priority: find clues leading to Savy’s whereabouts, make enough money to pay for gas and sleeping accommodations, and maintain a high driver rating to continue pulling customers and fares. You might expect a resulting video game to revolve around a steering wheel, but inNeo Cab, the focus is on a conversation wheelandan emotions wheel.

                      The Feelgrid device is always represented by a colored grid at the bottom-left of the game screen.

                      More on how it works.

                      One heckuva mood ring.

                      The feelingandthe intensity matter.

                      It’s not bad to leave the center on occasion, of course.

                      Whatever emotions you have can limit what dialogue options you have available. Here, the fully red option is unavailable because Lina is feeling intense anger.

                      You’ll have to use context clues to determine which way you want to steer your own emotions, and thus what kind of conversation you can have with a “pax.”

Every interaction with a cab passenger brings up at least two conversational reply options, if not three or four, and players get a few context hints about how to reply. First is a high-tech mood ring. While it represents a giant range of emotions, it revolves around two axes: from sadness to happiness, and from lethargy to excitement. Depending on the intensity of either axis, Lina could feel furious, terrified, or even alarmingly neutral, and the answers you choose can lead Lina into any of these directions.

While managing Lina’s emotional state, smartNeo Cabplayers will also keep an eye on their passengers’ words and faces, which are equally emotive. The game’s realistic-cartoon aesthetic benefits from an advanced facial-emotion system, and this makes it easy to read your passengers’ moods, from neutrality to anxiety, and from glee to gloom. Do you want to curry favor with your passenger, either for a nice financial tip or a really useful piece of intel? Start with emotional empathy, and you may have more success. This matters because certain conversational options only unlock if you nudge Lina’s emotions in a particular direction.

A game for any mood

The resulting chat system is more advanced than the likes ofTelltale’s The Walking Dead, and it makes room for some particularly tense and surprising conversations. What kind of person are you supposed to be to each passenger to curry their specific kind of favor?

In some cases, that means leaning into your dry, cutting wit while making fun of the omnipresent Capra corporation. In others, that means expressing interest and delight in the latest high-tech nonsense, because your passenger is a near-religious convert (if not a developer of said tech). And then there are those rides where you have to fake like a therapist — all while occasionally slipping into your own emotional truths because the passenger dragged your mood wheel into “blue” territory.

This is whereNeo Cabavoids the biggest sci-fi clichés. You’ve seen these ruminations before, about the exponential growth of technology and its impact on feeble, emotional humans. What’s unique here is how the game smoothly asks you to mind characters’ emotional responses to so much rapid, high-tech change. And, yes, it’s significantly interactive; a second playthrough proves that some conversations diverge in meaningful ways.

That doesn’t always happen; some passengers’ spiels are meant to be linear, but when these emerge, they are welcome respites from the tension and stakes of the game’s more common conversations. Not only are these simpler chats funny and touching, they also build rapport for possible repeat customers, which can lead to plot breakthroughs down the line.

All of this would be a tougher sell if Lina didn’t cement the narrative-driven game as a believable, likeable mess of a young person. We immediately learn about Lina’s harsh edge via a doodle-filled journal, which grows over the course of the game based on conversations and choices. Her backstory is left a little more open and unexplained than I wanted, but Lina’s sense of “reluctant hope” is consistent, and it grounds her many temporary emotions — which is to say, the game makes room for her edge cases of anger, happiness , and despair in conversation without betraying her core traits.

Few games offer so much believable elasticity in their lead characters, andthatis the electric future-car fuel that makesNeo Cabstand out from so many other narrative-driven games over the past decade. The resulting gameplay scales well to touchscreen devices like an iPhone or Nintendo Switch — you’re just tapping on dialogue choices while beautiful scenery and finely rendered characters whiz by — and that’s honestly the biggest consideration you should mind before diving in.

Does your definition of “a good video game” include a dialogue-focused rumination on corporations, the gig economy, and how a rapidly evolving workforce can land on a populace like a bomb? Then the brief-but-compellingNeo Cabis a 2019 must-play. If not, consider the $ 5 / month Apple Arcade path as an excuse to play this game for at least 10 minutes and let its finely tuned twists charm you into sticking with its mix of solid writing and compelling choices for a few hours.