Neo Cab

I started playing Neo Cab for 15 minutes and immediately turned it off. The game actively prevents you from choosing the dialogue options you actually want to pick, and that’s apparently “by design.” The concept: you play as a stressed-out taxi driver in a dystopian future, and your stress level locks certain responses so you can only react in annoyed, passive, or aggressive ways. The developers want you to feel a loss of control to simulate economic pressure. But here’s the problem: feeling powerless isn’t automatically good game design. If I can’t choose the answer I want because the game decided my character is “too stressed,” that doesn’t make me feel immersed – it makes me feel like the game is punishing me for playing it. The first scene alone was enough to convince me this isn’t worth my time. If you enjoy being told you can’t make the choices you want, go ahead. For everyone else: save your money.

This is a really fun game. I really like the 'emotion-meter' mechanic, which reflects your emotional state throughout the game, and will change dialogue options available to you. It's almost like this game was written with a mind to educating people about emotional awareness, which I am all for, and as an autistic person it's actually helped me :) Will probably only last 3 or 4 hours, but with the possibility of multiple playthroughs. The aesthetic is nice too. I'm glad I got it :)

Seems like someone had a manipulative relationship and built a game/story around it :D It's a good story, and good enough gameplay. The illusion of choice is not always entirely convincing, and the money-management part of the game doesn't really punish you for making stupid choices, but that's fine. It's just not that kind of game, it's a story-only game. I liked it.

Cool story game, I like it.

Amazing visuals and concept. Storyline was okay. Not happy with the lack of choices, why make it an option if the game won't let us click that option because of the emotion we are feeling? I also was not a fan of how similar a lot of the choices were to each other. Felt like I really only had one path I could go down. This game has amazing potential though.

Neo Cab is a visual novel with cyberpunk neon dystopian future elements. You play as Lina, one of the last human cab drivers left in the world, who moves to the city of Los Ojos to rekindle a childhood friendship and become roommates. The gameplay is text heavy with semi branching storylines. You manage passengers (called pax), your car's electric charge, your money, driver star ratings, and where you sleep at night, like Japanese style sleep pods or bougie motels. The game also uses a biofeedback device called the Feel Grid to monitor your mood. If Lina gets too upset or scared, she gets locked off from certain dialogue options. It is an interesting mechanic, but it gets annoying when you are emotionally blocked from picking the answer you actually want to choose as the player. The pax you pick up vary wildly from each other. You meet characters like Liam Baird, a ruthless tech exec traveling the world as a photographer, and Agnan, a member of a movement based around pain. Characters like these really stand out and make each interaction something you either look forward to or dread. Visuals use vibrant purples, deep blues, and heavy neon lights. The animations are fluid and mak…