Taxicity


Description:

TaxiCity is a Silverlight game that taps into Open Data from the City of Vancouver to create the gameplay map. Players take on the role of a freelance taxi driver in Vancouver, tasked with picking up and delivering passengers to landmarks around the city. A mini-map powered by Bing Maps will help the player learn the layout and landmarks of the city as they drive through real Vancouver streets; money they earn from customers can be used to customize their cab. As the players progress in the game they will unlock new areas of the city and become more familiar with the geography of the region.

In collaboration with Centre for digital media, Microsoft Bing department, City of Vancouver and Microsoft Open data department


Technical Details:

Visual Studio 2008, C#, Silverlight 3.0 .net 3.5 library and wordpress for documentation

Role:

Developer for ManPower Engine, Sound API, connecting games to Bing MiniMaps, UI

programming and Car Physics prototypes, Coordinate Conversion System(UTM to lat/long and vice versa)

Challenges:

Working with silverlight and opendata for the first time

Outcome:

One of the only games created which makes use of open data from which players can not only have fun but also learn about the city at a same time. And it is extensible to other cities as well.

Taxicity wins first student bonus prize and second For The Web Coding competition prize hosted by Microsoft across Canada

http://www.webnotwar.ca/ftw

Making of Taxicity: :)


Play the game: Taxicity


Official Site:

http://www.taxicity.ca