Old School Gamer Magazine chats with Corey King (Co-Founder, ZenFri) and Danielle “Dee†King (Co-Founder, ZenFri) about their upcoming game, The Last Taxi, currently slated for release on SteamVR/Oculus/HTC Vive/Windows MR. Detailing its creation process and more, the King’s let us know what makes this game a special one.
Old School Gamer Magazine: How was The Last Taxi born?
Corey King: After completing our last major title, Clandestine: Anomaly, we wanted not only to pick projects where we pushed technical boundaries but also to tell new stories – and as many as we possibly could. We decided that our next project should focus on a narrative-first experience – and branching narratives that fit comfortably in that endeavour. We started to play with ideas of who could drive the story and who could talk to people all day without feeling weird – without every conversation beginning with, “Oh! Let me tell you my tale of woe while you fetch quest for me!”
After going to conferences for our previous game, Dee stuck to the idea that taxi drivers were always very chatty – and it was quite easy to talk to them. You’d most likely never see them again, so they seemed to get an inside look at what was going on in the world. It was also toward the beginning of rideshares and the gig economy, so Corey landscaped a future world in which all the passenger stories would be set – complimenting how the gig economy could look in the future.
With an established track record in augmented reality, we felt that there was a natural transition into working in virtual reality – and it made a lot of sense for the game to have players physically embody the driver and be present for each passenger’s story. We wanted to make sure players had empathy for each passenger and decided how to proceed in the story based on the understanding that these passengers aren’t always either good or bad – and there’s nuance in their plight.
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports.
Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.
His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023.
Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief.
Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale.
Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.
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