Cab drivers have an exalted place in noir as a genre. They’re like bartenders: They see lots of shady characters, make polite conversation and don’t judge too much, and know the streets of the city like no one else. The truth is decidedly less glamorous. I drove for Lyft and Uber post bouncing out of the game industry and didn’t have encounters with sultry dames or good-natured gangsters. The most exciting thing to happen to me was that a dude pissed in my car and I had to get it cleaned. Fortunately, Night Call is the glamorous one, not the car-pissing one.
Night Call
Developer: Monkey Moon, BlackMuffin
Price: $20 USD
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was supplied with Steam code for review
Some games are all about victory: beating the big bad, winning the game, getting the highest score. Night Call is on the other end of the spectrum. It’s about the experience: Not so much “winning” as hanging out and enjoying the world. To that end, it’s so noir and so French it almost seems like a parody of itself: all artful lighting and shadows, with grim men smoking cigarettes and mysterious women up to shady things.
Your character wakes up after 2 weeks in a coma. Bad news: A serial killer tried to make you his latest victim. Good news: You lived. Bad news: He wasn’t caught. Worse news: The detective working the case blackmails you into helping her track down a suspect for reasons that aren’t that clear. But hey, fine, I know the genre we’re in and I know how it works.
To move the story forward, you engage in what’s a pretty solid simulation of driving a cab. You look at the portraits of people wanting rides and how much you’d make and decide if they’re worth the trouble. You’re always weighing money versus gas versus your own fatigue. Some nights you do well, some nights it isn’t even worth going out. You make light conversation because that’s what people expect (Uber/Lyft drove it into my head we have to be chatty, so that’s why we’re chatty) but don’t want to make it too heavy. Sometimes they open up and talk a bit about their lives or current events or get something off their chest. That’s it. That’s the loop of the game and the cabbie life.
To investigate the whole “serial killer” thing, you chat up your fares, read the papers, and investigate potential contacts around town. This is the resource management portion of the game. Money is always tight and going to see an eyewitness or a location comes out of your pocket. It’s time driving, burning gas, but not getting paid. On the other hand, the detective is breathing down your neck for a lead, making vague threats about what she could do if you don’t cooperate. Now do you pick up that crying woman or go talk to the guy in the parking garage?
For it to work, the dialogue has to work, and it does. The characterization of the passengers is amazing, from drunk DJs who should’ve made it big, to two women discussing sperm donors to…a cat running away from home. Everyone feels right and feels different and you never know what weirdo is going to pop up in your cab next. This is a game for people that love dialogue trees.
The investigation is almost secondary to the Cabbie Simulator 2019 thing, but you put together a conspiracy wall as you unlock clues. You make connections from what you see in the paper and what you overhear and what you scrounge up on your own. In classic noir sense, you really are on your own. The police detectives–save the one blackmailing you–are pretty useless and, hey, maybe the guy comes back to finish the job. It’s just you, the car, the road, and the passengers, debating if you can take one more fare to make it a worthwhile night or if you’re going to wind up in the hole because you just had to go investigating.
The Final Word
This one’s pretty niche. If you need action and accomplishment, give it a pass. If you like atmosphere, dialogue trees, and sometimes running into cats that tip well, you will enjoy.
– MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
