❄ FROST LOUNGE ❄

Drive a taxi across downtown Austin. The clock is the whole game: every fare you land pays more of it back than the drive costs you — if you drive it well.

wheel and pedals on a phone · W A S D or the arrows · hold S to reverse · SPACE handbrake · P map · ESC to exit

• DRIVE — W A S D or the arrow keys, SPACE for the handbrake. To REVERSE, hold the brake — S or the down arrow: it stops you, and once you are stopped it backs you out. (SHIFT is the gear lever if you want it held down the old way.) On a phone the wheel and the pedals come up by themselves. R puts you back on the road if you end up somewhere you can't drive out of.
• THE FARE — a pillar of light stands over whoever wants picking up, and the arrow on the road points at them. Collect them, then drive them to the drop-off. Landing a leg pays time back onto the clock, and the money onto the night's total.
• THE CLOCK — it only ever runs down. Beat the pace a leg was priced at and you keep the difference; run it out and the night is added up wherever you happen to be standing. Then it is your call: CONTINUE starts another shift from that exact spot, or take FREE ROAM and keep the city with the meter off. Either way the takings are already banked.
• THE MAP — P or M opens the whole city, and that is also the pause. Every place on it can be travelled to, and the price is exactly the seconds the drive would have taken — so travelling breaks even and driving well is the only thing that profits.
• THE STREET — stop signs and mast arms come down when you hit them and stay down for the night. Drifts, jumps and wreckage all pay into the same stunt bank on top of the fare.
• GRIP AID — how much the car saves you from yourself. G cycles it mid-drive, and it is also in SETTINGS.

a shift ends when the clock runs out — or when you CASH OUT