alt.hn

3/30/2026 at 4:09:37 PM

Reverse Engineering Crazy Taxi, Part 2

https://wretched.computer/post/crazytaxi2

by wgreenberg

4/2/2026 at 10:02:38 AM

I loved that game back in the day, it was among Shenmue the game that defined Sega's philosophy. If you think about it, it almost condensed the urban 'need' from people who played Outrun and fake-3D 8-16 bit racing games but never were able to see a single street ingame until the Playstation/PC except for top down/isometric ones, or maybe, crude main highways in arcades without being able to make turns.

Then the PC/PSX game us free roam games such as Road Rash 3D and Driver. Crazy Taxi gave us a whole bigass city full of details (even trainways and tunnels among a subway) instead of a countryside with few buildings here and there. Or, contrry to Driver, CT had cities without being restricted to less than 10 buildings copied and pasted across the map rendering the same store again and again.

Yes, I'm aware of MUDs, text had no restrictions. And games like that low poly free roaming game in the Amiga and that weird city driver in the ZX Spectrum, but the Amiga one was barely a 3D demo with no textures at all and the game looked pretty empty.

by anthk

4/2/2026 at 6:08:11 AM

Fascinating

Are you not wasting 8 bits using a Qn.m of 8.8? If you values are only 0-1?

by willx86

4/2/2026 at 6:57:14 AM

Alignment/convenience? I'm guessing the GP wants 8 bit texture coordinates, so they send only the fractional part.

by kilpikaarna