Kenji KANNO and the 15 years of Crazy Taxi

A decade and a half later, the game series Crazy Taxi, the famous race game that became popular since the first opus released in 1999 on the SEGA Naomi arcade machine, is back this time with a new episode entitled Crazy Taxi: City Rush, soon to be available on tablets and mobiles. That’ll sure delight all the crazy drivers out there!

And this afternoon, these were all reunited in front of the Video Games’ stage, patiently waiting for the moment they would set eyes on the creator and producer of this iconic series, who was for the very first time in France. KANNO enters the stage and honors his French fans by introducing himself in the language of Molière.

During almost an hour, he presented with detailed PowerPoint slides the genesis of Crazy Taxi and the development of the series, before he finished his conference with clarifications about the future evolution of the game. He tells everyone how this idea of creating a chasing and racing game originated, a game where the player could wander in town going as fast as he wants and wherever he wants, with no rules nor constraints. “I wanted to make a game that was not about races and that had something different from what we’re used to see. And then, one day, as I got caught in a huge traffic jam, I thought to myself that it would be perfect if only I could go where there was still space, zigzag between the cars and drive freely”.

But Crazy Taxi isn’t just about speed, the player also has to take risks and stop to take people onboard, which is in KANNO’s opinion something that hadn’t been explored until then, in any other games. And from this point, next thing to do was to try and convince the rest of the team that taxis could be cool and that it was possible to do something great from them.

After 22 years working for SEGA, KANNO excels in what he does and today, he offered his fans a real journey into the world and creation of Crazy Taxi. Part of the plan was to give the players an off limit access into the game, but still with a defined field of play. He explains: “The thing is, when there are too many possibilities, it confuses the player, who doesn’t know what to choose”.

KANNO finishes this beautiful presentation filled with anecdotes and documents kept secret from the public until then, with a SEGA video on Crazy Taxi and with a big “merci” before adding “to make you feel something, to make your heart beat is for me the most important of it all”. Lovely, isn’t it? And still the fans had time to ask their favorite game producer some questions!

Were you there too? Share with us what you thought of it!