Taxi Master

Overview

Taxi Master is a mobile game in which players take on the role of a taxi driver picking up and dropping off customers at locations around the city. The gameplay consists of picking up passengers, who tell the player where they want to go, then drawing a route to their desired location on an in-game map. The game was released in March 2023 and gained a significant online fandom over the following months, particularly on TikTok. That May, the game's characters became the subject of fan art and redraws, particularly a character who says to the driver, "I wanna pee! Help!" and one who looks beaten up and says, "Please help me…" Some of the artwork also ships these two characters.

History

Taxi Master was released on the Google Play Store^[1] and the App Store^[2] on March 14th, 2023. In the game, you play as a taxi driver who picks up various clients across the city. Each client tells the player where to take them, prompting the player with a map of the city. The player then draws the fastest possible route to the location and auto-drives to it. There are a number of clients to pick up, including a man who desperately needs to pee, a robber who wants to go to the bank, a girl who wants to go drink at the bar and a beaten-up man who asks for help (gameplay shown below).

Online Presence

In April 2023, videos of Taxi Master became popularized on Tiktok. For example, on April 16th, 2023, TikToker^[3] @lokishon posted a video where she purposely delivers all the passengers to the wrong locations, garnering over 2 million views in two months (shown below, left). On May 4th, the same TikToker^[4] posted a video bringing them to the right locations, garnering over 2 million views in a month (shown below, right).

Taxi Master Fan Art Trend

In May 2023, TikTokers began to post videos drawing fan art inspired by the various characters and situations in Taxi Master after gameplay videos by @likoshon went viral. On May 7th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @cherryberryartz posted a video drawing the pee guy, garnering over 1.2 million views in a month (shown below, left). On May 9th, TikToker^[6] @dokjaatl posted a video drawing the "please help" guy in a relationship with the pee guy, garnering over 3.3 million views in a month (shown below, right).

On May 10th, TikToker^[7] @heartzforart posted a video drawing the girl who wants to go drink, garnering over 154,000 views in a month (shown below). Around the same time, Tumblr^[8] users began uploading fan art of the game's characters.

In late May and early June 2023, the fan art spread to Twitter. On May 31st, Twitter^[9] user @iridescentpetri posted a piece of fan art of the pee guy, garnering around 90 likes in six days (shown below, left). On June 4th, Twitter^[10] user @boyoishere_ posted fan art of the "please help" guy, garnering over 1,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References