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Write and record a story/song/poem about your trip to the moon.

The top picks will be published in the upcoming Moon Taxi Game.  See the rules.

And the winners are. . . .

Posted Mon, 02/15/2010 - 22:45 by taxi dispatch

It was really tough to pick "winners."   People put time, care and effort into my little project here (now our project by virtue of your participation).  I really, really appreciate that. 
 
To those of you who submitted audio recordings: I am particularly grateful, not just because of the extra effort involved, but because you put yourselves out there.  It can be hard enough to submit your creative writing for public scrutiny.  But to lend your voice to it as well is a bold offering well outside the normal boundaries of our daily lives. 
 
Winner for best story with a performance:
 
Moon Dust, by Shelby Couch
 
 
Winner for best story:
 
Conference Call, by Ben Wimmer
 
The contest is over, but I'm still accepting submissions!  It's not to late to get your story in the game!

Contest Closed

Posted Mon, 02/01/2010 - 21:50 by taxi dispatch

Thank you all so much for your submissions.  Picking winners won't be easy.  I had no idea how international the response would be.  I've got stories from Australia, Cameroon, England, India, Ireland, Pakistan, the Philippines, the USA and hopefully no where that I forgot.  Thanks world!

Getting Closer!

Posted Wed, 01/27/2010 - 22:47 by taxi dispatch

The contest ends at the end of the month! Zounds! Entries are still coming in.  It's not too late!  If you have any questions about your submission, email contact@moontaxi.org
Lots of work's been going on with the game to get it nice and ready for submission for the XBOX Indie Games program.  I've been applying a bit of digital spitshine to things.  The videos don't quite do it justice anymore.  I'll see if I can't shine them up a bit too in the next few weeks.  Very exciting.  I'm excited.  You should probably be excited too.

pets, booze, troubled pasts, weight loss and more

Posted Tue, 12/08/2009 - 01:56 by taxi dispatch

It's been so long!  What's going on?
 
Stories!  That's what.  We've got 13 stories up now and 5 recordings (and a few more in the pipeline).  Take a few quick trips to the moon on the stories page.  There's comedy, romance, drama, zombies, sports, pets, booze, troubled pasts, weight loss and more.
 
My other excuse is awesome as well.  You may know that this project is my Master's thesis which I'm defending this week.  Wish me luck.  Don't go thinking the project stops there.  Oh no.  The stories are still coming in.  The contest is still running till February.  More awesomeness is one the way.

Why didn't I take pictures!?

Posted Fri, 11/13/2009 - 00:32 by taxi dispatch

Last night I took a little trip and conducted my first story recording session with a fistful of college students. In addition to the fame and glory you can achieve by submitting a Moon Taxi story, I plied them with donuts and pop. Fancy pop. In fancy bottles.

I had a great time and the students couldn't have been completely miserable because I did get a fair amount of laughter on tape.

And by tape, I mean hard drive. For the curious, I was recording with an unremarkable laptop and a nifty little usb device, the M-Audio Fast Track Pro (and a microphone).

This would be the perfect point in this post to add a photo from the event. yeah. I didn't think to take any pictures.

Things to do next time:
* Take pictures
* Bring powered speakers for playback
* Bring a microphone stand

Thanks students of MC 111, their actor friends, and Professor Scott!

I'll put their stories up on this site once I get the text.

Tested, Get Yourself

Posted Tue, 11/10/2009 - 02:15 by taxi dispatch

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. I chalk it up to my own potent hubris. Playtesters are amazing! I'm just a few playtesters into this project and I've got pages and pages of good stuff from them.

Their mistakes are reasonable. Their misunderstandings are so understandable.

It's too easy (for me at least) to imagine that I fully understand and can be infinitely objective about my own work.

In conclusion, whether you are making a game, a book or a website, I urge you: get yourself tested.

Contest

The submission deadline has passed. Stay tuned for the results.

 
Win cash monies!
 
Moon Taxi is having its first story contest!
 
$100 for best story with a performance
 
$50 for best written story
 
The top complete submissions will published in the game
 
Submissions are due by January 31st, 2010
 
No entry fee!
 
Go for it!
 
Contest Details
 
$100 will be rewarded to the individual or team that submits the best story with a recorded performance. $50 will be awarded to the best written story submission regardless of the presence or quality of an associated performance of the story. The 10 best submissions with both a story and a performance will be included in the next edition of the Moon Taxi game. Individuals and groups may make as many submissions as they like.
 
The normal submission guidelines apply. All submissions must be uploaded to moontaxi.org by 11:59 pm, January 31st, 2010. Winners will be announced by February 15th, 2010.

Checkered Tentacles

Posted Thu, 10/15/2009 - 18:15 by taxi dispatch

Hello you!
I'm not quite sure who you are, but perhaps you are one of the many folks who have been drawn in by Moon Taxi's devious new promotions.

This taxi's checkered tentacles have begun to crawl across the interwebs with postings like this one at http://writingcontests.wordpress.com. Or maybe you caught a glimpse of the taxi from over at Poets & Writers

Or perhaps it was the taxi's shiny new google adwords promotion that brought you in. Maybe you searched for something like "writing contest", "short story contest", "monologue contest" or "short story publisher". These things and more can lead you here.

A well placed $10 to google got my ad shown nearly a quarter of a million times. Which sounds awesome until you see my 0.08% click through rate.

For the devs.
Now for a little bit of game development diary type stuff. I'm still mostly appreciating XNA. I'm using Nick Gravelyn's nifty ini file parsing library, EasyConfig. I've got my depth sorting working. That let me do some nice asteroid transparency effects to reduce pop in and camera obscuring closeups. And i've written a hot little gui library which helps with resolution independent two dimensional placement of textures and text. How you like me now!?!

Wherein I Hint at My Mating Practices

Posted Tue, 09/01/2009 - 01:57 by taxi dispatch

Have I the treat for you?!

The latest in Moon Taxi's series of award conjuring videos is for you creative types. It explains AND demonstrates. Please note it does not explain THEN demonstrate. It explains what writing a Moon Taxi story is all about while being the very thing itself.

I'll leave the teaser video hanging around on the game page. It's still neato, but it's more for advertising the game. That's phase 2.