TLDR: Chal Rickshaw is now live as a public beta on Android — anyone can jump in. Grab it on Google Play (link below) and tell me what you think. Since last week the game grew up a lot: a punchy new crash/loss sequence, a full multi-round career, a persistent ₹ wallet so your kamai carries across rounds, smoother “keep your finger down” steering, and a festive Diwali night round. It’s all on Android and iOS — go play.
Get the beta
- 🤖 Android public beta: Google Play opt-in
- 🍎 iOS public beta (TestFlight): https://testflight.apple.com/join/Zgn6udB4
- 📝 The concept that started it all: Using AI to conceptualize a game
What’s new this week
🛺 A real career: multiple rounds
Chal Rickshaw is no longer a single endless dash. It’s now a round-based career, where each round has its own name, mood, and difficulty. You climb the ladder one fare at a time.
You’ll start gently on Naya Driver (empty roads, no cops, learn the controls), then things heat up: Police Police puts thullas on the street, Itna Traffic? gets the cars moving, Raat Ho Gayi drops you into the night, VIP Movement throws costly convoys in your way, Busy Din piles on a two-lane cow herd, and so on. Clear a round and you advance; the later rounds loop on the hardest difficulty so there’s always one more run in you.
Under the hood the rounds are fully data-driven. Every knob — traffic, cops, cow lanes, fare and speed multipliers, night/Diwali flags — is authored in a config the game loads at startup, so balancing and adding new rounds is quick.
💰 Your earnings carry across rounds
Points are now money. There’s a single live ₹ wallet on the HUD that tracks fares earned, minus the fines you rack up (bribing a thulla, getting stuck behind a VIP convoy). Finish a round and your earnings get banked into the wallet, and it all persists between sessions. Eventually, you’ll be able to buy upgrades with these rupees. The win screen breaks down your Total Kamai with fare and fine line-items, so you can see exactly where the money went.
🎬 A new crash / loss sequence
A crash used to hard-cut straight to a defeat screen — abrupt and anticlimactic. Now a crash plays out as a proper beat. It turns a loss into a moment instead of a letdown.
- The world freezes on impact (hit-stop) with a hard screen-shake.
- A crash SFX slams into the silence as the engine and traffic audio duck out.
- A white impact flash, then a big “SIYAPPA!” banner pops over the wreck.
- The screen itself looks shattered.
- Then it fades to dark and hands off to the defeat screen.
✋ Smoother controls — keep your finger down
Beta testers told me the steering felt fiddly: you had to lift your finger after every swipe to change lanes again. Annoying mid-run. Now steering is continuous, Temple-Run style — you can keep your finger down and just slide to steer. There’s also a swipe-up to jump so held-finger players can hop without breaking contact, and quick taps still jump too. Lane sensitivity got tuned so casual flicks don’t overshoot.
🪔 The Diwali round
The headliner. Diwali is a full festive night round: a deep navy night sky with a hand-drawn moon and a procedural starfield, the city skyline lit up with warm windows, and a celebratory audio mix — festive music with interleaved firework bursts layered under the gameplay. And because it’s Diwali, the fares pay double! Your best kamai night of the career, if you can survive the holiday traffic.
Go play
That’s the week. Hop into the Android public beta, climb the rounds, stack your kamai, and see how far you get before the SIYAPPA. iOS folks, TestFlight’s got you too. Feedback is always welcome!