Mini Motorways Review – Contemplative Commute

It’s said that even the best-laid plans often go awry, and that is fully evident in Mini Motorways. You must complete the mini-game in time. What started as a simple simulation of city planning quickly turns into an overwhelming puzzle. It’s hard to imagine the stress that comes with seeing your meticulously planned infrastructure fall apart before you. However, it’s in that often-sudden transition from meditative to manic where Mini Motorways shines, offering players a unique take on both the puzzle and city-planning simulation genres.

It starts by choosing the right real-world location in which you want to build. Each map presents unique challenges, whether you are trying to deal with the L.A. River or Santa Monica Bay in Los Angeles. Wellington is my favourite area. Here you can combine many elements, such as mountains, harbour, and bays to challenge your resource management.

Mini Motorways’ core concept is to connect randomly generated houses and destinations. The house colors correspond to the destinations the vehicles have. You’re given a set number of road tiles you can place, meaning you need to be efficient to ensure the roads you need are possible. Some of my favorite head-scratching moments came from redrawing the map on the fly once I realized my current plan wasn’t going to work; thankfully, you can pause the action to plan if things get too overwhelming. You can choose to have additional tools and resources added to your inventory each week. Mini Motorways allows you to select from a variety of objects such as roundabouts traffic lights traffic lights bridges tunnels motorways and other vehicles that can be used to alleviate traffic congestions.

Each week takes approximately two-and-a-half minutes at normal speed, though I usually keep it on high speed. New resources are arriving in your inventory quickly. That’s a good thing because even the best runs are one poorly planned intersection away from failure. To improve traffic flow at busy intersections, I enjoyed adding a stoplight. While a well-placed cross-town motorway was a great way to extend my run and prevent failure in the immediate future. While roundabouts may be the best tool for stopping game-ending jams (and they can sometimes prove frustrating due to their limited space requirements),

Mini Motorways’ aim is to make your city work, even when the map starts to zoom out. This will give you more realistic topography to compete with. Although each run is slow and pleasant, the pace of the runs increases as your city expands. Although the Switch Pro Controller was designed to be used with a mouse or touchscreen, it is extremely precise and easy to use the Switch Pro Controller. The control options can also be customized. The control system can be a bit confusing at times, especially if you are in panic. If you find it difficult to control the cursor using the joystick, you can use the touchscreen mode handheld to draw your routes.

I love how each on-map building requires equal attention as the playable area grows; if even one destination backs up and people are stranded for too long, it’s game over. It’s nice to have quiet moments that are enjoyable, but I also love the challenge and speed of the game. With so much on the screen at that point in the run, it’s easy to lose track of new destinations or houses that pop up, but the minimalist user interface and art style lend themselves well to keeping track of the statuses of all your buildings.

Mini Metro was my first Mini Metro map. While it is a great system, the Mini Motorways maps are less detailed than its predecessor. Mini Motorways offers 14 additional maps and adds weekly and daily challenges. However, these don’t meaningfully add to the game’s overall content, particularly when the rest of the feature set is similarly barebones.

Mini Motorways is a great game that I have used a lot of since downloading it over a week back. The simple gameplay, clean interface, and satisfying difficulty ramp led me to say, “Just one more run,” several times a session before ultimately calling it quits. Mini Metro hooked me when it first came to iOS years ago and has remained one of my favorite games to enjoy in short bursts, and I’m glad to add Mini Motorways to that same gaming rotation.