Even so, it has been rare to get a game over due to extreme bad luck that forced me to leave a destination deserted for long enough, especially in the beginning weeks. Randomness is integral to Mini Motorways ’ game mechanics.

Less of a puzzle with fixed answers but more of a real-time strategy game, Mini Motorways skilfully combines problem-solving with ever-dynamic game conditions to create highly focused and addictive sessions.

Your solution for each map is going to be different every time. Do I spend most of my current supply of road tiles right away to build an exclusive pathway for a destination that showed up on Monday, or do I save them for new destinations that may appear later in the week? Do I remove a current bridge and link it to a new destination opposite the river bank, or do I try my luck and hold out until Sunday, all the while praying to the heavens that one of the random rewards will include the much-needed bridge or motorway? There are plenty of things to consider, from the resources you have at your disposal to the distinct terrains for a particular city and general limitations such as no multi-way bridges. Without fail, every new destination appearing on the map demands a little more of my attention and soon, I find myself having to pause the clock every now and then to observe the map and think about how best to connect the roads. Like an engine that is just warming up, the beginning of every puzzle starts up relatively slow - even the maximum 2x speed feels slow for several city maps where I could spend my entire first in-game week simply watching two cars zooming to and fro along the same road - but gradually speeds up as the city becomes more and more populated. If any one destination has not been visited in a timely manner for its accumulated pins to be picked up before they overflow, your city will shut down, resulting in a game over. road tiles, traffic lights, roundabouts, motorways, bridges, and tunnels) for your coming week’s road building needs. At the end of each week, unless restricted by a specific challenge’s conditions, you may choose from two random sets of rewards comprising various resources (i.e. It is your task to ensure every destination can be reached by the houses of their corresponding color, no matter how far they may be apart across the road, river, or mountain. However, all commuters can only pick up pins from destinations that have the same color as their houses in this color-dependent puzzle game.Īs the in-game clock ticks on, moving through the days of a week, more houses and destinations of the same or new colors will pop up randomly on any unoccupied space on the map. Once a viable route is established, commuters will leave their house in a car to pick up pins at a linked destination, indicating their successful trips there. No matter which of the 14 cities or 28 additional challenges you choose, the puzzle always starts out simple with one house and one destination of the same color located within a small, zoomed-in area of the 2D aerial map. There is just one goal in Mini Motorways : design routes to connect the commuters to their corresponding destinations so that everyone can be kept constantly on the move for as long as your roads can hold them. Players may choose between Day and Night Modes, toggle the controller vibration tactile feedback on/off, select if they want to use single button press or a press and hold for drawing and deleting roads, change the controller cursor sensitivity, enable or disable the menu transition motions, or activate the Cplorblind Mode and customize their own set of six colors for the buildings. For the Switch version (release-10-patch-2) reviewed, there are a number of accessibility options offered under the game settings. With an ESRB rating of Everyone, Mini Motorways has no notable content warnings. Hop onto the transportation planner’s seat in this indie strategy simulation game by Dinosaur Polo Club and command various road networks around the globe! Starting from the Apple Arcade in September 2019, Mini Motorways has since traveled across platforms to PC (Windows, macOS) in July 2021 and later made its way to Nintendo Switch in May 2022.

Mini motorways strategy