Where to get it

2019 · Indie · Puzzle

Mini Motorways

Nintendo console exclusive

Mini Motorways is a strategy simulation game about designing the road map for a growing city. Build a traffic network, one road at a time, to create a bustling metropolis. Redesign your roads and place your motorways to get everyone where they need to go. How long can you keep the city moving?

Released: 19 September 2019
Platforms: Nintendo Switch Windows iOS macOS
Genres: Indie Puzzle Simulation Strategy
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Country: New Zealand
Age ratings: GRAC ALL PEGI 3 ESRB E
Languages: Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal) and 3 more
Copies sold: 500,000 as of 2021-12-06
Time to beat: 7hmain story5hwith extras46hcompletionist

About

Mini Motorways is a puzzle strategy game released by the New Zealand studio Dinosaur Polo Club. It is a follow-up to their 2015 video game Mini Metro. The game tasks the player with creating a network of roads to connect coloured houses to buildings. Through the use of upgrades such as traffic lights, roundabouts, and motorways, the player aims to build an efficient network, allowing cars to reach their destination before the timer runs out.

The game was released on Apple Arcade in September 2019, Windows and macOS via Steam in July 2021, and on Nintendo Switch in May 2022.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game plays similarly to Mini Metro, its predecessor, except it involves following a grid-like system to build road networks instead of rail networks. ). New buildings and houses appear randomly as the game progresses. The buildings have pins which the cars of the correct colour must collect.

The score is the number of pins that have been collected. If too many pins accumulate on a building (seven for square buildings and ten for circular buildings), a timer is set as a warning. Once a building's timer is full, the game is over. Vehicles reaching the destination will reduce the progression of the timer slightly, and once the number of pins on the building drops back within capacity, the timer will deplete by itself, after which it will split back up into standard pins.

Reception

Mini Motorways received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 87% of critics.

Nathan Reinauer from TouchArcade praised the game's soundtrack and minimalistic art style, both similar to Mini Metro. Pocket Gamer liked the accessibility options, saying that the colourblind mode was a "nice touch", while criticising the frantic pace of gameplay. Eurogamer enjoyed the soundtrack, describing it as "a chilled tumbler of pips and muttering hums and clicks and whistles and honks". VG247 thought that the game was well designed to avoid frustrating the player, "There's an intricate, impossible-feeling balance to this game; it is fiendishly difficult and filled with tactical nuance...