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Mini Motorways

“A perfect blend of oddly relaxing gameplay to begin with which turns into desperate stress as you try to manage the inevitable gridlock. An easy recommendation for fans of city sims or transport sims.”

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Mini Motorways is a traffic management strategy game by Dinosaur Polo Club. The game was released on Steam on July 21st 2021. The copy of the game used for review was provided by the developer.

A simultaneously simple but surprisingly in-depth traffic management simulator with an arcade like feel which gives replayability makes this game an easy recommendation for people who like the traffic management aspects of more complex games. The relaxing music and simplistic art style draws you into a state of zen like relaxation as you slowly expand your road network into effortlessly efficient routes for your citizens to use. However, like in any good strategy game this initially simple and relaxing feel slowly leaves until suddenly the calm is replaced by a sudden panic as gridlock inevitably begins to plague your city. As you swiftly make changes to alleviate the problems. Constantly updating and refining your existing roads to be ever more efficient while desperately trying to integrate the new buildings the game throws at you to increase the challenge. Until finally every amount of relaxation is gone and replaced by only panic. Which is usually followed shortly by a game over.

The map variety is also nice, providing geography based on the terrain of real world cities, like Beijing, Toyko, Moscow and Los Angeles. One main omission city wise that surprised me was New York City. The various maps also provide unique challenges, like water and mountains. Which can quickly drain your limited road tiles per week attempting to circumvent the hazards rather than using your precious few bridges and tunnels.

Daily and Weekly Challenges provide reasons to come back often for unique challenges.

Overall, I find this game an easy recommendation for fans of the genre. At the low price point and the time sink provided by trying to constantly one up your previous score. Trying to find ways to keep your city operating smoothly is a fun challenge. To truly get a magical run to get a high score it takes both a mix of skill and luck. However, the former almost always outweighs the latter.

8/10