Whatever tools you have access to at any given time is determined by a tetrisian combination of dumb luck and careful planning. Your ability to connect the randomly expanding neighbourhoods of your city is dependent on your access to certain resources: roads, bridges, tunnels and highways, with further depth added by traffic management tools like roundabouts and stop-lights. It’s an extraordinarily simple premise, but that goal is constantly challenged by new and unexpected complications. Instead, your job is to connect red houses with red offices, and blue houses with blue offices. You won’t find the same level of depth as Cities: Skylines, but an authentic real-world simulation isn’t what Dinosaur Polo Club is going for. Mini Motorways, much like its precursor Mini Metro, is a management simulator squeezed into the shape of an action-puzzler. My time with Mini Motorways thus far has been relatively brief, but it’s got that magic staying power that’ll keep me returning periodically for years to come. How can a game that only results in failure be so addictive? There’s no endgame, no fade to black, no credits, just traffic – and yet Mini Motorways is one of the more fulfilling gaming experiences I’ve had this year. What keeps Mini Motorways compelling, then, is the constant draw to come back for more. Whether it’s a lack of roads, insurmountable gridlock, or one citizen too many, something will go wrong and it’ll all come crashing down. Eventually, your infrastructural achievements will succumb to the unrelenting growth of your city. Mini Motorways is a score based arcade-puzzler, like Tetris, where the only way to win is to improve over previous attempts. Of course, there’s no real perfection to reach. The gradual, iterative growth of a city’s transport infrastructure, to create something that aims for perfection or falls apart in trying. Mini Motorways is all about the pursuit of the sublime.
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