Mini Metro Mini Review

I have found another way to waste pass time on my devices: Mini Metro. It was included in the App Store Best of 2016 and won a bunch of other awards. The principle of the game is simple: you are responsible for building a metro/underground/subway network in a major city. Mini Metro comes with 15 different cities. London, Paris, New York, and Berlin are unlocked. You gain access to other cities by achieving a passenger-carrying goal in some other city, for example, move 500 passengers on the Berlin network and Melbourne opens up. The maps reflect the layout of the water features of the city.

London Underground typical starting position

You start with the ability to build three different lines indicated by the coloured dots to the right. You have assets of three engines and the capability to create three tunnels. Stations appear on the map; initially, they are indicated by squares, circles, and triangles, but different shapes appear as the game progresses. To construct a line, just touch a station symbol and drag to the next station.

The “Circle Line” now connects three stations

Passengers are now starting to appear waiting for a train to take them to their destination.

The train carries a passenger

As time passes you collect additional assets. At the start of every Monday, you are given another engine and the opportunity to select one of two other offered assets. There are carriages, interchanges (stations that have larger capacity), tunnels, and the ability to build extra lines (up to a maximum of seven). You have to keep building your network as more stations appear; laying down lines and assigning rolling stock to keep passengers moving around the city.

The game continues until one of the stations get overcrowded and your network grinds to a halt. You can carry on in what’s called Endless Mode, but the additional assets only keep coming for so long. You do end up with a complete network with trains and carriages zipping around endlessly moving passengers from home to work, to shops and cinemas, whatever you choose to imagine the station symbols to represent.

I won’t explain any strategy because that will spoil the fun of working out how to play this game for yourself. And anyway I’m a long way down the capacity leaderboard expert proving I’m not an expert. One tip: you can pause the game and completely redesign your network.

The graphics in Mini Metro are simple. They don’t need to be anything else. The game is charmingly engaging and very addictive.

From the game developers website: “Mini Metro is available now on Steam and other digital retailers for PC, Mac, and Ubuntu, and on the App Store and Google Play for mobile and tablets.”