#MINI METRO HOW TO#

I realize minimalism is a core tenet of this game’s design, but it can make levels feel too basic because of it. For some reason though, these gimmicks are pretty much locked to that single level, with most of them feeling exactly the same even if the level nominally has more stations popping up or more demanding passengers. Rarely, a level might introduce a new twist on the formula, like the Japanese city that gives you occasional bullet trains that move much faster than your other engines or the smaller passenger cars of Mumbai that necessitate higher quantities of carriages and engines. The game has many different cities to unlock for you to build rail systems for, but besides the presence of water to bridge or tunnel under, the city rarely has an effect on the actual gameplay. Sadly, Mini Metro’s design starts at a pretty good point but never pushes beyond it. You can, if you wish, pause the game too in order to rearrange your lines, so having to do a major overhaul is not a death knell. Mini Metro’s gameplay is wonderfully designed, and besides a few hiccups with the touch controls that crop up when trying to rearrange your lines, it works exactly how it should for the most part. Even with fast forward on though there will be slow moments where you are just waiting for the next station to crop up and force a change of plans, or you might be desperately looking at the clock and hoping that the week will roll over so you can get new tools to help your lines expand. Somehow, this manages to be both relaxing and suspenseful at the same time, the constant need to keep up with the changing demands of the city keeping you active but the sight of your layouts working away cleanly keeping it from growing too hectic.

#MINI METRO HOW TO#

Almost every city starts of pretty slow and manageable, the game putting in a fast forward feature to help you get through the early slowness after you’ve got a hang of how to make proper railways, but over time more stations will pop up that ask you to replan your lines or add to them, the clean simplicity of your earlier designs descending slowly into the winding chaotic spiderwebs of intertwining tracks as you try and make sure that everyone gets where they need to go. So long as you prevent any of your stations from getting overcrowded with waiting passengers, you can keep the game going, gradually unlocking new engines for your line and getting a choice between different helpful items like more lines, extra carriages for the trains, or bridges or tunnels that allow the trains to travel across water. Every level starts you off with at least three lines and three trains to put on them, although if you’re savvy you can try and figure out how to make each line as optimal as possible and put those trains on the main line instead of splitting them across many. There are a few rules restricting you from just going nuts with the lines, beginning with a limitation on how many lines you can have going at once. Add some rectangles that can hold those people and lines to carry those rectangles and you’ve got the entirety of Mini Metro’s visuals, but the limited visuals allow you to focus on the task at hand, the effective running of a railway system across a few different real world cities.Ĭreating railways in Mini Metro is a snap, a simple dragging of a line between stations creating your route, although sometimes you might have to pull on the line a bit to make it the best angle for the trains to travel across. The visuals are pared down to only what is needed, with different shapes representing the train stations people want to go to and the people taking on the shapes of the station they desire as their destination. A railway manager can have plenty of details and minutia to get lost in, but Mini Metro strips the concept down to its bare bones and tasks you with drawing very simple lines between stations for the rail cars to travel across. There’s a beautiful simplicity to Mini Metro’s presentation. This is a review of the game’s state as of January 30th, 2018.

NOTE: As is the nature of mobile games, it is possible this game may undergo changes to its gameplay design, monetization model, or it may include limited time events.

Mini metro