- July 20, 2021
- Dinosaur Polo Club
- 10h median play time
Mini Motorways
Being stuck in traffic is never a good time. But what if you could control the traffic by placing and rearranging roads at will? Mini Motorways allows you to do just that, in the most relaxing way possible.
Platforms
About
Mini Motorways is a single player casual simulation game. It was developed by Dinosaur Polo Club and was released on July 20, 2021. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and overwhelmingly positive reviews from players.
Mini Motorways is a single-player platformer game with poor storyline but phenomenal game mechanics, impressive visuals, and stunning music. As the city's traffic manager, players draw roads to keep the city moving, with various upgrades and modes to explore. Despite being occasionally buggy, its fabulous atmosphere and high replayability make it a unique and enjoyable gaming experience.











Casual Traffic Management
In Mini Motorways you have to manage the traffic in big cities like London, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. The concept is super simple. Connect color-coded garages to their same-colored warehouse counterparts. The cars will automatically take the best route to the warehouse and drive back.
So far so simple. As a traffic manager you have roads, traffic lights, round abouts, bridges, and highways in your arsenal - but you only get new resources at the end of a week. In the beginning the traffic is slow and easy to manage but as the city grows, streets get congested and you wish you had just one more highway to relieve traffic.
You can pause or speed up the time as you want, that means you can build without any time pressure. This also makes this game perfect for playing on the side, e.g. when commuting in real world public transportation with a steam deck. It's super simple to jump out and get back in without too much "soooo where was?"
There is great pride in building the streets, bridges, and highways in a way that traffic runs smoothly, give it a go!
Mini Motorways makes you feel like a boss in traffic management - until it shows you that you were doomed to fail from the start. But always while looking cute.
- super quick to learn
- casual/short sessions possible
- cute to look at
- cities could be more differentiated
Casual Traffic Management
- The gameplay features simple yet engaging mechanics that encourage strategic planning and efficient road management, making it fun and addictive.
- The minimalist art style and soothing soundtrack create a relaxing atmosphere, enhancing the overall gameplay experience.
- The game offers exceptional replayability with diverse maps, daily and weekly challenges, and randomized elements that keep each playthrough unique.
- The gameplay can become repetitive over time, with some players finding it tedious and lacking variety, especially in later stages.
- Technical glitches and poor optimization, particularly on certain platforms, can disrupt gameplay and lead to frustrating experiences.
- The game lacks a traditional story or objectives, which may leave some players feeling unfulfilled despite its casual nature.
- gameplay963 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
The gameplay of "Mini Motorways" is characterized by its simple yet engaging mechanics that encourage strategic planning and efficient road management. Players appreciate the minimalist design and soothing soundtrack, which create a relaxing atmosphere, although some find the gameplay can become repetitive over time. While the game introduces new mechanics and challenges, there are critiques regarding the reliance on random elements and the need for more variety in gameplay to maintain long-term interest.
“The gameplay is super smooth and overall fun.”
“The minimalist art style fits the gameplay perfectly: clean, intuitive, and visually relaxing.”
“The mechanics are easy to understand, yet still provide a complicated and multi-layered gameplay that forces you to optimize routes and consider various factors in real-time as your situation changes.”
“After my wife had sunk 50+ hours into Mini Metro, I decided to get her this sequel to change it up a bit, and while it does bring a lot of new cool things to the mix, it is unfortunately a lot worse gameplay-wise.”
“The gameplay loop boils down to avoiding intersections and keeping colors separated as much as possible until mid-game, at which point RNG will inevitably force you to mix and match road systems which the player should minimize if they want a high score.”
“Unfortunately, unlike Mini Metro, the gameplay is the same in every city.”
Mini Motorways Review
Mini Motorways is an enjoyable and often beautiful puzzler, but the lack of long term replayability makes it harder to recommend over its already excellent predecessor.
70%Mini Motorways review — Stuck in traffic
Despite its rather brief runtime, Mini Motorways shows what made the game so successful on mobile platforms. Featuring a gameplay loop that's hard to resist, the only thing holding it back is a lack of true variety. Luckily, when the gratification loop is this intoxicating and the price is so minimal, the limited replay value can be easily forgiven.
80%Mini Motorways Review (PC)
Mini Motorways is a good title for a mobile device that simply fails to add any new depth as it moves to other platforms. It is nice to see a city grow, try to solve its traffic problems, find ways to make colored cars go to the right places. But once I passed the 300 trips taken milestone for any location, which is not hard to do, I found little motivation to go back and work to further optimize. The team at Dinosaur Polo Club clearly has a knack for creating stripped-down but beautiful graphics and for simplifying mechanics down to their essence, which is a clear strength for a title that aims for success on mobile devices. But in order to make Mini Motorways engaging on other platforms, they needed to introduce a new mechanic or a new way to tackle the traffic challenge to add to the depth of the experience. Review code provided by the publisher.
70%
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Frequently Asked Questions
Mini Motorways is a casual simulation game.
Mini Motorways is available on Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac OS, Steam Deck and others.
On average players spend around 23 hours playing Mini Motorways.
Mini Motorways was released on July 20, 2021.
Mini Motorways was developed by Dinosaur Polo Club.
Mini Motorways has received mostly positive reviews from players and mostly positive reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its gameplay but disliked it for its story.
Mini Motorways is a single player game.
Similar games include Mini Metro, ISLANDERS, Dorfromantik, Fly Corp, Train Valley and others.







