Mini Motorways Review (Nintendo Switch OLED)

by Jim Smale · May 23, 2022

Our Mini Motorways Review picks up from Mini Metro, Mini Motorways is a game about drawing the roads that drive a growing city. Build a road network, one road at a time, to create a bustling metropolis. Redesign your city to keep the traffic flowing, and carefully manage upgrades to meet the changing demands. How long can you keep the cities of the world moving?

Mini Motorways Review Pros:

Decent Minimalistic graphics.
143MB download size.
Full touchscreen controls.
Can play with the buttons and stick.
Toggle hold to draw option.
Puzzle gameplay.
Your goal is to connect buildings, structures, and garages together in order for traffic to flow and cars to reach their destination and earn pins.
At the end of the week in-game, you get to pick one of two upgrades.
Full tutorial support via pop-up text.
Colorblind support.
You need tiles in order to place them so every piece of Road is a tile, a traffic light is a tile, etc.
Traffic lights help control the flow of traffic.
Easy to learn controls from tile placement to tile erasing.
You can rotate buildings to fit your design.
The game plays out itself in terms of the cars and vehicles moving around, you just lay the tiles.
Build Motorways to ease congestion.
Roundabouts again help with your design.
Play how you want.
Import your save from Steam.
Night mode option.
Set the cursor sensitivity.
14 locations to unlock – Los Angeles, Beijing, Tokyo, Dar Es Salaam, Moscow, Munich, Zurich, Manila, Rio De Janeiro, Dubai, Mexico City, Wellington, Warsaw, and Chiang Mai.
Control time with fast forward and slow timers.
Unlock challenges for each location.
Photo mode.
Game over is done if cars cannot get to their destination or even leave their garage.

Mini Motorways Review Cons:

A lot to take in initially.
Changing between control types is a bit of a faff.
Difficulty spikes throughout.
Pop-ups can obscure your view.
Replay value depends on the player rather than the game rewarding you.

Mini Motorways:

Official website.

Developer: Dinosaur Polo Club

Publisher: Dinosaur Polo Club

Store Links –

Nintendo

8/10

Graphics - 8/10
8/10

Sound - 8/10
8/10

Accessibility - 8/10
8/10

Length - 8/10
9/10

Fun Factor - 9/10

8.2/10

Summary

Mini Motorways is one of those casual puzzle games that just instantly grabs you. The controls especially the touch ones are so simple that you will get the hang of things within minutes, the tutorial is done in a way that explains every aspect of the game and tile types whilst also explaining why and what you can do. With over a dozen locations it adds a bit of variety but the game doesn’t really change that much and it is definitely a casual game you dip into every now and then, it doesn’t lend itself well to prolonged play. It’s a game that suits the Switch perfectly and takes up such little space that you will find yourself going back for more.