- Publisher: Dinosaur Polo Club
- Release Date: Jul 20, 2021
- Also On: iPhone/iPad, Switch
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
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LEVEL (Czech Republic)Feb 17, 2022An ingenious game in a simple, effective package, which at first glance looks like a relaxed game, but as a result will squeeze even the last drop of your organizational and managerial skills before you disgracefully capitulate.
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Sep 9, 2021Mini Motorways is a game that I can just vibe with. There was a period of time when I’d boot Mini Metro every single day in order to undertake the daily challenge. I can see that being the case again here. There’s an intricate, impossible-feeling balance to this game; it is fiendishly difficult and filled with tactical nuance with even things like the angle of how roads join one another impacting traffic speed - and yet it is also joyously mellow and inviting, the perfect way to whittle away some spare minutes. I can barely say a bad word about it.
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Dec 10, 2021While Mini Motorways isn’t going to present you with an incredible story or massively varied mechanics, the experience is one you’ll want to keep coming back to. There are seemingly countless options to choose from, and the new Challenge City update takes it to the next level. If you are looking for a game that can be played for 5 minutes or 5 hours, Mini Motorways is absolutely worth every second of your time.
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Sep 9, 2021Mini Motorways is a fun little puzzler-builder with beautiful minimalist visuals. Coupled with a charming presentation, this game is a perfect way to relax after a stressful day, but also provides a hefty amount of challenges along the way.
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Aug 30, 2021Similar to Dinosaur Polo Club’s previous game Mini Metro, not only the game mechanics but also the visuals and sound contribute in making Mini Motorways a fun and polished game. Its game design allows players to enjoy the essence of a city-builder by simply laying roads, and the game offers interesting tactical challenges depending on your skill.
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Aug 16, 2021After their magnificent debut in the form of Mini Metro, Dinosaur Polo Club managed to accomplish something extremely difficult - clear their own raised bar. Mini Motorways is a better game in every department, more beautiful, more relaxing, more complex.
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Jul 30, 2021Originally an Apple Arcade exclusive, Mini Motorways is now available on Steam for aspiring city planners. If you’re ready to tear your hair out of your follicles over the algorithm’s decision to construct a house 10 million miles away from its destination, it may very well become one of your favourite time-wasters.
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Jul 27, 2021Playing Mini Motorways is as much a chance to enjoy the game’s puzzles as it is an opportunity to unwind and refocus. I went into Mini Motorways expecting a fun and quirky puzzle game and ended up finding so much more. The Steam release is definitely not one to ignore.
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Jul 21, 2021Despite first appearances, Mini Motorways is a rewarding check-in with oneself rather than a simulation of traffic management and logistical network development. It’s a meditative simplification of city builders, like if Sim City was a bonsai that only needed the gentlest of tending, and maybe the occasional congestion-busting bypass.
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Jul 20, 2021Mini Motorways is the ultimate blend of city management and arcade mechanics. Much like running a real city, you don't always know what your options will be in a week, but the population continues on. From the minimal art style and controls to the exciting pace of long runs, there is plenty within this seemingly small offering to enjoy. Suddenly identifying a game-ending traffic jam and heading it off before things get bad is satisfying, and there's always fun to be found in beating your own high score.
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CD-ActionOct 12, 2021An unconventional city builder where the city builds itself, while your task is to optimize its road traffic, which requires quick thinking, good planning and a pinch of luck. It’s easy to turn a blind eye to minimalistic visuals, irritating audio and some flaws, because what’s really important is the fact that Mini Motorways is highly addictive. [10/2021, p.62]
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Aug 24, 2021Considering it’s a game all about cars and congestion, you’d think Mini Motorways would be a tense and stressful endeavor, but it’s by far one of the most addictingly chill game I’ve played in recent memory. I’m pretty sure it lowered my blood pressure, setting a nice calm mood right before bed. Players expecting a sandbox city planning game will be momentarily disappointed, but after only a few minutes with it, that disappointment will melt away (along with the day’s worries and woes). If you need to relax, like, right now, you must check out Mini Motorways.
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Jul 20, 2021Despite 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.
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Jul 20, 2021The slow, time-consuming monotony of big-city traffic has somehow been transformed into a game that I can’t wait to play more of.
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Jul 19, 2021Mini Motorways is a surprisingly ambitious game for its scope. It executes a simple yet remarkably thoughtful premise and largely achieves great results. In everything from its visual style to its gameplay, Mini Motorways is broadly accessible, and smartly introduces the player to increasingly complex scenarios. Even though it doesn’t quite match the design perfection of something like Tetris, that’s still a pretty remarkable comparison to inspire.
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Aug 4, 2021Quotation forthcoming.
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Aug 4, 2021The 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.
| This publication does not provide a score for their reviews. | |
| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
| These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation. | |
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Jul 22, 2021The Apple Arcade classic comes to PC and is as glorious as ever. [Eurogamer Essential]
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Jul 20, 2021Mini Motorways is an excellent chill-out game, and there’s enough variety to keep things interesting.
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Jul 19, 2021In short, its more varied puzzle pieces, greater environmental challenge and clearer visual presentation all add up to make Mini Motorways a worthy evolution of Dinosaur Polo Club's minimalist transport formula. Despite appearing first on the Apple Arcade, Mini Motorways feels right at home on PC, and its intuitive mouse controls make for a much better architect's pen than a motion controlled remote. Add in daily and weekly challenges to its bumper crop of mainline maps (with more to come every few months after launch, as well as new game modes and the same breadth of updates we saw in Mini Metro) and Mini Motorways is a fine second outing for this vehicular puzzle series. Dedicated Mini Metro-ites may find Motorways a tad too familiar for it to enter their own god tier of video games, but if you're hungry for more of what Dinosaur Polo Club do best, then this is one diversion you won't want to miss.
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Aug 9, 2021And it’s still such a cute, colourful, tiny hubris that they’ll sketch out for themselves. The sort that continues to demand just one more try, especially when the astronomical totals already appearing on the daily and weekly trial scoreboards mean there must be some new trick to learn. Mini Motorways is another miniature masterpiece that captivates and challenges in equal measure, a game made equally of tiny charms and tiny calamities.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 26 out of 40
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Mixed: 9 out of 40
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Negative: 5 out of 40
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Aug 15, 2021
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Jul 30, 2021
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Jul 27, 2023