Great but with room for improvement
Sat May 08 2021 buggy2.0I really like this game. It’s so satisfying to watch a car go all over your little city just to park for a second and turn around, connecting houses to streets, and watching your place expand. I could play this game for hours. I don’t mean that I’m good at it, just that I definitely enjoy it.
Of course, nothing is perfect, and this game isn’t an exception. One of my biggest complaints is the houses and where they pop up. I cannot for the life of me “win” a game. That is because the store for green houses will pop up on the other side of the map, where there are stores and other houses of other colors in between. Yes, there are highways, but you only get so many. I feel like there should be a difficulty setting, that way I can feel a little bit accomplished every once in a while.
Really the only other complaint I have is that I wish we had a free build option. I want set up a city with all the houses in a way that pleases my eyes. I want the streets to all be straight and to make sense. I want bridges to enhance the look and not be there out of necessity. I understand that there is a lot that would go into this technically, and I know you guys have read this idea as a review before, but it really would make the game even better.
Spent hours playing this game!
Mon Nov 29 2021 Apush121I love this game. Everything from the deceptively simple beginning to the chaotic mess that you end up with makes this game amazing. I’m definitely not the best player but it’s a lot of fun. It’s a 100% recommendation from me! While playing, however, I noticed a couple of things that could be fixed or improved on.
The traffic lights only seem to make the traffic more congested, I’m not sure how to fix this but so far, they just seem pretty useless. Another problem that I felt while playing was that there’s no sense of accomplishment. Once you’ve beat all the maps, there’s nothing keeping you tied to the game. I wish there were some more accomplishments or small in-game puzzles you could solve. Another small issue that may be a bit harder to combat was how the phone/tablet over heats after a while. It gets scalding hot really fast. Other than those things though, this game is great and I definitely recommend everyone to play it!
One thing that I saw in another review that I actually really liked was a free play mode where you could make and put down your own houses and buildings without the fear of losing or running out of time. One of my favorite parts of the game is building roads for the houses and watching the cars drive to their destination. A free play mode would definitely meet those needs!
Definitely worth a play
Mon Oct 05 2020 Anita B. Jai-nauI actually never even had heard of apple arcade until an ad popped up for this game. I got the free trial and have been paying for it since ONLY for mini motorways. I play a few more but I would not pay for them if it wasn’t for this game specifically.
Now that being said, there are quite a few things I would suggest improving. Like the stop-light would probably be better served as an all-way stop-sign instead. And pleeease could you make the cars turning animation faster. They seem to slow down way too drastically and that creates a domino effect on the cars behind it slowing the whole chain of cars downhill. Another big change I would propose is make it so bridges can be used in the city to go over other roads, so we can connect without being forced to have an intersection where there isn’t necessarily one needed.
I also want to be (hopefully) the first to request a whole new game mode, called “Ghost Mode.” where the cars can cross intersections unimpeded. Say a car is going to the right and a car is going straight up. These two cars meet at an intersection. In the normal mode, these cars would slow down and the game would decide which car would have the right of way, usually based on who’s there a fraction of a second sooner. BUT in this mode they both would continue at full speed and just cross without being effected by the other.
Fun, but has some serious flaws
Fri Sep 24 2021 falconflyer317I loved the idea of this game when I read the description which I think is misleading. One of the first things it says is “have you ever thought you could fix traffic?” The implication is that with thoughtful building you can actually make traffic work, kind of like a SimCity type game for traffic. That sounds fun. But that’s not what this game is. It’s more like a tower defense game with escalating problems that eventually overwhelm you. You don’t get enough control to actually make traffic better; it’s more responding to the dysfunctional problems that you’re given until they eventually, inevitably, overwhelm you. That’s fine; nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the game that’s being described.
That said, I enjoy the game and it’s kind of fun. I’d still enjoy it if it were described properly. I wish it were the game I thought it was and I want to find one like that, but it’s still okay. There are things that are really frustrating though. Stoplights need to work better. You should be able to make your own entrances to buildings so you can built around them. And you should be able to demolish houses. I think a version of the game where the buildings were random but you had to build your own house (maybe in designated areas) would be a lot more fun. Either way, game is kind of fun, but not a lot of replayability since it’s just keeping up with escalating dysfunction until you eventually fail.
Brilliant Game!
Fri Nov 11 2022 JPizi23Has new challenges daily and weekly. You get to build roads all over the world. The game just got an update that added tons of different modes for any play style so the game is constantly changing and improving. Although I was skeptical at first and it was not what I thought it was, the game is unlike anything I've ever played and is one of the top strategy games out. I would recommend this game to anybody because it's very easy to learn, but also will challenge anyone who loves strategy games, and once you get going you don't want to stop. I believe it is not just one of the best strategy games out but one of the best games out period. They are adding new features all the time and it still hasn't reached its full potential. I recommend you download this game right now and play through it for a week, no matter who you are or what type of games you are into, and I promise you'll be hooked. I love trying to get the highest score I can to compete with other players around the world also. Although I mostly play it for the fun of it, I also like the competitive aspect of it as well. Build the roads and the cars will come...very fast so be ready to build your roads! The last thing you want is to cause a traffic jam! That's when it's GAME OVER!
Best Game I have ever played!
Sat Jan 02 2021 HfgujgdghhgfhgfcghHi everyone. I never write reviews for games but I felt like this one deserved a review. Mini Motorways is a flaming strategy based yet simple for anyone to play kind of game. The game starts off easy and progressively gets harder as more destinations and houses pop up. I love the challenge this game gives the player whiteout frustrating them like some puzzle game do. In addition, the graphics are neat and the whole ambience of the game is relaxing. I have tried many games on Apple Arcade but this one beats them all and I would immediately cancel my subscription if it were not for this game.
I don’t have any huge suggestions since I think the game really nailed it in all aspects! The only suggestion is that it would really cool to have an upgrade like the traffic lights and motorways that speeds up the cars on a particular road. This upgrade could be given when a player gets to a higher level week but it would make things even more exciting. Sometimes, it became difficult to change the roads when fees cars can reach the destination and having this sort of power-up/ upgrade (whatever you wanna call it) would make it more enjoyable.
Overall, thanks so much Dinosaur Polo Club for creating such an addictive game!
Fun but Frustrating
Sun Sep 18 2022 RonnieSan360Great game that gets a bit addicting but there is definitely room for improvement. First, just a small annoyance… when clicking on the timer to bring up the controls it’s too slow. There’s no point to having such a slow animation to display the controls. Second, the most frustrating thing is having businesses pop up on completely opposite sides of the map constantly with the driveway in the worst possible position with no possible way you’d be able to have enough tiles to connect things. I get that the randomness makes it challenging, but some of the logic needs updating so it doesn’t make things impossible. I’ve had businesses pop up 20+ tiles away from anything late into a game with the driveway on the far side and houses pop up just as far in the opposite direction. Again, fun game, but hopefully they make some improvements so you can actually use some strategy instead of being forced to place the least amount of tiles possible. If that’s the case, then you’re basically just connecting the dots and it’s not fun at all. UPDATE: I downgraded it another star because it’s getting to the point that it’s more frustrating than fun. It’s literally just connecting the dots without the ability to use strategy to make traffic flow more smoothly since you never have enough resources.
Zoom :/
Fri Nov 04 2022 LarkscopeI love this game. But this latest update has killed it. It’s obsurdly hard to play on a phone now that you’ve removed the zoom feature. Especially on cities like Lisbon. It’s so bad I’m going to have to stop playing until the zoom is returned because it’s just too frustrating. I don’t even have large hands but even I keep making roads and things in wrong places because the area you’re expected to touch is the size of a pearl head pin. Please return the zoom!
Update: I read about the update and see you did add zoom. But as far as I can tell, it’s not pinch to zoom. It’s the old tap once to zoom in to a pre-determined amount. Not a customizable zoom like pinch to zoom. And most importantly, it was changed to auto default to off! So now you have to go to settings, options, and then toggle zoom on and pick what kind of zoom you want. But none of the descriptors like close or far mean much. So you just have to pick one and play a whole game with it to see if it’s the right kind of zoom for you. And there are something like five or more options to choose from. Seems needlessly complicated. However, now I’ve at least got the old tap to zoom feature back, I’ve updated my rating from 2 stars to 4.
So close to great
Wed May 27 2020 NathantraffordLove this game and it’s simplicity. I think some of the suggestions people have made are great. I don’t mind the randomness of WHERE the houses and stores show up. I think that planning ahead for situations where houses are on the other side of the map is fun. You could include difficulty levels to help with that though, where easy mode makes sure that houses only spawn within a certain distance of stores of the same color. Where I have a major issue though is with the algorithm controlling the ratio of houses to stores. I literally just played a game where I ended up with 4 green stores on the map (3 regular and one big store), and only 5 houses. Even if all the stores were next to each other and the houses were right by them, I still would have failed because the demand was too high. This makes me feel like why even bother trying to keep playing if there’s a solid chance that I’ll be faced with an impossible task anyway? I really enjoy the planning side of the game and being the master of my own destiny with how I lay out my grids, but making it possible (and likely even) to lose no matter what I do just feels like it goes against the ethos of the game itself. A simple recalibration of the houses to stores algorithm would fix this issue. In my opinion there should always be twice as many houses as there are stores at any given moment.
Disappointing
Sat Dec 19 2020 ian.goldGame has nice aesthetic. Seems buggy, and the logic and playability are not great. As for bugs, sometimes you get a traffic light at the beginning of a turn and then it is not available. Also, you can’t seem to access the tutorial easily. Cannot find it. As for logic and playability, where to start. It just isn’t clear what’s going on. The traffic lights, freeways, they don’t have noticeable logical effects. It is not clear what is rewarded. Are you trying to make an efficient network? Then it just isn't that clear why your network starts to get bogged down or what you can do about it. The road placing and delete function can be counterintuitive and glitchy. At some point the game changes dramatically and road tiles are extremely scarce after being abundant and you die without any sense of what you could have done differently. What ever the five principals of good game design might be, this effort is not embodying them. You get the sense this Apple Arcade offering is intended to get folks interested in their subway game, which is a $4 game. I suspect that one may be better designed but don’t want to pay to find out. Also this game is such a natural vehicle for environmental thinking, and yet they fumble the opportunity completely. Like, I wanted to create the most efficient network and the game seems to reward or force roundabout routes. That’s it for me.
