Mini Motorways seems to be one of the more popular and addictive titles on Apple Arcade. If I were an over 40s video game player, I’d describe it as Jony Ive’s version of Transport Tycoon (I am BTW).
All complexity is ripped away like an unsightly headphone socket, leaving the player with nothing more than drawing roads and plopping in the odd roundabout or traffic management trope. How interesting can that be you might scream from behind your tiny steering wheel, well lots it seems. Each level starts off with a mini-Ikea (I’m assuming because tons of people drive to them) and a couple of houses. How delightful the players face gleams, slowly smudging their little finger from one to the other. Little cars drive happily from Home to overpriced 3D furniture puzzles. Ahh, but what’s this, more and more appear, green shops, blue and little houses and cars that only prefer certain outlets. Slowly but steadily chaos ensues. Getting to this stage might seem painful but somehow the serenity of the design punctuates the hysteria and frazzlement of the levels final moments. This allows the player to accept the failure as their own doing, admire their map of jumbled spaghetti and dive right into another city.
Levels constitute a modest approximation of real-world cities. Modest meaning a Pictionary approximation of the outline of each Metropolis. Limited variety is really offered in each area as this often boils down to a river being in a slightly different place. Recently the game has been updated to counteract this by offering different challenges involving limited road numbers or bridges and the like.
Overall if you have Apple Arcade you must play this, is won’t cost you anything, and there is high chance you’ll enjoy it and low risk of phone hurling frustration.
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