Puzzle paradise on rails

The concept of mini metro is so simple that anyone can understand it in less time that it’ll take your next train to arrive. You drag metro lines between different types of stations, in order to allow passengers to move between them. If too many passengers are waiting, your stations overcrowd, ending the game. The process of organizing and rerouting your lines would be relentlessly addictive, but the polish of this app pushes it into a masterpiece. The rails must take into account water, and the water layouts correspond to real world cities - from Hong Kong to San Francisco to London and the developer’s home of Auckland (which apparently has no real metro) the theming is top notch. Even better is how the UI is expertly crafted to resemble a real metro map, full of colorful lines and simplified shapes. Friends watching me play have asked whether air was seeing some kind of real time map of their city. It’s surreal. For a casual gamer mini metro is unique in concept and fun. For the puzzle gamer it has depth and presents a gameplay mechanic unlike any other I’ve seen. Overall, a must have.

Play until you lose, repeat

I bought this game because a lot of the reviews describe this as a puzzle solving game. It's not. There's nothing to "solve", all that happens is the number of stations grows at random and without limit until you can't handle them all, and then you lose. Then you play again and do the same thing. Sometimes you lose sooner and sometimes you lose later. That's it. All the different cities play the same, except the "more advanced" ones give you fewer resources to start with so you lose sooner. All the "achievements" just consist of "lose later than point X". Even the "daily challenge" is just "lose as late as you can today!" Personally, I like actual puzzle games: they progress. If you fail a level, it's the same when you replay it so you can try a different strategy until you solve it. There is a sense of completion and achievement. This game has none of that. If you've played it for 5 minutes, you've seen everything you're ever going to see. I will agree, at least, with those who have admired the graphics. The look of the game is a lot of fun if you're a transit buff like me. It's a pity the actual game play didn't live up to that.

Mini Metro, Idea.

Hello, I’ve been playing this game for a little while. I began playing with Mini Motorways which is pretty good. But this game is a Crazy Good. So yeah. I like it and thank you for making this game! But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I have a game idea I’d like to share. And that would be the city of Medellín. Medellín is in Colombia. And Medellín is popular for the transportation system and the metro. The Metro isn’t underground like most but it’s actually on high rise places around the city. So in my words I think it would be nice to have Medellín as an unlockable city to play on. The Main Colors would be Green and White, hence the logo of the Metro Transport of the city and hence its the flag of the city. The rest of the colors can be decided by the developers. On Google you can find the shape and info from the city and not to mention this would boost the popularity of the game in my region. Thank you if you read this and goodbye.

The Start of Something Great

I have been addicted to this app since I downloaded it. The aesthetics are wonderful and the feedback to touch is very well thought out. The concept is really cool and the fact that the maps are really cities makes it that much more enjoyable. However, having been playing it so much, I’ve found a couple frustrating things with the game play. The best part of the game is getting to design your own metro system and having to figure out what’s most efficient. When and where stations pop up seems too random and are arranged in no way like they would be in a city (denser in the middle, less dense around the peripheries). Likewise, it makes sense for more and more stations to pop up quickly in the beginning, but for stations to continue popping up at the same rate once the system is pretty big makes no sense and takes the fun out of it. A logic problem gets turned into a random scramble. This game desperately needs other game modes, especially with the price it’s asking, but it has tons of potential.

Excellent, but missing the perfect game mode

I love this game. It’s calming, addictive, challenging, and fulfills the childlike wonder of managing trains. Would highly recommend picking it up. That said, this game mode needs a mode between normal and endless. I like playing endless for the sake of just building infrastructure upon infrastructure, but I enjoy the challenge of keeping stations from becoming to populated. If either: 1) endless mode could still show which stations are becoming overall populated, but no end game state when the do, or 2) we could get a mode that brings consequence to the player that doesn’t incorporate a complete restart. Perhaps a happiness meter that declines as stations overcrowd, perhaps you’re next upgrade gets delayed, or maybe people start to leave your subway system, something of that sort. I’d like to keep working on my project with risk involved without absolutely restarting the game.

Amazing game, plays well even on small screen iPhone

In the 1970s, the New York subway had a series of iconic and very famous route maps built on a simple, geometric, and stripped down aesthetic scheme designed by Michael Calcagno. This game takes what is essentially Calcagno’s design scheme and expands it into a worldwide mass transit rail system and management exercise. But trust me, you can play this game in a variety of ways: relaxing via “endless” and “creative” modes or with increasing difficulty challenges presented by each new map. Like the my review title suggests, I’ve been playing this game on a small iPhone screen, which presents something of a dexterity and precision learning curve that nonetheless ultimately does not detract from this game’s satisfaction. I’ve never played mini metro on an iPad but I’m sure it’s even more amazing.

Fantastic game, but features feel stagnant over the years

I love playing this game, it really plays to my inner urban planner and ADHD. However, over the years the development of Mini Metro and its features feel like it has stagnated. The new cities are a welcome addition, but quality of life improvements like being able to scroll on the leaderboard for cities/daily challenges, saving previous games of a city to look back to without having to manually save (or at least having the option to automatically suggest to save a screenshot of a new high score or to share it as a social media post) would most certainly boost engagement within the community. Updates to the creative mode would also be welcome, such as having deeper integration of the city in real life by showing density and zoning district blobs to guide us players instead of having a complete sandbox that feels the same across cities.

Great Game

This is a really great, unique, and entertaining game. I definitely think you should consider buying if you like games that involve organizing things in patterns and such. I don’t regret buying. I do, however, have some suggestions and complaints: Suggestions: -I think there should be more modes: Extreme mode is very hard to get with its requirements. I think they should be labeled as such: Easy-The current game but stations can hold more people without a interchange Medium-The current game Hard- Extreme but without the requirements and a bit easier than actual Extreme Extreme-Current Extreme mode -Custom maps? Draw where rivers are, choose how many lines and what their colors are (maybe a limit of 7 lines or so to keep the game somewhat difficult) Maybe even be able to upload your maps to a online community? Complaints: Im havent read much about how it works and there may be tricks I am not using, but I just wanna get this out: Why will trains not stop at stations when they overcrowd or only take less than the train can handle????? I’ve been stuck on Cairo because eventually the trains will just stop stopping at the stations overcrowding.

Dinosaur Polo Club has released the Creative Mode update for its award-winning minimalist traffic management strategy game, Mini Motorways.

COGconnected Sat Sep 27 2025

This new game mode completely refactors the Mini Motorways experience by giving the player newfound freedom to redesign their city in every map.

Capsule Computers Tue Jul 29 2025

Developer Dinosaur Polo Club announced that it will be adding a creative mode to Mini Motorways.

Engadget Tue Jul 29 2025

Some games impress by their simplicity, and make a long lasting impact on the industry as a result. Mini Metro is one s…

GamesIndustry.biz Sat Jul 29 2023

Mini Motorways developer Dinosaur Polo Club announced Magic School, a wizard school management sim — then canceled it. Here's why.

Polygon Sun Sep 29 2024

Taking a closer look at Mini Metro and Mini Motorways.

SUPERJUMP Thu Jun 29 2023

Mini Motorways and Mini Metro publisher Dinosaur Polo Club has spotlighted the development and cancellation of a project code-named Magic...

PocketGamer.biz Sun Sep 29 2024

Dinosaur Polo Club has revealed more of their plans to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Mini Metro with Mini Motorways.

Bleeding Cool News Thu Jun 29 2023

Dinosaur Polo Club, the indie studio behind the minimalist strategy games Mini Metro and Mini Motorways, has revealed a recently canceled project.

The Verge Thu Aug 29 2024

In their GDC 2023 talk, Dinosaur Polo Club's Tana Tanoi spoke about the importance of Wuselfaktor (and other design factors) in Mini Metro...

Thumbsticks Mon May 29 2023