izigame.me

Having now played Mini Motorways for 100 hours, I feel ready to write a review.
In a nutshell:
I LOVE the idea of the game, I LIKE the design of the game, but I HATE the implementation, especially important game mechanics.
This could be a 9/10 game, but unfortunately it's only 4/10.
My biggest criticism:
Too much randomness / coincidence / chance.
It's absolutely fine to have random actions and random events in a game. I have no problem with that.
But in Mini Motorways, there is a big chunk too much that is influenced by chance:
– the location of the neighbourhoods (= groups of houses)
– the location of the individual houses
– the location of the stores
– the size of the stores (small or large)
– the orientation of the stores (landscape or portrait)
– the orientation of the parking spaces (right, left, up or down)
– the two extras offered each week
None of these can be changed by the player.
Such a large number of random events naturally makes life difficult for a player. And yes, that's a good thing! But a player also needs tools to be able to react to the difficulties during a game.
As a player of MM you can:
Build and demolish ...
... roads / tunnels / bridges
... motorways
... roundabouts
... traffic lights
But watch out:
- In most cases, traffic lights are completely useless.
- In many cases roundabouts are useless or even worse: they cannot be placed at all because they take up too much space. This is especially true in the last phase of the game.
This leaves the player with only two effective means of fighting the game's obstacles: roads and motorways. That is indeed very limited.
So what if ...
... a house blocks an alternative and better route to avoid congesting a store?
... stores and neighbourhoods can’t be connected because they are too far away from each other?
... stores and neighbourhoods can’t be connected because you don’t have the right building material?
... individual houses have spawned in the middle of nowhere OR in the middle of other colours, but you can't connect them even if you had to?
… etc.
Some say: "Yes, that's exactly the challenge! You have to plan ahead wisely, act in time and have a bit of luck!"
I answer: "Yes, you have to plan ahead wisely and act in time. But the randomness will most likely nullify all your positive strategies. In maybe 75% of your games."
Too much randomness means that even good strategies are no guarantee of a good, successful game with high scores.
The game is hard.
But it's not hard to play: It's hard to endure.
Besides the poorly implemented game mechanics, there are several other annoyances. Here are two of them:
- Hacked High Score Lists, which the developers have promised to take care of, but they don't lift a finger
- Almost Unnoticiable Labelling of Newly Spawned Houses (duration too short, graphics and sounds too low-key). Especially later in the game, you sometimes don't even notice that a new house has spawned or where it has spawned. That's a PITA. I mean, if my main motivation is "looking for things in a cluttered environment", then I should play Hidden Object (or „Wimmelbilder“ in German). I really don't get it: this game is very aesthetic, minimalist in design, it’s really très chic. But finding newly spawned houses is an unacceptable imposition. One thumbs down for that. If the developers did this on purpose, two thumbs down.
Don't get me wrong: the game is worth the money. Luckily, it’s cheap.
It's fun for two or three weeks, but as you get better, the game (in its current version) gets more and more annoying.
After four weeks of play, after 100 hours of gameplay and an average high score of 3,500, my personal replay motivation has dropped to zero.
Don't get me wrong: I don't want the game to get easier!
Nor do I want to score more points.
I want MORE endgame options.
I want a LONGER endgame.
I want MORE flexibility in terms of endgame strategies.
I want MORE tools to solve the problems the game offers.
I want to play MORE.
I would even pay significantly MORE. :-)
My wish list for the future:
MORE TOOLS for the player like ...
... demolish houses (alternatively: move houses or recolour houses)
... relocate the entrance to the car parks
... roundabouts that really help
... traffic lights that really help
All these new infrastructure changing options (like demolishing houses) could have a price, e.g. you lose 10% of your current points. So you would have an advantage, but also a disadvantage for high score lists.
One important thing the developers really should do:
- Reset all high score lists and make them hack-proof. Hacked high scores are useless as a motivation. That’s two thumbs down.
MORE GAME MODES
... sandbox
... endless
… get all you building stuff at the beginning, then build, rebuild with instantly applied changes. No waiting for the cars to complete the rides!