Mini Metro: A Pleasant Trip on Public Transportation


Time to Beat all 20 maps: 6 hours

Mini Metro, an indie game by Dinosaur Polo Club, caught my attention when it released in 2015. Of particular interest: a visually striking simplicity combined with a bold color scheme. The question was, would the gameplay exhibit the same mixture of simplicity and dazzling display?

In Mini Metro, the player is charged with the management of a subway system in one of twenty real world cities. Yet Mini Metro is not a management simulation like SimCity, Dwarf Fortress, RollerCoaster Tycoon, but a casual game containing no economy. Instead, each map is composed of Stations and Waterways (which may be the only element historically relevant to a city). Each map begins with three, black outlined shapes, with a pure white center, and a grayish white background, with river, bays, and oceans distinguished by a bright blue area. These beginning shapes will always be a Circle, Square, and Triangle. These shapes, and the others which will pop into being, are Stations, which serve as both departure and destination.

Almost immediately, passengers appear. They are depicted as solid black shapes (matching one of the available stations), residing to the right of a station. Smaller than the stations, the first six commuters wait patiently for a tram, but the seventh and beyond are antsy. Every subsequent traveler after the sixth bounce impatiently, like an adult in rush hour traffic. In addition to this identifier, a overcrowded station blinks a color countdown, lasting forty-five seconds, after which the game ends in defeat.
To prevent this eventual outcome, the player connects stations with subways, trolleys, trains, or other rail based transportation. On most maps, the player begins with access to three subways lines. These lines are vibrantly colored which aids in the already intuitive design process. To use an available subway line, the player clicks any station, and drags through any stations they want to connect. Once a line is created, Mini Metro will automatically assign a train to it if one is in reserve.

Passengers need to be transported to a station which matches their shape. Oddly, any particular shape (such as a circle), doesn't care which particular station they reach, as long as it matches their shape. Mini Metro uses three common-ish shapes, Circle (the most common), Triangle (common), and Square (uncommon). There are also seven unique shapes, Cross, Pentagon, Teardrop, Star, Football, Diamond, and Rhombus. A map will only contain one of each unique station. A train which passes through a station with waiting passengers will pick up any which it can drop off at their destination, or which it can move to an interconnecting line to bring them closer to their final destination. A basic train carries six passengers, but carriages can be attached, which allow an additional six riders.

Maps start small, but as time passes they expand, almost imperceptibly. Expansion introduces more complicated waterways, and allows for expansive subway lines. Time is measured by a clock in the upper right, with small type which tracks the days of the week. Every Sunday the player is awarded a free train and a choice of two rewards. These include: another line, a carriage, an Interchange Station, and more tunnels. The player is given a limited number of tunnels/bridges at the beginning of each map. These are spent to cross Waterways, and without them, the player must seek alternate routes.
The key gameplay revolves around the expansion of the city, and a player's ability to adapt to the new and unique stations. In addition to new stations, old stations may transform into one of the unique shapes without warning. The player has any number of tools which enable them to adjust. One can alter any part of any line at any time, instantly. A station can be removed from a railway line, or an entire line can be deleted and reconstructed anew. There is no cost (because the game does not include money), and Mini Metro can be paused, so no time is lost. There are some downsides though. By the time one notices a problem, a complete overhaul is too late. And while there is no inherent penalty in a massive reorganization, there is one underestimated issue. At the moment of the reorganization, all the trains are carrying passengers along the tracks. Completely readjusting the tracks, forces each train to dump its riders at the next station, leaving a disordered, chaotic mess, which compounds the congestion.

Another feature of Mini Metro is it scoreboard which compares the player to their friends and the community at large. I originally intended to try to beat my brother on every map, but gave up at the six hour mark. Viewing the leader boards, I'm astonished by the achievements of the best players, and wonder what strategies they employ. Do they change their design often, or rarely? Do they prefer (during the Sunday rewards) to acquire lines or carriages (or a mixture)? I favored shorter lines with fewer carriages, but maybe longer lines with many carriages is better. Do better players design their subways in a grid, or by regions leading to a central hub?

I have other questions, less related to strategy. At the start, a player can only access three of the twenty cities, and unlocks the others by delivering 500 passengers to their destination. Are the later levels supposed to be more difficult, or just different? And as relating to the historical aspect: Are new stations randomly generated, or are maps semi-predetermined based on real world features?
For anyone with the time and inclination, Mini Metro also offers a multitude of stats in its visually appealing, easy to digest style, displayed as graphs at the conclusion of each map. Players can evaluate their performance after a loss, or transition to Endless Mode, where losing is impossible. Another mode prevents the player from altering their tracks once laid down.

In conclusion, Mini Metro's aesthetic matches perfectly with its mechanics. It's a delightful game full of chime and flash, challenging but quick, and deep with unanswerable strategic questions for such a simple game. One won't have any difficulty beginning their first station, and though one may decide that each map is unworthy of a second play-through, Mini Metro contains enough momentum to carry the player to the final destination.

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