Mini Metro
It’s all on the line in this smart puzzle game
$4.99 Developer Dinosaur Polo Club, dinopoloclub.com Platform Universal Requirements iOS 8 or later
It’s tempting to look at a subway map and think, ah, that looks easy – but Mini Metro helps you learn that no, it is not easy at all. There is just one important thing to do in Mini Metro: connect differently shaped stations using train lines.
The instant understanding that what you’re looking at is a map of a metro means that the game is able to use very few words or instructions to guide you, and your stations and passengers are all helpfully coded by what shape they are. Triangle passengers want to go to triangle station, squares want to go to square stations. It’s your job to connect the stations with lines in an efficient manner to make sure that overcrowding doesn’t happen – because that’s how you lose the game.
The simplicity and minimalism of the design and the interaction are perfectly done and make Mini Metro a wonderful, easy game to pick up. However, the tight quarters of a smaller iPhone screen can make it difficult to make the exact moves you want to, and less-than-accurate touchscreen controls mean that sometimes you’ll try to delete a line and end up creating some hellish nightmare of tangled lines and resentment.
It’s fun to replay, and new cities such as Paris, Montreal, and Berlin are unlocked as you play, but the issues with the touchscreen make it really difficult to progress past a certain level. Once you’ve started messing up by accident, it’s hard to claw it back. It’s better on iPad.
the bottom line. An excellent, minimalistic game that doesn’t quite translate to smaller touchscreen devices.