Mini Metro is described as a puzzle game, but to me it is not. A puzzle game, to me, should pose the player with a challenge to which there might be multiple solutions, but the solutions are at least static -- a solution that gives you X points now, gives you X points tomorrow. Mini Metro does not have that, as each challenge consists of the random appearance of random city types, between which you have to draw metro lines, with random upgrades appearing ever so often. Your score depends for a large part on how the random elements appear.

The normal game allows you to remove metro lines at a whim, and most players quickly discover a cheesy tactic in this respect which can increase your score considerably. Unfortunately, this cheesy tactic is a chore to pull off, so once you have discovered it, the normal game is no fun anymore. There is still the extreme challenge for each map, which means that each line that you add is there to stay. This makes the game a lot more fun, but unfortunately in the extreme challenge the influence of the randomness on the final result is much bigger than in the normal game, as you cannot make small corrections to deal with the appearance of particularly unlucky cities (which happens quite a lot).

Finally, this game suffers from the fact that there is no "goal". There are no "solutions". You cannot say "I have solved this map". You can only say "I have been able to score 20,000 points on this map". The next time you play that map, you can try to beat your own score, but why would you? You probably were particularly lucky when you got your high score, and thus you are just replaying to see if you can get lucky again.

Despite those negative comments, I still recommend the game. It provides you with several dozens of fun hours, until you have nothing more to discover about the game. Most maps have something unique which sets them apart from the other maps. But once you have discovered each map and found a way to get a score that puts you in something like the top 10% of the players (which generally won't take long), you are done with it. Don't expect this game to have lasting appeal. But the price is right for the amount of fun that it brings.

Well it`s pretty a challenging game. Being small, though, Mini Metro features several maps like HK or London which require you to linking subway stations and deliver passengers, and each map has its own characteristics, like on normal mode in Hong Kong you will be awarded 2 locomotives weekly but the passengers grow extensively, or in Osaka you will have to choose only one Shinkansen locomotive (it runs extremely fast) or two regular conterparts (which gives you more flexibility to manage your routes). It`s easy to pick up, with no need of delibrate train to get started. But if you wanna score higher than other players you have to stick to one map for days or weeks to figure out what its mechanism really is. A good news is that it`s easily accessible for mainland Chinese players as it`s completely affordable and it features simplified Chinese :) . It`s a good stuff to take a leisure time if you don`t like FPS`s aggressive gameplay.

Such a simple concept, and yet so much fun! The graphics are absolute basic, almost comical, but that does not take away from the gameplay. The interface is very intuitive, and I found myself playing immediately without even bothering to look up anything about how to play. This game is relaxing, yet challenging. You'll soon be trapped by the "next time I'll do it so much better" feeling, and before you know it you've been playing for an hour...

Your goal is to connect the metro stations together. New stations pop up at random on the map, and you decide whether to extend an existing train line to service that new station or to create a new line. You can add extra trains, extra cars, and even extra-fast trains to your lines as the game progresses. Use your tunnels and bridges sparingly, because you only have so many to work with. Also, the total number of train lines, engines, and carriage cars are also limited, but you can choose which items you want more of at the end of each simulated week in the game. When people have to wait too long at a station to catch a train, the game is over. Simple, right? Ha! If only...

After you've played a few rounds you begin to think like a traffic engineer. How can I best eliminate this bottle-neck? Should I add another line to short-cut between these two large hubs? Or maybe just add another train to the line? What about making a loop? You find yourself trying all sorts of different ideas, and cursing yourself when a new station pops up across the river and you don't have any bridges or tunnels left because you foolishly squandered them early on to make an inner-city loop!

Mini Metro has a calm, relaxed atmosphere, and it reminds me a bit of the original Railroad Tycoon, but in this game there is no real economy. There's nothing to buy, and the supply of track is unlimited. Your only real adversary is time. You need to keep the people moving, and the trains only go so fast... An average game lasts about 10 minutes.

Tons of fun, especialy for such a simple concept. If you liked Sim City or Railroad Tycoon, chances are good that you'll love this game. And at only 10 bucks, it's pretty cheap too.

Mini Metro :) [8/10]

A very intersting & simple puzzle strategy game that requires you to construct an efficient & well-organized rail transit network in several cities in order to hold out for more time & have more passengers before you have a crowded node or a station.

I recommend this game to any player who's interested in puzzle & simple strategy.

I dont know why, but its addictive.

should you buy it, sure why not.

I'm a cognitive science undergraduate student. I think this piece of gem demostrated some foundamental qualities of a network model that appears often in every aspect of life.

EXCELLENT value. For the $4.99 I payed in a sale, I got great value. 3 modes of gameplay, 11 levels and a minisculue price tag. In fact, I colud nearly have ticked the "Check this box if you received this product for free" box. Buy it.

Another circle station?!?!?!

10/10

The first thing you notice in Mini Metro is the clean aesthetic. The minimalist graphics are both pleasing to the eyes and reminiscing of the many subway maps we have around the world. That graphical happiness is soon followed by the pleasure of drawing the metro lines, in a very intuitive way. But then come the passengers...after a few minutes things start to become hectic and you're scrambling around trying to fix your network that is inevitably doomed. And then, you want to try it again to do better.

But after theses first few games, you will begin to notice a pattern...the first few minutes of the game are boring. Setting up a basic network is easy for anyone with a few games under their belt. Even on fast forward, it still feels too slow...until it doesn't, and suddenly you notice your network has congestion all over the place. You fix things here and there, but usually once congestion start to set in, it will just go downhill. And now you notice the main problem of the game: pacing.

Pacing in Mini Metro is weird. Things are usually either too slow, or too fast. The sweet spot, where you have to fix stuff but you still have time to think and do things coherently, is such a small part of each game. The endless mode offers some of the pleasure of doing things at your own pace, but it encourages a playstyle that is dumb (serving the minimum numbers of station, leaving 2/3 of the map unconnected).

Another big drawback of the game is the randomness. Stations spawn completely randomly, and an important station spawning at the wrong time or the wrong place can utterly destroy a game that was going well. On the other hand, you can sometime be saved by stations popping up exactly where you need them. This randomness is both frustrating, and greatly limit the strategic aspect of the game. It's hard to know how well or how bad you're doing when things vary so much from game to game. Therefore, it's even harder to learn to play the game properly. Expert modes, challenges, or simply highscore chases can become very frustrating when you get bad stations spawns.

All of that makes Mini Metro a tough game to evaluate. It's original, it had a good idea and great visual, but the minute-to-minute gameplay isn't quite there. I wish Steam would let me gives a "neutral thumb", but since i have to choose between a "up thumb" or a "down thumb", I'm gonna go with a "play the free flash prototype for a few minutes, but skip this full game version".

PS: if you do play the full game, I recommend you cut all sounds (there is no option to cut only certain sounds), because the awful music they've added doesn't improve the game, and actually gave me headaches. I recommend playing with your own music as a background, even if that mean you don't get the important "overcrowding station warnings".

Made a railroad system. Shapes rode my trains. Then too many triangles wanted to ride them. The triangles got salty and i lost. 10/10 would play again.