I love a good puzzle game, something relaxing and easy to just dip into when I need to kill time. Games like Dorfromantik and Islanders scratch that itch pretty well. Mini Motorways requires a little more thought, but it still scratches that puzzle-game itch.

Mini Motorways is all about traffic. You build roads to connect houses to businesses. That’s pretty much it. Of course, things get more complicated when you add traffic lights, roundabouts, bridges over water, and so on. However, you have to be very careful about how you place the various roads and intersections. If things get congested, and cars can’t get to businesses, then you’ll eventually come to a standstill and lose.

As far as controls go, Mini Motorways is fairly simple. You use the joystick to move your pointer, you can click and either hold and drag to make roads or toggle the accessibility feature to just click for a single time, then click again to finalize the road. You can erase the same way, and since buildings are color-coded, you can turn on the colorblind mode to make them more accessible visually.

The one major complaint I have with Mini Motorways is that because of the top-down view, sometimes when using motorways to create overpasses, it makes it difficult to measure traffic below them. If you aren’t careful, your motorways will obscure the view of your roads. I would also say that it is incredibly difficult to recover once you’ve bungled your particular city.

There are a variety of levels though, and I feel like the game is a bit of a skill that you get better at as you play. As I played, I got to a point where I got better at understanding where my gridlock points were and how to prevent them. There is some degree of randomness, as houses and businesses pop up at different points, and you don’t get to move and adjust their position. This means to some degree that you’re eventually going to get to a point where you are going to lose.

Despite the complaint and the fact that the game backs you into a corner eventually, I really like Mini Motorways. It is the perfect sort of Zen, quiet game that lets you just unwind, while still using your brain. Some people find Sudoku relaxing, and I think Mini Motorways scratches that same sort of itch.

The game controls well, it is optimized well, there are a variety of accessibility options, and you can take it on the go. Honestly, it’s the perfect sort of game to play on Nintendo Switch. It is a perfect game for car trips and can be played by people of most age groups, though younger kids will probably struggle with it. It is great at teaching about traffic though, since it can help you explain what things like traffic lights, roundabouts, and overpasses are used for.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Mini Motorways was provided by Dinosaur Polo Club for this review.

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Mini Motorways

$9.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Relaxing Gameplay
• Accessibility Features for Colorblindness and More
• Simple Controls
• Easy to Understand Mechanics

Cons

• Can't Adjust Camera View to Look Under Overpasses
• Recovering From Mistakes is Difficult