Because all stations generate demand to squares, and initially there's only one, it's logical to start by building a radial network, like the one above, with the single square at the hub. If you like, the square is downtown, the triangles are local retail/activity centers, and the circles are residential areas. You'll note that in the sample above, I've arranged a radial network so that identical symbols (between which there's no demand) are never adjacent on a line, and so that each circle or triangle is connected to a nearby symbol of the other type.īoth circles and triangles also generate demand to squares initially there's only one square but gradually more appear. Most demand is between a circle and a triangle. People always want to go to a station of a different symbol. The demand-generation rules of Mini Metro are oversimplified, but not disastrously so. For example, in the image above, at the circle station at the south end of my Red Line, above, someone is waiting who wants to go to a triangle. Those represent someone at that station who wants to go to a station of the specified shape. Next to each symbol, you'll see little black symbols accumulate. (If you don't like the background color, play one of the other cities I think this one is trying to suggest desert sand.)Įarly in the game, you see circles and triangles, and a single square. Before long, you have something like this, from a recent session of the Cairo game. Click on a shape and connect two of them, and you've built a line, where a short train starts running back and forth.
These are potential stations, with demand for travel to other places. Start the game, and little shapes start appearing. You choose one of several world cities, which basically gives you a famous set of water features that will require bridges or tunnels. Second, let's think about what steps you'd take to make it a little more accurate, if you wanted to. First, let's notice how accurate a game that set out to be fun turns out to be. They eagerly emphasize that they're not transit experts they're just clever blokes who set out to create a fun game about transit, and who succeeded. This post is not a critique of Peter's and Robert's work.
And if you notice what's going on, you'll learn some sound principles of network design that will serve you well, no matter what your role is in creating the cities of the future. Their game, Mini Metro, is simple, fun, and (if this is a virtue) addictive. Well, now there's a draft of the very game I've been imagining, thanks to Peter and Robert Curry of the New Zealand gameshop Dinosaur Polo Club. I use (non-computer) games in all my courses and stakeholder workshops because things you've played with are things you remember. And there are plenty of geeks out there, in city-building professions and advocacy, who'd enjoy learning this way. Games are a good way of thinking about real problems (see Jane McGonegal's great book Reality is Broken). I mean a game that is simple but engaging the way chess is, and where the strategy you need to learn happens to also be What City-Makers Need to Understand About Transit (but Often Don't). I don't mean complex simulation games like Cities in Motion, Transport Tycoon or ( shudder) SimCity, which simulate so many things that it's hard to focus on the network element. I've long wished there were an computer game that would require players to figure out the basic facts of transit network design.