I shouldn't design a transit system, ever
I'm sure I've written about Mini Metro before, but just in case - Mini Metro is a smartphone game by the game publishing company Dinosaur Polo Club. The short description for Mini Metro is that you are in charge of designing a functioning transit system for a particular city. You start with building your own version of London's Tube system, and go on to different cities around the world.
Each city has its own set of achievements to unlock other parts of the game. I believe each city has three; at least the ones that I've encountered have had only three. Until recently I thought I got everything I could out of the game - I unlocked all available cities and I had nothing left to unlock. But when I tried to switch modes to "Extreme" (a mode where any lines you lay down are locked, and you can't change them), I saw that I had to get a specific achievement to unlock it. Well. Challenge accepted!
The first was for London, to reach 1000 passengers using only one tunnel. This one took me a while but I finally got it:
I'll be completely transparent: sometimes when you get your first three stations, they're positioned around the river in a formation that makes it impossible to only use one tunnel, so you have to restart. It took me a while to realize this, and I thought it was an impossible goal. I did some reading, and found some videos, and I went back to work. So now my achievements for London on Normal mode are done.
Next up was Paris:
The challenge on this level was to reach 1300 passengers while only using three lines. As you can see, it got messy very quickly. And, the map likes to spawn stations in awkward, far-away spots that require you to stretch your lines to their limits. I think my green and yellow lines are passable, but the blue line is madness.
I'm trying to get my first achievement for New York currently, which is to deliver 1000 passengers. My best so far is just under 900. There's another challenge after that, but I don't quite understand it - I'll have to look it up. But given the trouble I have with 1000, it might take me a while to get the next one regardless.
I see that they also have a game called Mini Motorways that seems to be about designing roads in a city, kind of a SimCity-Lite. It looks fun and I should buy it.
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