Think You Can Design a Better NYC Subway System? Try It With Mini Metro
The New York subway system is a complex but pretty efficient network that (for the most part) gets us to where we need to get when we need to get there. But that’s not to say there aren’t some neighborhoods that wouldn’t benefit from a few more stations—and better connections from one line to another. Well, if you’re a savvy straphanger that thinks that you can engineer a far more efficient system than the MTA, the game Mini Metro is the perfect place to flex your dormant urban planning skills.
Created by Dinosaur Polo Club, the game starts off by giving you, the player, three stops, each labelled with a shape—a circle, triangle and square. The idea is to draw lines between these stops to create a network that will bring passengers of corresponding shapes to various destinations across a city. “Everything but the line layout is handled automatically; trains run along the lines as quickly as they can, and the commuters decide which trains to board and where to make transfers,” say Mini Metro’s creators.
However, as more stops pop up, more links need to be created, and the challenge becomes doing it in an efficient way that will keep passengers moving at a brisk pace. If an excess number of passengers end up waiting too long at one stop or another, your whole system gets shut down and the game is over. Although, one saving point is that you can you can demolish and build lines anew as you please.
Want to give it a try? You can download the game here; it’s available for Mac, PC and Ubuntu. Mini Metro also lets you flex your subway planning skills in other global cities like London, Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong.
[Via Boing Boing]
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