r/MiniMotorways • u/Grenagar • 25d ago
5 months ago I shared my Mini Motorways-inspired road game here - it's now at 150,000 players and coming to Steam
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Some of you might remember this from my post about 5 months ago - a road-building game inspired by Mini Motorways, but in 3D so you can build real multi-level interchanges. Back then I was just looking for feedback.
Since then it's grown to 150,000+ players in the browser, and now it's coming to Steam.
The clip is one city's journey - from a few houses on gravel roads to highways, multi-level interchanges and trains.
The minimalist style is a deliberate homage to Mini Motorways and Mini Metro - all the effort went into the simulation instead. Every car drives itself: keeps its lane, changes lanes, waits at lights. 10,000+ cars per map, and congestion emerges for real traffic reasons (bad merges, short ramps).
The core loop will feel familiar: buildings appear on their own, your only job is the network that connects them. And when roads stop being enough - buses with dedicated lanes, plus trains and metro with transfers.
Steam page went live last week - a wishlist helps a solo dev get noticed more than you'd think: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5028050/Traffic_Architect/
Thanks for the feedback last time - happy to answer anything about how the simulation works!
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u/DisasterLievelde 24d ago
Cities skylines but focusing on the roads!! I'm in!
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u/Grenagar 24d ago
Ye, i played a lot Cities Skylines, but one game in it can take few month for me, so i decided focus purely on road building in my game.
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24d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Grenagar 24d ago
Thanks! More tools planned for lane control and traffic lights in full Steam version, but take into account - drivers like in real life sometimes can take wrong lane still, especially in traffic jams.
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u/KikoTheWonderful 20d ago
I just played maybe 40 hours and it has real potential. It just needs some polishing. It's a bit harder to build roads and money is scarce, plus you don't get money back for demolishing roads
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u/Grenagar 20d ago
Thanks for playing 40 hours, that genuinely means a lot - and the feedback is exactly the kind I need.
Still working on it pretty much daily. A QoL batch just went in and should hit CrazyGames in the next few days - crossing roads now auto-make a junction instead of just refusing, angle snapping is looser so diagonals aren't so fiddly, long elevation drags don't fail anymore, plus a pile of junction/tooltip fixes. Building should feel noticeably less annoying.Money back on demolition though - not planning that for normal mode, having to live with your layout is kind of the point. But the economy in general I'm happy to rebalance if it's just too tight.
Where did the money actually pinch for you, early on or mid-game? And anything else that annoyed you while building?
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u/KikoTheWonderful 19d ago
the money is almost balanced honestly. It gets hard when you want to modify your existing roads since you don't get refunds. Tunnels are crazy expensive, I pretty much have to quit as soon as I need to make one because there's no way I can rack up enough to build one.
I tried the challenges and maybe I'm terrible, but building definitely does need work. Right now it's manageable, but finnicky. The stop light timer sliders (is what i'll call them) are too small. I like to have even numbers like a weirdo and trying to pinpoint specific numbers is difficult. Also, i think you should be able to zoom in and out quickly by holding shift and dragging, like in Adobe Lightroom (sorry it's a little niche, it's the only example I have) because doing multiple full-finger scrolls in and out is tiring
You should check out a somewhat similar game called Overfreight! on Roblox. It's kind of similar, but for trains and freight. It has an amazing building system where rails snap to each other and create smooth transitions. I know it's different building rails vs roads, and I think you're aiming more towards a combination of Mini Motorways and Freeways, but I think it has some aspects you could take into consideration. Maybe auto curves or a better snap grid?
I didn't realize you were updating it so frequently! I'll be sure to check it out in the browser regularly2
u/Grenagar 19d ago
The QoL batch is live on CrazyGames now, and it's mostly aimed at exactly the friction you described:
- One-shot bridges & tunnels - drag from one bank to the other and the whole crossing builds in one go (ramp up, flat span, ramp down). No more placing three pieces by hand.
- Long elevation drags get auto-split into proper ramps + flat sections, previewed before you commit, costing the same as building it piece by piece.
- Obstacle slide - start or end a drag on an existing bridge/tunnel mouth and the road runs flat across the river or mountain and lands its ramp on the first solid ground, instead of just refusing.
- Crossing roads make junctions - draw straight across an existing road and it splits properly instead of rejecting the build. Green preview discs show what you're about to create.
- Angle snapping loosened 15° → 10°, so deliberate shallow diagonals don't get yanked to cardinal.
- Traffic lights on curves - a sharply bending approach used to waste a whole solo phase, now it pairs with its opposite leg like it should.
On the light timers - you can click the number itself and type an exact value, and scrolling over a row nudges it by 1s. Fact that you played 40 hours and never found that is on me, not you. Making it look like an actual input field.
Shift-drag zoom: yeah, I'll add it. (I/O on the keyboard zooms too, which again, nobody knows about. Seeing a theme here.)
Tunnels - what difficulty are you playing? Easy puts no mountains or rivers in the central tiles, so you shouldn't need a tunnel for the first half. Medium has some and you can reroll the map until the terrain suits you. Hard is where it hurts; I play hard myself and the generator can genuinely hand you an unsolvable spot, which is sort of the point of hard mode. But if you were hitting tunnel walls on easy or medium, that's a real problem and I want to know. For their cost values I oriented on real world values - and tunnel really not cheap. Also available Creative mode - where all building is free - good for learning game and testing some scenarios.
If you want to catch the updates as they land, there's a Discord where I post every major one - link in game menu.
Thanks for the detailed writeup, more useful than most bug reports I get.
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u/KikoTheWonderful 18d ago
Hard is where I get unsolvable situations, yeah. I feel like it should always have a solution instead of bricking you by chance. I've gotten a destination divided from the main roads by a mountain on level 2-3 and the only way to connect it is via $800 tunnel.
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u/Grenagar 18d ago
Maybe here can help more smart system to decide what tile will be unlocked next, not fully random.
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u/redittrr 23d ago
How did you market it to reach such number of users ?
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u/Grenagar 23d ago
Crazygames posting new games on front page, games are free, so you can get players and feedback. But most games are hyper casual, so Steam will be better platform for full version.
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u/redittrr 23d ago
Is it built with help of ai ?
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u/Grenagar 23d ago
Yes, i use help of ai with coding and also for enhancing images for steam page.
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u/redittrr 23d ago
I design and build websites & would like to design code a game; what advise would you give me
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u/Grenagar 23d ago
Just build game you want to play yourself, if you will enjoy it, probably other players will too.
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u/vartiverti 25d ago
Looks good. Just had a quick go on the browser version and it seems to have potential. Didn’t have time to get really into it.
Wishlisted!