Jordan Waite

Have A Go At Building Your Own London Underground

How many times have you had to battle your way through the tube during rush hour, quietly convinced that you'd do a much better job at running the thing? We certainly have, so imagine our glee when we realised we could have a go at building a network of our very own, right from the comfort of our desks.

The aim of Mini Metro is pretty simple: get the shapes (passengers) to where they need to be. The game starts off small, with just a handful of stations to deal with — so far, so good — but things get difficult as the city expands, and you've got to battle to keep things moving. Armed with a limited selection of lines, trains, carriages and tunnels, it's your job to connect the dots and build the most efficient system possible.

Where else would the game start?

Naturally, the first map players take on is that of London, home to the world's first underground railway. And whilst it's not quite the same as running your own London Underground, it's probably the nearest a layman like us can get without a degree in civil engineering. Heck, trying to run this city in 2D is hard enough — if anything, this game has made us feel a little bit sorry for our friends over at TfL, who have the challenge of running a real railway full of real (often angry) people.

Since when did the Central line run south of the river?

Indeed, if you have aspirations of building a perfectly efficient, slick, and aesthetically pleasing metro, then you can leave them at the closing door. It's amazing how quickly things go pear shaped, and you'll soon find yourself drawing out odd-shaped branch lines out of necessity than functional beauty. Here's how our latest game went...

The ability to demolish and redraw entire lines at a whim does help of course — and that's a luxury transport planners only get in the video game world — but it doesn't take long before overcrowding forces us to shut up shop. If stations in this game had names, this one would probably be Oxford Circus...

We only managed 1091 passengers this time, but our top score on the London map is 1435. Think you can do better? Download the game here (iOS / Android) and let us know your score in the comments.