Freeways is available for Android and iPad. It’s all hugely compelling and if nothing else, you’ll end up with a grudging respect for the designers of real-world road madness. You’ll be baffled by challenges that seem impossible within the confines of a single screen, before imagining into being increasingly ingenious solutions. By the time the initial nine-level map has zoomed out a couple of times – pleasingly showing cars driving around your interconnected network – the demands become stiffer. Even so, there’s sophistication in the foundations. During play, there are echoes of Mini Metro but whereas that game was sleek and shiny, being based on diagrammatic Tube maps, Freeways dispenses with rigidity. It unlocks a kind of immediacy and makes it feel approachable. Mostly, the game’s crude nature is in fact a net positive. That may seem harsh – and the lack of undo does irk, especially on occasions where road connections don’t quite snap but the author explains this was an intentional design decision, intended to stop perfectionism.
One is to add more complexity to a road system that may already resemble someone having hurled grey spaghetti at your screen. Because there’s no undo, you’ve only two choices at that point. It’s then you’ll sometimes watch aghast as your carefully crafted network grinds to a juddering halt. When all routes are connected, a simulation shows a day’s use in blazing fast-forward. As you make connections, cars start doddering about, and you begin to feel a bit smug. Your finger becomes a magic dispenser of virtual concrete, as you fashion roundabouts, speedy straight bits, lurching bends, and flyovers by way of deft two-finger swipes. It’s then a question of drawing the roads.
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