Anyone who s spent a proper amount of time with Mini Motorways will understand the deep mystery presented by traffic lights. They seem so filled with promise, and yet they don t seem to really do anything when deployed. Mini Motorways is a game about constructing roads in which the traffic lights are, at best, a bit zen, a bit homeopathic. Urban Flow, meanwhile, is a game in which the roads have all been constructed for you, and the traffic lines mean business.
This is a game about dealing with the steady onrush of traffic and making sure everyone gets where they re going without accidents. You ll have an intersection of some kind and a bunch of lights, each hooked up to a specific button. You press the buttons to change the lights from green to red. Keep traffic on red too long, though, and the drivers might get impatient.
What we ve been playing
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What we ve been playing
eurogamer.net - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurogamer.net Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Matt Reynolds: Boss Fight Books (Spelunky)
Boss Fight Books is a series where authors write an entire book about a game they love. The Spelunky entry is unique; penned by the game s own developer, Derek Yu, it serves as an illuminating deep dive into the game s development, from its conception as a freeware PC game to a commercial project to Xbox Live Arcade, a burgeoning era for indies making it big on consoles.
As one of the games which helped usher in the modern roguelike, learning how a game as multifaceted and beloved as Spelunky came to be is a delight, especially in a book that s as easy to read as this; one particular highlight is explaining how procedural generation works, using ASCII-like diagrams to show how segments flow together. It also offers an insight into the realities of development you rarely hear about - publisher relationships, working in a team, and the vital experience you gain from bringing projects to the finish line - that anyone interested in the proce