Mini Metro has added Barcelona, and I could not be happier
It's a bit Familia.
Mini Motorways has pretty much taken over my life by this point - I only play Los Angeles, and I generally have the whole place in a snarl up by week eight. But there is still room in my heart for Mini Metro, a game which is actually quite different and distinct, the original mini masterpiece.
And it's been good news for me recently because Mini Metro quietly added Barcelona the other week. I say quietly, but on reading the news I leapt out of bed and said, "JESUS! MINI METRO HAS ADDED BARCELONA!" And then I rushed off and spent a lovely Sunday alone on the sofa properly messing Barcelona up.
There are two things that are brilliant about this news, I think. One of them is that the Mini team has not forgotten Mini Metro. They've just added Barcelona! The second is that Barcelona is not only one of the greatest cities in the world, it's one of those cities I've started to feel quite bad about going to visit, because tourists are sort of shredding the place.
Barcelona is a wonder. Gaudi! Ferran Adria! Santiago Ramon y Cajal! That weird bar where woodland fairies and nymphs hang out. But a friend of mine who has spent a lot of time in Spain - a friend who actually speaks Catalan - explained a while back that AirBnB had started operating in really quiet neighborhoods, filling them with people on stag dos and whatnot. The thing about Barcelona that's so wonderful, I guess, is that it's completely and utterly itself. I want it to stay that way.
But I also don't want to let go entirely. Hence Mini Metro: I load it up and that strangely artificial hook to the harbour is right there. I link stations and soon the whole thing is a wonderfully Catalonian tangle of bright colours. Barcelona! Mini Metro! What a time to be playing games.
