Game Reviews

Freeways review - An excellent puzzler that makes directing traffic a fun challenge

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| Freeways
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Freeways review - An excellent puzzler that makes directing traffic a fun challenge
|
| Freeways

If you've even been stuck in traffic and wished you could just redraw the lanes to your liking, Freeways lets you play traffic engineer in this surprisingly complex puzzler.

Lane Flow

At a glance, it seems too easy. In each of your first nine levels (and the others that unlock after that batch), all you need to do is connect all the highways and buildings, be it a crisscross of lanes or a single factory and several highway exits.

Creating lanes is as easy as dragging your finger on-screen, with buttons that let you raise and lower the road to build overpasses. It's simple and intuitive without sacrificing nuance.

Gridlock

But Freeways chuckles at your first impressions. A pair of straight lanes and exits may work for the first few levels, but the increasing rush of cars and the more crowded maps prove to be too hectic for such simple designs.

You have to consider each challenge with the foresight of a traffic engineer, placing roundabouts, cloverleafs, knots of interweaving overpasses that fill up the screen.

You can't be too generous with your road placement though; Freeways scores the efficiency of your designs. Does traffic move too slowly? Is too expensive due to your crazy system of multi-level highways? The highest efficiency scores are a test of creativity and smart planning, although your roadways might end up looking like a wild mess of squiggles than a proper highway.

Weird quirks of the car AI may sometimes see vehicles take odd unexpected routes, and the lack of an undo option can be frustrating on more complex maps, but Freeways' simple yet satisfying complex traffic challenges and sense of experimentation in its easy-to-use mechanics make it an addictive addition for any fans of unique puzzle games.

Freeways review - An excellent puzzler that makes directing traffic a fun challenge

Simple strategies blossom into complex interweaving solutions in this challenging puzzle game
Score
Christian Valentin
Christian Valentin
Christian always had a interest in indie games and loves to give the games that so easily go unnoticed the attention they deserve