As part of our upcoming 10-year Miniversary, we’re looking back at our games and our community, sharing stories about how Dinosaur Polo Club and the Mini Collection came to be! Keep up to date with us here as we share regular blog posts in the lead-up to our biggest update ever – released July 24th PT!
As with most art, Mini Motorways’ recognizable style started out with an idea (or a few!) that evolved and evolved until it arrived where it needed to. Most artists will tell you that it’s not until you look back at where you started that you can see the clear path to where you arrived. That path is where the mystery lives for so many; that elusive process from start to finish is hidden within the walls of the dev team, and all you see when a game is released is that shiny finished product!
So, we thought, why not lift the veil a bit? Come with us as we take a stroll through Mini Motorways’ early concept art and trace the visual evolution of our second Mini game.
This screenshot of Mexico City shows one of the later iterations of Mini Motorways’ art style, and if you’re a consistent player, you might spot the differences! First, we see diagonal spawning – a feature that doesn’t exist in the current version of Mini Motorways. Secondly, the roads have a dashed line, a small detail we can’t help but notice! Can you spot anything else?
If we time travel a bit further back, we can examine this earlier version of the same city, only this version displays a different take on parking lots.
When we were ideating on how to portray mountains in our maps, this concept art was created before we arrived at the current depiction.
Now to go somewhere entirely different, this adorable and visually pleasing isometric Mini Motorways style was created with none other than the highly-requested overpass feature! You can see so much of the current Motorways art in this concept piece.
Lastly, for no reason other than just a bit of cheeky fun, our Art Director took this concept art and turned it into some stunning monotone pixel art.
We have boundless admiration for our amazing art team and their varied talents. The visual journey of Mini Motorways is something we’re so excited to share with you all, so make sure to check out its latest evolution in The Miniversary Update as we introduce colourful new maps and exciting new features!