Fri Dec 12 2025
Updated age ratings
Maglev Metro is a masterclass in digital board game adaptation. Thunderworks Games has managed to translate the complex logistics of building a futuristic transit system into a perfectly optimized mobile experience. The 'programming' mechanic—where you assign robots to specific actions—is intellectually stimulating and rewards long-term planning over impulsive moves.
The UI is clean and minimizes the 'clutter' often found in board game ports, making it easy to see the city layout even on a smaller screen. The solo mode is particularly strong, offering a challenging AI that forces you to optimize your routes efficiently. If you are a fan of 'engine-building' games like Terraforming Mars or Ticket to Ride, this provides a deeper, more technical challenge that feels incredibly rewarding when your high-speed trains finally start humming across the board.
Official digital adaptation of the board game
Pass-and-play and solo AI modes
Beautifully rendered 3D board and tiles
Detailed interactive tutorial
Prioritize getting your third robot as quickly as possible. Having more actions per turn is vital for laying tracks before your opponents block off key city corridors.
Players place transparent tiles to build routes. By picking up and delivering passengers, you earn more robots which you 'program' into your player board to increase your speed and capacity.
This version primarily focuses on solo play and local pass-and-play with friends.
Im enjoying the app so far. The tutorial is nice and the interface is very simple and easy to navigate. I have had a few times where my passengers have disappeared while loading/unloading if I try and look at the playerboard. Also there is no way to save a game so that it can be returned to later. Please add this feature! Most mobile gamers don’t finish an entire game session in one sitting.
I just bought this 30 minutes ago and regret it. The links to the tutorial videos did not work, and the tutorial, instead of explaining basic concepts like “units per action”, made me go through programmed movements. I had no idea why I could do what I could do until I downloaded the rules from BoardGameGeek. Then, the game requires you to be able to discern differences between hues on the player board that weren’t obvious to me, and there was no option to show the text of hues so I could figure out what robot/commuter was needed for which spot. (Obvious in some cases, but I apparently could not discern between a silver outline and a turquoise outline.) Not a user friendly experience for me.
I haven’t touched this game in about 2 years due to bugs with pass and play mode. I was happy to see there have been updates, so decided to try it again. The old bug (reported) had to do with pass-and-play and leaving the app mid-game and continuing later. Pass and Play has the same bugs as before. This time, the second player became an AI (was a person). Additionally, colors are very hard to distinguish for robots and people. In the board game this was fixed with silk-screening. Not here. Disappointing that the game remains for sale when it is not being maintained.
It’s a great implementation of the board game, but it has some game-stopping bugs: if I switch out to read my email and news for a few minutes, my game is lost without a trace; a couple of times it crashed, saying it was reporting a fatal error to the publishers; and once when I had pulled the last passengers, the bot’s turn froze without event the “thinking” indicator. I look forward to these getting fixed. UPDATE: Found another. Bot player built a track that cut off another of its tracks, then game froze.
Interface and gameplay are great! Clear and usable on both the iPad and the phone. But the A.I. is really weak. I’m new to this game, never played it before. I’ve played three games through against the Robot opponent. Lost the first, then won the next two easily. Add a higher level opponent and this will push it to four or five stars
Implementation isn’t bad as a whole, but I’ve found a game-breaking bug: the second coral station can’t be built sometimes (once happened to a bot, once to me). When I drag the second coral from the selection area, the previously placed coral station disappears, then re-appears when I stop dragging.
There’s a lot of potential here, but for now it’s very buggy, you can’t undo many actions before it’s the end of your turn, and if you leave a game for awhile it disappears.
Lots of careless problems, like buttons labeled "Button" so you don't know which one is "OK" and which one is "Cancel." Tutorial will not teach you how to play the game, and I am pretty sure the "This is your last turn" warning appears every turn.