Metro Manager

Five shifts in the controller’s chair

A real-time game about running an underground railway. You are the duty controller on the Meridian Line. Keep the trains moving and keep the Board on your side, or be relieved of duty by Friday.

Needs a laptop or desktopThe game is worked with a mouse on a wide screen. It will not play on a phone, so save this page for when you are at a computer.

Play free on itch.io

A free prototype. A full week takes about half an hour. It plays in a desktop browser with a mouse, and it has sound.

Monday’s first call, as it plays. A train fault, a reset that works 75 times in 100, and the stamp.

The trains run themselves. You are there for when they don’t.

The Meridian Line is an underground railway with a core through the city, a junction and two branches. Seventeen trains work it on their own. Your job starts when something goes wrong.

An incident slip from the game. Train fault at Kingsgate: train 6, eastbound, a traction fault. The driver says a reset will probably clear it. Four options: try a reset, about 3 minutes, works 75 times in 100; send Team Red, 3 minutes to get there then about 3 to fix it; send Team Blue, 8 minutes to get there; take it out of service, about 2 minutes to empty it and the train is lost.
A slip, as it lands on your desk.
On your deskIncident slips

Every incident is a gamble with the odds on the table

A faulty train, a passenger taken ill, a signal failure, an unattended bag, water on the track. Each slip gives you the facts, the odds and the options, and never a recommendation.

First reports can be wrong. The driver’s view of a fault is right four times in five. So are the staff who think the bag is somebody’s shopping.

The clock slows while a decision is waiting. It never stops. When the truth comes out the slip is stamped in front of you.

Called itBurned
Part of the line diagram on match night. Lit trains run through Museum, Southbank and Market Cross to Elm Junction, where the line forks to Northgate and to the Stadium. Parkside, on the Northgate branch, is ringed in red and labelled Unattended bag.
Wednesday, match night. An unattended bag at Parkside. One lamp on a platform is ten passengers waiting.
On the panelYour hands on the railway

Then you work the line around it

Click a train to hold it, take it out, or turn it back before the end of the line. Click a station to hold the gates before a platform fills. Send out a spare from the sidings, dispatch a response team, or send more of the service down one branch.

You are scored in lost customer hours. An hour is lost when people are left on a platform after their train should have come, sit on a train that is not moving, or are turned away from a shut station.

The Board sets a limit for each shift, and their confidence in you rises and falls with your calls. At zero you are relieved of duty and the week ends.

One new complication a day

Monday teaches you the desk. After that each shift is two hours of railway time, about six minutes of yours, and each one leans towards its own kind of trouble.

  1. Mon · am

    An ordinary Monday

    A quiet hour with a walkthrough of the panel and three incidents to learn on.

  2. Tue · pm

    Heavy rain

    Wet rails, slow doors, and signals that fail in the wet.

  3. Wed · pm

    Match night

    A sell-out at the Stadium. The crowd travels against the evening flow.

  4. Thu · am

    Trade fair

    Record crowds for the fair at Kingsgate, on top of the morning peak.

  5. Fri · pm

    Heatwave

    Hot trains. People faint, units overheat, tempers go.

Tuesday’s daily briefing from the game, headed Heavy rain. It lists what to expect: signal failures, water on the track, a call from the managing director when something drags on, and a newspaper editor travelling from Kingsgate to the Stadium. The Board’s limit for the evening is 700 lost customer hours.
Tuesday’s briefing, read at the planning desk before the shift.
Between shiftsThe planning desk

A briefing and a small budget

Before each shift you read the day’s briefing and fill in a requisition: a third spare train, a third response team, a fitter riding the line, shuttles for match night. There is £40k for the week and it has to last until Friday.

Some shifts start with a question before a wheel has turned. A train was covered in graffiti overnight. Do you run it as it is, hold it for cleaning, or send a spare in its place?

Every week is different. The incidents, their times and places, and the truth behind each one are drawn fresh each time you start. One week a day is the same for everyone who plays it, so scores out of 1,000 can be compared. Your week and your best scores are saved in your browser. There is no account and nothing to install.

Then the hot debrief

After every shift the report shows what each incident cost. Then it replays the shift from the moment you answered, once for each answer you didn’t give.

A debrief headed Under the limit, for Monday’s morning peak. 200 lost customer hours against a limit of 350 and 22,186 journeys made. Two calls are stamped Called It. Board confidence is 58 of 100. A What If table says that for the train fault at Kingsgate, sending a team would have cost about 61 hours more and taking the train out of service about 556 hours more.
A good Monday. Taking the failed train out of service would have cost about 556 hours more.

Or it goes like this

A debrief headed Relieved of duty, for Wednesday’s match night. One call is stamped Burned: the bag at Parkside was real and the station was open for four minutes beside it. Board confidence is 0 of 100. The What If table says evacuating the station would have cost about 16 hours fewer.
A bad Wednesday. The bag at Parkside was real, and the station was open beside it.

This controller took the first option on every slip and was out of the chair by match night. See whether you can make it to Friday.

Play free on itch.io

Metro Manager is a prototype: one week of play, built to find out whether running a railway in real time is a game for anyone other than me. If you play it, tell me where you got confused and whether you wanted another week. Comments on the itch.io page are the best place, or email [email protected].