Do I like citybuilders such as Cities: Skylines and SimCity 4, or do I simply like roadbuilders? I spend most of my time in both those games tweaking the network of roads and junctions that form the veins of my cities, after all, and attempting to solve traffic jams via public transport and simulation-expanding mods.
Enter Junxions, a traffic engineering game which focuses entirely on the simulation and construction of roads, railways, and pedestrian walkways, right down to the coding of the traffic lights. It's aiming for a 2025 release and you'll find its trailer below.
Junxions' main mode takes you through a series of handcrafted maps where you have to use the tools available to fix traffic problems around the limitations of pre-existing structures. You'll need to account for traffic laws, as well as complications (and benefits) such as bus lanes, bike lanes, tram tracks, and all manner of pedestrian crossings.
There's also a sandbox mode, for freeform experimentation, and perhaps most interestingly the ability to enter real world coordinates and generate a map based on a real world location. If you want to generate a map based on your hometown, and fix that forever-clogged junction on your commute to work, you can do so.
The Steam page also says the game is built with "full support for modding", including sharing maps, traffic solutions and importing custom models.
I am genuinely thrilled this exists. People forget that Colossal Order, before making Cities: Skylines, cut their teeth on a similarly focused traffic sim, Cities In Motion. Also I'm from the roundabout-obsessed UK. We fear they may ensnare us forever, and we celebrate them, as the UK Roundabout Of The Year award was named just today. I look forward to finding out whether Junxions is one to die for or celebrate when it releases in 2025.
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