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National | App Store

Mini Metro game takes on te reo Māori

Mini Metro - a puzzle strategy, minimalistic subway layout game, is now available in te reo Māori.

While the game is not new, developer Dinosaur Polo Club who is based in Wellington, say they have wanted to add Māori language translations into the game for a long while and are glad it's finally in.

Peter Curry from Dinosaur Polo Club said they talked to Maru Nihoniho MNZM of Metia Interactive who put them in touch with Raniera Harrison (Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa) who undertook the majority of the translation work, along with Te Waata Cribb.

Curry said, "Video games like ours can feel generically international with nothing identifying where they're from, so it's great to have some more "New Zealand-ness" in there."

Mini Metro's first release was in August 2014, and launched on iOS and Android versions in October 2016.

Since then, the game has been a finalist for a number of prestigious awards and took out the Excellence in Audio IGF Award in 2016.

Today, Mini Metro celebrates its 4th birthday.

So, how do I play the game with te reo?

*  If you're playing on PC, select Options from the main menu in Mini Metro and select "Te Reo Māori" from the language slider.

*  If you're playing on iPhone or iPad, change your iOS language in the Settings app. Open the Settings app, select General, Language & Region, Other Languages, and choose Māori from the list.  The next time you start Mini Metro, it will be in te reo Māori.

*  On Android unfortunately you can't get to it yet!  The translation is all there, but there's no way to select it as te reo Māori isn't a supported language on the Android operating system.  Dinosaur Polo Club will add a manual language selector in the options menu in an update.

Mini Metro is available via the App Store, Google Play for phones and tablets, as well as Steam and other digital retailers for PC, Mac and Ubuntu.