Jan 21 2009
I said… Mini-Games Are Awesome
No wonder developers don’t invest serious time into mini-games. I can barely get people to talk about them! It would be easy to misinterpret this as a lack of interest, but in 17 years of making online games I have rarely been disappointed with the results of a good mini-game. With almost no exceptions (I cannot even remember one off the top of my head), every mini-game I have ever put significant effort into has resulted in massive player enjoyment. Perhaps I need to turn this into more of a question than just praise for mini-games in order to entice a little more commenting! Read on for some specific questions you can answer.
What Makes a Mini-Game Good?
1) A good mini-game is a break from other types of content in the game, not a gateway or barrier to continuing the game. If players don’t like the mini-game, or if they are bad at it, they are going to get very annoyed fast. People commonly look at mini-games as somewhat frivolous, extraneous aspects of the overall game. If something so “minor” (in their eyes) blocks them from enjoying the “real game”, they are going to get angry fast.
2) A good mini-game is fun in its own right, regardless of (and preferably without) any reward. There is too much focus nowadays on the rewards. Making every game into a glorified skinner box is a huge step backwards in game design. I should blog about this topic on its own at some point, but for now I’ll simply leave it as this: the point of mini-games is a distilled bit of pure fun. If your mini-game is only fun because of the reward, delete it and start over.
3) A good mini-game attracts multiple players to the same location so the game becomes a social activity. See my Players Are Content post for more details, but the fact is other players are your best source of unlimited content. If you give players more ways to have fun with each other, you dramatically extend the longevity of your game.
What Are Some of Your Favorite Mini-Games?
I think Trial Arcanus in Threshold is an excellent mini-game . It fits all three of the above criterion. It is not required for access to any other content. It is fun in its own right. It gathers a LOT of players to one place, and it encourages socialization before, during, and after.
Arcomage was an amazingly cool mini-game from Might and Magic 7 and 8. It was so well received that it was eventually released as a stand alone game. There is even an open source project to simulate the game online: MArcomage.
Now that I’ve devoted two different blog posts to Mini-Games, lets hear what you all think. 
I don’t agree that a good mini-game must exist outside of the core of a game. A few of my favorite mini-games are things that made otherwise boring/repetitive tasks more involved, such as:
- Lockpicking in both Oblivion and Fallout 3
- Special/Finishing Moves in God of War (the system seemed to be reused for The Force Unleashed)
- The Judgement Ring from Shadow Hearts: Covenant
- The Romance Mini-Game from Viva Pinata
Cambios, I know you’ve already said that you don’t view lockpicking as a mini-game. I would think that, by the same logic, you would discount some or all of the above list. Regardless, I think it’s a good thing when an added game mechanic takes a click/button press and turns it into something that feels more substantial. Sometimes the added mechanics are poorly designed or painfully out of theme, and that’s sad.
A couple quick favorites that exist outside of core gameplay:
- Sabre Dueling in Threshold
- Pazaak from Knights of the Old Republic
And as a final thought, the Shooting Gallery mini-game in Fable drives me out of my damn mind :). I am awful at it, and it makes me nuts that I can’t get first place :P.
Touching on something Talsek said about puzzles as barriers to game content driving him crazy…
The types of puzzles in any game that drive me crazy are the ones were the solution makes no sense from the information you’re given or the context you find your character in. For example:
- Find the bowling ball, lamp, and rubber duck.
- Put the rubber duck on the table in the library.
- Put the bowling ball in the kitchen sink.
- Shove the lamp up the living room fireplace flue.
- Turn the front door’s knob counterclockwise twice.
- Wallah! The secret chamber in the basement is now revealed.
The types of puzzles that drive me crazy in text games are the Guess The Key Word(s)/Syntax The Developer Decided To Code. Yes, these were the real stumpers in the old Zork games, but I think we’ve come a long way from those days and I’d like to see this type of gimmick go away completely.
Hey, Cambios, how about doing a blog post regarding constructing puzzles in games?
I do think the term ‘mini-game’ is a bit tough to nail down, because it’s used so loosely. I’ve heard the term refer to combat, gear gathering, lockpicking, card games, etc. The Cambios definition is pretty good, keeping the necessary subjectivity intact while still narrowing the scope a bit.
In response to Ducky’s critique of puzzles, I think it transcends mini-games but I understand the sentiment. As a lifelong fan of adventure games, I cut my teeth on puzzles with ridiculously silly/opaque solutions. It’s impossible to play games like Monkey Island, King’s Quest and Leisure Suit Larry without accepting nonsensical puzzles.
A post on puzzles/quests could be fun. They are like mini-games in that they provide a challenge that is often separate from the rest of a MUD. Players have very strong opinions on whether quests should be mandatory or optional, how to guard against cheating, what in-game rewards should come with their completion, etc.
An example of a half-assed minigame is the implementation of “Polymock” in Guild Wars. It is some kind of Pokemon, but serves no real purpose and well, I liked it in the beginning, but it got old and pointless quickly.
Minigames are perfectly implemented if they are part of the game world. Think of crafting as a minigame, or fishing, chopping wood, picking locks. I support all your points except #1, but this depends if you define lockpicking in Fallout/Oblivion as a minigame or not.
While minigames can be an enrichment to the whole game, they cannot fix a boring game. Pearls are wasted in a heap of dung, but shine in a golden setting.
Another one I enjoyed: the airplane shooter mini-game from Jade Empire.
It was built into the main storyline, but was entirely optional. You’d miss out on some bonuses by skipping, but nothing that would be crippling in the end. While it wouldn’t hold my interest for too long as a stand-alone game, it was a fun distraction :).
Two more mini-games come to mind as -almost- awesome. Near-successes should be useful to examine:
- Pub Games from Fable 2
- Poker Dice from The Witcher
I thought the premise of Pub Games was great. The problem is that they just weren’t fun to play :(. In the Xbox world, there is a pretty decent definition of a successful mini-game - something you would pay for and enjoy if it were released separately via Xbox Live Arcade. Fable 2’s Pub Games were released separately, but nobody actually played them unless they bought Fable 2 (Fable 2 pre-orders came with a voucher for Pub Games).
The Witcher is a badass game. The Enhanced Edition only made it better. Poker Dice seems like a really fun mini-game, but is too focused on luck to be fun long-term. It can be a great way to make money if you save before playing and reload after losses, but that’s not very sporting. So close to being good though! I haven’t gotten far enough into the story to know how crippling it’d be to skip Poker Dice altogether, but it certainly is a distinct game that could be played and enjoyed outside the main game.
I totally approve of the new topic image, of course.
Why do you actually think of pretty girls in near-lingerie when you make articles about “minigames”?
Oh my. My mind has been f… fogged up by Freud.
BTW: Why do developers not implement more minigames in their games?
EASY! Because their main product is a MMO and only by definition never finished, but quite often (too often!) totally broken at release. Even if the game is working, there are often issues that cause designers sleepless nights, if we can believe them. I do believe them at least in this regard, even if I doubt everything else.
-> There also needs to be an idea for a minigame!
Then it starts to become even more complicated. You have a big development team. Most MMOs nowadays seem to demand a really large staff, even if the lead designers are usually a smaller group.
Imagine Kalgan and Ghostcrawler debate about class balance, about projects and the many details and problems and future plans for World of Warcraft.
Now, when do they really think about a minigame? They probably have their deadlines and schedules. They need an incentive and an idea to implement this special minigame. It is not easy.
Minigames do not originate from a genius mind, but they are usually mini games people have seen elsewhere! Or adaptions of lightweight fun games.
Imagine me musing about Guild Wars 2 and MMOs of the future, the least thing I think about is… not even minigames, I do not think about minigames!
The incentive to add minigames is rarely given, i.e. a running MMO that has already polish, is “working” and needs some hot new minor details to make it shine even more. This is where minigames usually come into play. Sad people say, they are added once designers start seriously running out of ideas for the main game. :>
I don’t mind an emulated game. Especially if it’s in a different environment with different people. Such kind of makes it a different game. People will make it a unique experience every single time.
I feel that Threshold’s Trial Arcanus a superior example of a unique and created game because no one has a reason to not relate, or to object to it. It’s easy, fast, multi-player, and exciting. It’s also strategic. You can cheat, team up on, or decieve your allies if you decide to do so.
People can even create their own side bets as to who’s going to win.
Cam, have you checked out Whirled, from the Puzzle Pirates people? It’s a lot of things, but one of the driving forces is that it’s a collection of user-created minigames. (The Puzzle Pirates lineage is a pretty obvious one, then.) There are a ton of Flash minigames out there. Bejeweled infiltrated WoW. People like bite-sized gaming, especially if it’s in the framework of a larger game that they also enjoy. They can then fire up their favorite “game”, and either play the main game or the minigame, but still be having fun in one “title”.
The Final Fantasy 8&9 card games are great examples, and they have each been spun off into their own games. Minigames can be great tools for keeping people in your game.
On a more practical side of things, they can also be good ways to utilize dev assets; the smaller dev cycle and smaller resource footprint maps neatly to the end user’s time scheduling. The game can be developed in discrete chunks that still add to the total value (players can play in small chunks that still add to the game value), or devs can work on larger pieces. The inevitable lulls that come when developing the main engine/story/art in a massive game can be filled with smaller projects like this.
Hmm… my Captcha words are “hostile asylum”… coincidence that I’m talking about game development?