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?

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.

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. :>

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

- 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.