For the past year, I've been playing games I've found here and, while i have enjoyed most of them, I have given up on a lot of games because of the need to play mini games that have no significant payout. I am wondering why developers of these games think that spending hours doing mindless mini games is better than enjoying the content they create? There are a lot of games that I would play, but once I find there are mini games involved, I generally pass, or only download games that have cheat mods to avoid the mini games. Do developers really think we enjoy hours of mini games?
Are minigames necessary?
- Thread starter sneakypriest
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- May 25, 2017
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Necessary? No. Can they be a bit fun? Yes. Are they usually? No. They usually just wind up being intrusive.
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Because they want you to spend hours doing something instead of consuming content AKA it's content padding. They do it because content is sparse, it's as simple as that.
I did like the minigame in between humanity being a fan of JRPG's / turn base games I enjoyed it alot.
I make my minigames for several reasons. Most importantly, because I enjoy making them. The usual routine of adding text and visuals can be pretty grindy. Having something that requires more coding breaks up the monotony.
Secondly, I want my game to require a bit of thinking and puzzling because that's what I enjoy myself and it's supposed to be a detective/mystery/alchemy kinda game, and appropriate puzzles is one way to add to that. I always try to make the minigames have a meaning in the game, like solving alchemical symbols, or identifying parts of a distilling apparatus, to also add to the story and general atmosphere.
Not everyone likes minigames, but if done well and suiting the game as a whole, and not too hard, I think they can be a good way to add some variety to the players. How fun is it to just click and read? I prefer something different now and then.
Secondly, I want my game to require a bit of thinking and puzzling because that's what I enjoy myself and it's supposed to be a detective/mystery/alchemy kinda game, and appropriate puzzles is one way to add to that. I always try to make the minigames have a meaning in the game, like solving alchemical symbols, or identifying parts of a distilling apparatus, to also add to the story and general atmosphere.
Not everyone likes minigames, but if done well and suiting the game as a whole, and not too hard, I think they can be a good way to add some variety to the players. How fun is it to just click and read? I prefer something different now and then.
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- May 25, 2017
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You know, I see this kind of thing everywhere, but in the year I've been a dev I believe it less and less. After everything I've read in the dev forum, I can say with confidence that 9/10 times they just think they'll be fun little minigames. Of course, from my perspective as a player 9/10 times they're wrong. Intrusive minigames suck chodes.
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Because its good for stretching playtime and making it look like the game has tons of content and shit. (Hello Summertime Saga lol.)
That said, minigames can be fun if enough effort and thought is put in them and they give some solid rewards or/and exclusives.
Hell, you could even hide some hidden quests behind minigames and stuff like that.
People just aren't very creative, and so most of those minigames turn out boring as shit and are basically a massive waste of time.
most of the things we put in our games are the purely for our own amusement. that amusement is only in a very small part in playing them and mostly in MAKING them, so that side is never visible for the player.
that's why you can't talk almost anyone out of a stupid idea. even when they're asking should they do it, every negative answer is met with rationalizing why the reason isn't valid. people make the games they make and there's nothing we can do to stop them.
that's why you can't talk almost anyone out of a stupid idea. even when they're asking should they do it, every negative answer is met with rationalizing why the reason isn't valid. people make the games they make and there's nothing we can do to stop them.
- Jun 7, 2018
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This does not need to be mutually exclusive. I don't have any statistics, but I feel most adult devs start with rough outline of a story they want to tell, and not a fun MVP (looking at all the VNs and RPGM games). What happens next is that they look at Chapter I, lets call it that, and say hmmmmm, this feels a bit plain (because it is). So they add a minigame. And a human mind is a funny thing, it's very good at rationalizing decisions it has already made.
- May 25, 2017
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What I mean is, it's not done with malicious intent. They think the minigames add to the experience. It's not really an effort to pad runtime, though I won't outright deny the possibility.
- Jun 7, 2018
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I think it is an effort to extend playtime, and it is not malicious if we're talking about a typical game available here on f95. (In an adult gacha, yes that would be 1000% malicious intent, but we'll leave those aside).
They just think a good game should offer a decent amount of play time, and longer = gooder.
- May 25, 2017
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I've never heard a more vomit inducing phrase then "adult gacha".
I seriously doubt the whole concept of padding playing time, it just makes no sense to me. there's no lack of people taking 2 years to show up with 2 weeks of work and it never seems to make any difference to their income.
and like who would even see the addition of a minigame as time-padding? they're mostly skippable and take from seconds to minutes to play through. no minigame is gonna add hours to the playing time.
- Jun 7, 2018
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They do-do it to pad out time though, maybe not every game, or every dev does it, but it definitely exist in some games to pad out time. And then along the way when there is a decent amount of content the minigame sticks out and makes the game seem disjointed at points.
These days though what I've found is games are increasingly using minigames as part of the progression, like if you can't complete this minigame then you can't move forward with the story and there is no way around it or to skip it. That is what I hate the most.
Instead of making minigames maybe that effort should be pushed to actually make a actual game with game mechanics than trying to create a visual novel that plays more like a game.
These days though what I've found is games are increasingly using minigames as part of the progression, like if you can't complete this minigame then you can't move forward with the story and there is no way around it or to skip it. That is what I hate the most.
Instead of making minigames maybe that effort should be pushed to actually make a actual game with game mechanics than trying to create a visual novel that plays more like a game.