What do you think about minigames in a VN?

[Mastur Bar]

Hello everyone!

I'm working on a new game (that I've even asked for opinions here on the forum about some characters before) and the following question came to mind:
What do players think about the presence of minigames in Adult Visual Novels?

This makes the game better as it enriches the experience?
This makes the game boring?
Is this irrelevant?

I personally like it and have spent time playing AVN minigames made by other developers.
But I would like to have a macro view of this subject and know what most players think.

I did a poll on this and thank anyone who gives an opinion.
Comments on the subject are also welcome.

Best regards!

 

[Jofur]

I don't mind it as long as it's quick and not heavily skill dependent. Anything that helps spice up the often static gameplay is just a bit of fun in my book.
The issue starts cropping up when I have to develop a new skill to complete them(E.G if I actually wanted to play tennis, I would just play a proper tennis game) or they take forever to do, completely breaking the pacing.

 

[sexypeanut]

If the game needs to have them, they should be:
- quick
- easy to understand (it's different from easy to beat)
- thematic
- playable like a game with some thought behind it instead of just thrown in to make the player spend more time in the game

I rather go through dialogue choices than minigames, tbh

 

[fitgirlbestgirl]

I have never seen a minigame I wouldn't have preferred not to be there, at best they're boring and superfluous, at worst they are a major annoyance or something you have to download a mod to disable.

 

[gunderson]

As far as I'm concerned, the market is jam-packed with cookie cutter visual novels right now. Anything a dev can do to set their VN apart from the crowd is a good thing in my book, and that can include the occasional minigame. I just don't think every dev is cut out for it.

Instead of asking yourself if minigames are good in general, though, ask yourself whether the specific minigame you're thinking of would improve the game you're planning and whether or not you can implement it well enough to be worth adding.

For example, I think of Legend of Queen Opala 2 as an excellent combination of an RPG and a porn game. There's strategy, interesting battles, pretty decent porn, and it's as robust a game as it is a porn experience. I'm a little less sold on its sequel (long story short, the game gets so overloaded with feature creep that it gets hard to even keep track of what all you need to do), but Gabe (the dev) definitely has some unique indie porn game dev talent.

On the other hand, there's Astaros3D's My Cute Roommate. Overall, I think the quality of the art and models and the game writ large won the day, but the minigames there were a Goddamn chore. As a hint, if you're thinking of doing a memory/matching game or a find the hidden object game, and especially if you make them larger/take longer to make them more difficult, just fucking don't. Those are garbage.

My recommendation is to only try to implement a minigame if you truly believe that you have the talent to make that minigame fun on its own even without porn. If you can't do that, then probably don't bother.

 

[Hagatagar]

Mini games are similar to commercial breaks on television.
They bring the story to a forced halt, are in most cases very annoying and only tolerable if they are funny or interesting.

But the worst thing is that they are usually pointless gap fillers to extend the game length or pretend that the game is more than just a few lewd pictures.

 

[freedom.call]

I don't play minigames, if tagged I don't download, if not I delete when I get to them.

 

[Niv-Mizzet the Firemind]

Depends on the minigame, how well it's implemented and how relevant it is to the game.
Most of the minigames I've played are pure trash and I usually just cheat away the win or delete the game if it's otherwise average.

The only games here that have good minigames imho are Love of Magic, Vae Victis, the DeLuca family and potentially A robin's flight, when its second version is out.

 

[imelman]

If its done well, I do not mind. If its done in a way it hampers progress/ruins the gameplay/ruins the story, it will be a strong detriment to your game. I'd suggest not doing it at all unless you know what you are doing, since most of them end up what I described - mostly really bad.

In general however, I would prefer focus on main gameplay/story, as the extras like minigames are only needed if the main parts are good, and if you make them optional/good enough to do in the first place, otherwise, expect making the otherwise solid product worse.

 

[DiviDreamer]

Well minigames is always good thing but
it have to be very good addictive user friendly
or very easy and fast
plus minigames need to be justified in way of game scenario because its kind of stupid
to include minigame just because you can)
and this is my imo.

 

[Mastur Bar]

Well, I never expected the player base to hate minigames so much, but that's an interesting feedback to have.

Considering your feedback, I think I'll only include 1 minigame, which is fully skippable and doesn't hampers the main story progress.

As you said above, I think it's cool to include minigames for when the player just wants to be distracted, doesn't want to focus on the main story.
Despite that, I wanted to understand what proportion I should include or not include at all.

Now I have this answer: I will include 1 skippable minigame or none if I change my mind.

Thanks to everyone who commented and voted in the poll.

 

[MrSilverLust]

I'd caution against considering 33 votes plus a few comments the "playerbase" opinion. When your game comes out, these same people most likely won't even see/play it.

While this very small data sample might even reflect the real majority opinion in abstract, in practice the answer most of the time is "it depends". Your game might genuinely be better/more entertaining with the minigames you are planning, we don't know.

My advice would be to not add anything (like minigames) just because it is in some checklist of what you think a game should have, and only do it if it makes sense in the context of your game. You're the best person to judge that.

On the other hand, don't be afraid of experimenting with stuff you think might not be consensual/the majority opinion if you really think it makes your game better. If done right, being bold/innovative pays off.

Good luck with your game

 

[Agrik]

If the player has the opportunity to turn them off, then let there be minigames.
I met a few good minigames, and even if they were really good, the developers managed to ruin everything, forcing the player to play this game dozens of times ...
Some developers simply do not understand for whom they make such games. Some of them can only be passed by a champion in СS Go or PUBG.

 

[sexypeanut]

I met a few good minigames, and even if they were really good, the developers managed to ruin everything, forcing the player to play this game dozens of times ...

OMG yes, that's terrible. Even the coolest minigame becomes a chore if you have to play it EVERY TIME you want to repeat a scene or go somewhere a lot

 

[Mastur Bar]

I'd caution against considering 33 votes plus a few comments the "playerbase" opinion. When your game comes out, these same people most likely won't even see/play it.

While this very small data sample might even reflect the real majority opinion in abstract, in practice the answer most of the time is "it depends". Your game might genuinely be better/more entertaining with the minigames you are planning, we don't know.

My advice would be to not add anything (like minigames) just because it is in some checklist of what you think a game should have, and only do it if it makes sense in the context of your game. You're the best person to judge that.

On the other hand, don't be afraid of experimenting with stuff you think might not be consensual/the majority opinion if you really think it makes your game better. If done right, being bold/innovative pays off.

Good luck with your game

It's really a small sample, but it helps me get a sense of what the target audience thinks, you know?

Well, let me make it a little clearer what I intend to do.

Very briefly, the main story of the game revolves around you being the manager of a Vegas-style bar (A brothel disguised as a bar, to be exact).

Here are some renders for you to have a visual sense.




In this bar, there are some slot machines (See photo above)
What I intend to do is that when the player interacts with the slot machines, he can play a minigame.
With that he can win or lose cash, depending on the result.

The money in this game will be useful to buy items and cosplays for the girls to use during the game, which can unlock new scenes.

The player will not be required to play the minigame, as the money will be earned throughout the main story, but he can speed up the process of earning money, if he wants to, by playing this minigame, understand?

With this Vegas-style bar theme, I also intended to include some deck minigames, as they fit well with this theme, but none of them would be mandatory.
I just think they would work well to create that bar/casino environment.

But according to your feedback, I don't think it's worth having all this work, as the audience won't even like it.
I think about just including the slot machine minigame, or maybe not even that one after all.

 

[moskyx]

Well, then this seems a perfect example of a game where minigames might make sense. Throw in some variables to check how many times the player has tried his luck and add some flavour text according to it and it could be even a fun entertainment for the sandbox part (I assume it will be a sandbox?)

 

[MrSilverLust]

It's really a small sample, but it helps me get a sense of what the target audience thinks, you know?

Well, let me make it a little clearer what I intend to do.

I’ve never delve much into minigames myself, so take anything I write with a grain of salt, but, to me, that seems a good implementation for minigames. Firstly, it isn’t meant to extend gameplay by forcing players to mindless grind for some resource like money. Instead, it seems to help to decrease grinding by being an alternative way to make money. Secondly, it is thematically appropriated to have those optional minigames in such a bar, which increases immersion and makes the place feel more alive and real. Throw in some extra rewards besides money, like unlocking extra pics in the gallery, and it might be a good way to let the player immerse himself in the bar you’re creating.

The question is how many players would play them more than a few times, and if that is worthy of your development time or if it is better spent working on something else.

My advice here would be to, if you want to have the minigames in, treat them as extra game polish that is there to increase immersion and have them ready before the 1st release. Right now you can more easily afford to spend time polishing the game with these kind of things that only a fraction of the players might pay attention to. Once it’s publish, your fans/supporters will expect regular updates with lewd content (which is what they play the game for) and it will be harder to justify spending time on minigames rather than story development/sex scenes.

 

[Mastur Bar]

Well, then this seems a perfect example of a game where minigames might make sense. Throw in some variables to check how many times the player has tried his luck and add some flavour text according to it and it could be even a fun entertainment for the sandbox part (I assume it will be a sandbox?)

It won't exactly be a sandbox, but a few places will be possible to be explored.
I decided to call this feature Exploration Mode.
Example: You are reading the main story, but there comes a point where you need to find an item in order to proceed further in the story, so you will enter in the Exploration mode.
A good example of a game that does this is Fresh Women, so I decided to use it as a source of inspiration.

The shops (common items and cosplays) will be the only places freely exploreable.
You can access them by clicking an icon on the screen and then going back to the point in the story where you were before when you done shopping.

This feature will also be used to unlock some collectibles, which will unlock new images in the gallery.

I’ve never delve much into minigames myself, so take anything I write with a grain of salt, but, to me, that seems a good implementation for minigames. Firstly, it isn’t meant to extend gameplay by forcing players to mindless grind for some resource like money. Instead, it seems to help to decrease grinding by being an alternative way to make money. Secondly, it is thematically appropriated to have those optional minigames in such a bar, which increases immersion and makes the place feel more alive and real. Throw in some extra rewards besides money, like unlocking extra pics in the gallery, and it might be a good way to let the player immerse himself in the bar you’re creating.

The question is how many players would play them more than a few times, and if that is worthy of your development time or if it is better spent working on something else.

My advice here would be to, if you want to have the minigames in, treat them as extra game polish that is there to increase immersion and have them ready before the 1st release. Right now you can more easily afford to spend time polishing the game with these kind of things that only a fraction of the players might pay attention to. Once it’s publish, your fans/supporters will expect regular updates with lewd content (which is what they play the game for) and it will be harder to justify spending time on minigames rather than story development/sex scenes.

I thought about this possibility of minigames unlocking some images in the gallery, but I'm afraid this might be frowned upon by players as it kind of forces you to play the minigame if you want to finish the game 100%. I am in doubt whether I should do this.

Well, it's no use rushing the release of v0.1, as it's the most important version of any game, so I'll only release it when I have a good amount of content, by then those other topics like game mechanics and minigames will be done.

 

[Wildman Dev]

Reading this thread when you're working on a minigame for your own project is not a good idea...

 

[KitsuneYin]

i think be positive include minigames on VN , if are not alot and not cause probllems with the story