What mini-games would you like to play?

This question thread existed in https://rpgmakermv.co/threads/what-mini-games-would-you-like.77/ by Tsukihime, I know. However, I would like to ask this community member the same question to see what are you thinking?

Most RPGs, I had played, has at least one silly mini-game which provides a player a break for the main story. I think minigames would like the town or the castle less boring.

If your town or castle are boring, then perhaps you need to think more about why that is so, because a mini-game isn't really going to change that, not least because not everyone likes mini-games or will like the one you have chosen to include, in which case the problem you are trying to solve will remain.

Well Pokémon HGSS had this amazing thing called Pokéathlon or something. It was a series of various sport-based minigames you could take part in choosing three Pokémons. Each Pokémon also had particular stats to help them in these kind of games.

It is explained much in detail here.
The only problem with implementing this kind of minigames is probably about their not being turn-based.
If you were to event something like this instead of script it, would it still be enough perfoming? Not sure about that. Just go with a simple card game in that case.

Well, I don't.

As long as this mini-game doesn't hinder me from progressing main story, it's alright. So the first rule of minigame I might want to play is it should be optional. The second is make it alive. There was a casino (iirc) in the game Landstalker where you play minigame up to the point the host is tired of you and they refuse to let you play because you always win, and I was amused on how the npc reacted.

The kind of minigame doesn't matter. But I remember in a certain Bomber game (I forgot which one), there was a casino or sort of it where you fight using 'RNG'. You choose the combination of "Attack, Defend, and Special". And your enemy roll the same. It was satisfying when you picked the correct pattern and beat out the opponent. But again, this minigame is optional.

None. Mini games exist in to sell

OFFICIAL STRATEGY GUIDES

Focus on making an RPG with solid core gameplay mechanics.

None. Make it optional if you include one in. Otherwise if I want to play an action sequence I'll go fire up Doom, not an RPG.

@Kes, the sentence about your town or castle are boring. This is a misunderstood, I just write that to make my more full of words that is so, sorry. I would to ask you, one question that so: what mini games do you to see when you are playing any rpgs ?
@FoxySeta, thank you for your wisdom. I think the card game in RPG maker MV is hard act to follow right now. I also like a card game too.
@TheoAllen, thank you for your great ideas.
@Eschaton, thank you for your feedbacks. That is might be true. However, many popular RPG such as final fantasy, chrono trigger, Dragon quest have mini games.
@bgillisp, thank you for your thought , If I made a game, I will not force a player to do minigame because everyone has their like and dislike.

Mini-games should either be optional or integral to your game (if you use any), whatever the case they should however make sense and the player needs to be aware of them without pressuring them into playing (enticing, yes... forcing, no).

Always keep in mind there are people who love mini-games and there are people who loathed them.

I'v always liked fishing mini-games, lottery mini-games, wack-a-mole, etc. All the oldskool RPG's tropes I guess lol
That's my humble opinion on the matter anyway :)

@Kupotepo : Two things to remember though. First, just because everyone else did it doesn't mean you should. Maybe the players actually hate those mini-games in FF, Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger, but liked the rest of the game? For example, I know there were some adventure games in the 80's that were popular, but no one liked the mini-games (Space Quest I and the slot machine game is one classic one that as far as I can recall, no one liked that mini-game, but the game itself went on to become a hit and have 5 sequels despite that).

As for the FF games, one thing I remember is most of the FF mini-games I remember were completely optional (with few exceptions, I do recall ff7 had one that wasn't), and even had silly things happen if you totally butchered it. For example I remember the parade mini-game where you got silly responses from the announcer if you didn't do things correctly. That one I didn't mind as it didn't matter at all if I butchered it, and also the game even wrote in responses if you were just really bad at it.

That's what I think you need to emulate if you want to put mini-games in your game.

Edit: I should add one more thing though...I'd suggest you make your game first. Unless the mini-games are central to your story, make the entire story first, and implement it, leaving gaps or placeholder things where you want the mini-games. Then if you decide they still belong, add them in last. That way you don't waste 360 days making a fishing game just to decide you hate it.

@Finnuval, thank you for your inputs.
@bgillisp, thank you for your feedback. Great ideas on making the main game first. Yah, I am in the process of writing the game plots.
@Kes, thank you for your opinions and your insight. I agree that mini-games are not the main features. Yah, a gameplay mechanic system, and story are the most important in RPG.
@Vox Novus thank you for sharing your personal experience. I agree that mini-game should not be taking a long time out of players.

In reply to your specific question, I've only seen the same things that have been mentioned here, fishing games, races, slot machines, card games, whack-a-mole, Simple Simon, quizzes, etc. etc.

I am, however, one of those who dislikes mini-games, so I don't bother with them as a player and never include them in any of my games, even as optional content. I would much rather spend my limited time on other aspects.

Most here have sort of said it but, mini games shouldn't be forced; bgillisp mentioned a nice example though. You can have mini game like segments included that are sort of breaks but don't need to be won and can add their own elements whether you win or not.

To be honest though, I'm not going to say I dislike mini games being in a game either; I think a well made one will appeal well to players that like that type of mini game (but that isn't going to be the entire player base either). I'm sort of not personally a fan of things like slot machines; its over-used as a mini-game in rpgs and I find them generally not fun to do (some people love slot machines though I guess; I'm not much of a fan of them in real life either). Simple fishing mini games don't appeal to me either; the only fishing mini games I've enjoyed have been in Zelda games.

I tend to prefer card games or other dedicated fleshed out mini-games. Using FF as an example, I liked blitzball a lot in FF X (its also tied into the lore and culture of the people of spira) and the two card game iterations in VIII and IX. VII was a bit of hodge podge for mini-games, I ended up really liking the snowboarding game; heck even my father would come in and play that every now and then with me back in the day just for fun. The choccobo racing or raising seen in various games is generally fairly enjoyable and is often something the player can get behind because it let's them explore the world more and faster and discover new rewards. Hunting in 12 had its own sort of back story and was more like a subquest with its own storyline and was related to combat aspects; I didn't care for the fishing elements though in 12's fishing mini game.

One definite take away is that these mini games are all included in games that stand on their own; they were games that were successful on their own merits and appealed to people because of them generally being viewed as quality rpgs by many. The mini games were like decorations on a cake; they might be nice and give it a little extra appeal but you still need to have a quality cake to put them on.

I think that the best minigames tend to:

• Engage the player
  • avoid overuse of menus or text
  • challenge the player to either think strategically, move around, or both
• Allow the player to skip, ignore, or lose them
  • it's nice if the minigame ties into the story, but never make it mandatory to win in order to progress in the game
  • if it's vital to the plot that the player wins a minigame once in order to progress, make that instance of the minigame so easy that it's trivial, and allow the player to find harder, optional versions of it elsewhere
• Utilize skills the player is already using
  • often it will go in-depth with a single skill and add creative twists to the way you'd normally use it
  • see below for a lot of great examples of this - most of my favorite minigames do this in some way
• Tie into the game's other gameplay systems
  • RPGs offer so many ways to do this, such as awarding items or gaining favor with factions
  • you can even branch the plot based on the result of a minigame, or change properties of an upcoming boss battle
  • additionally, you can even allow characters' stats to affect minigames
• Tie into the game's story, characters, places, or worldbuilding
  • the less it feels like a random game thrown in for the sake of being there, the better
  • allowing the minigame to be played in many different places throughout your game can be helpful, especially if each version of the minigame is a little different (e.g. different fish to catch, different local rules in a card game)
• Be easy to control
  • best done by either re-using controls from core gameplay, or designing interesting games using as few buttons as possible

Here are a few of my favorite minigames - from RPGs and elsewhere:

• Super Mario RPG's "Booster Hill" - A character named Booster kidnaps Peach, and you have to chase him up a hill while barrels fly down at you. Utilizes a lot of the timed jumping and movement mechanics that you've been using in the game's dungeons. You can't actually catch him, but you get really nice items if you perform well. It's required to play this minigame once, but even if you fail spectacularly, you can proceed in the game. SMRPG has a ton of several nifty minigames.
• Battle Chef Brigade's "Restaurant" side-job - In this minigame you're a short-order cook; instead of mixing around flavor gems with the goal of matching 3+ to create high-level dishes, you instead need to create specific patterns of gems as quickly as possible, and the orders fly at you every few seconds. The more you create, you more money you earn.
• Final Fantasy 8's "Triple Triad" - A relatively simple trading card game played on a tic-tac-toe like grid, where you try to flip opponents' cards by playing cards of higher value next to them. What elevates this game from adequate to brilliant is the tight and coherent way it ties into the larger FF8 game. The game can be played anywhere in the world (with each NPC bringing different decks to the table), and the winner of each match gets to take a card from the loser. Outside of the minigame, in the larger FF8 game, you can permanently destroy any card you own for a benefit unique to the card - some provide items, some provide charges of spells, and some even grant you a new Guardian Force summon that you can use.
• Bastion's Archery courses - Shooting is one of the trickier skills in Bastion; these challenging courses are a fun way to practice shooting on the run. Completely optional, but offers nice rewards and it's a lot of fun.
• Super Smash Bros.' "Smash the Targets" - Targets are laid around courses that are different for each character; you have to use each character's skills to destroy the targets as quickly as possible without falling off the course. These often require both tricky mechanical skills (precisely timing a double-jump) as well as creative problem-solving (running yourself into an obstacle at a certain angle to get a boost toward a target).
• Star Ocean 2's "Iron Chef" ripoff - One of my favorite minigames of all time, this optional minigame places you in an arena against a rival chef with a hilariously overwrought introduction, and has you run to ingredients tables and then race to cook as many "good" dishes as you can with the ingredients you picked up. The actual cooking taps into the standard menu-based Item Creation that the game already offers, which uses characters' cooking talent, types of ingredients, and RNG luck to determine what you create.
• Tales of the Abyss' stealth segment - At one point in the game you're on the lam, and need to avoid being spotted by guards posted all around the world. You basically use the standard methods you've been using all game to avoid Visual Encounters, but the stakes are a little higher. If you're caught, you have to kill the guards that spotted you in a standard battle (not too hard), and your rewards at the end of the segment drop.
• Persona 3's "Tarot Game" - Sometimes, after winning a battle, the player would be shown several tarot cards that would then flip over and move around each other in the style of a Shell Game. Each card would have certain benefits; one might award a new Persona to use; others might increase the gold or EXP you earn from the battle, or heal the party a bit. The objective was to keep track of the card you want, and choose it once the cards stop moving.
• Madden NFL's "Two Minute Drill" - A bonus mode available from the main menu, you are tasked with bringing a team to the end zone as many times as you can within two minutes of game time. More fun than it sounds, because it encourages you to go wild and try passing on 4th and 40.
• Guild Wars: Factions' "Challenge Missions" - Completely optional missions opened up at certain points which used a High Score system rather than a traditional Pass/Fail raid structure, and slightly changed a few mechanics to make these raids more 'gamelike'. For example, a challenge mission in the Kaineng Sewers gave the team 10 minutes to destroy as many mutant monsters as they could in the miasma-filled sewers, respawning mobs after a few minutes so that the team could eventually double back for more kills, and adding 1 minute back to the timer each time you took down a boss-level monster. And a challenge mission in the Kurzick Forest tasked your team with defending several ancient trees in a wide area as an infinite number of increasingly powerful waves of Luxon (the opposite faction) enemies poured in and tried to destroy both the trees and you! - with points earned for each second you can keep the trees alive. If you achieve one of the highest scores of the day worldwide, you earn big rewards.
• Neopets' "Dice-a-Roo" - Neopets contains a lot of cool minigames, but I'm singling this out as one of the best and simplest on the site. You roll a series of dice, trying to roll "Level Up" symbols to move onto the next die without rolling "Skull" symbols which can mean game over. Along the way you can win Neopoints (at risk if you get the game over) and usable items (yours to keep). The fact that you win items you can use throughout the rest of the site is super-compelling, and the excitement of getting to the later dice (which is rare) is a real treat.
• Most "Coliseums" that you see in JRPGs also tend to be good minigames, even if they're just reskinned versions of standard gameplay. The best Coliseum minigames tend to have something to offer no matter your power level (from early or mid-game to after a gigantic post-game grind) and offer rewards that feel satisfying even over multiple plays. Generally it's a good idea to add a twist of some sort (like FF7's slot machine). My favorite Coliseum is Tales of Graces, which throws sequences of dozens or even hundreds of monsters at you without leaving the battle screen.

((EDIT: Added a couple extra guidelines on Apr 29, 2019))

I personally like things like casino games (slots, blackjack, roulette, etc) or something fun like Triple Triad.

The problem with these games is, you want an incentive (such as Gold) the issue with that is you can break the economy.

Thank you @Wavelength
Thank you @Latefallen

While there are some mini-games I like, and a very simple one I can like if it's done well would be a quiz game, I still don't want to be forced to play any mini-games in a RPG Maker game.

Another mini game I can like that I thought could work in RPG Maker games, is a luck game like guess which treasure box out of 5 has an item. You get 2 guesses and then see the end results whether you win or lose. Then it restarts.

Also a game where your on a map and have to find a certain amount of tileset item, like a flower, within a limited amount of time.

All three of those can be fun, but again don't force them on the player. Let them individually decide if they want to play them.

I feel that there is always a way to add a twist to a "pure luck" game to make it more widely appealing, and more fun. In this example, where there are 5 treasure boxes and you are blindly trying to guess which one holds a valuable item, I would find a way to add meaningful decisions into the equation.

Maybe out of the 5 treasure chests, one holds a valuable item, two hold a minor item, and two hold nothing. On your first pick, if you pick the valuable item, you win and you keep it; if you pick nothing you'll obviously want to choose again... but if you pick one of the minor items, you're offered the choice to either keep it, or give it back and choose another chest.

Or maybe four of the chests hold minor items, and one of the chests is holding a "Zonk" (a game show term meaning you lose everything you've earned). At any point, if you pick the Zonk, you lose. When you pick a chest that contains an item, you can either stop, and walk away with everything you've earned up to this point, or keep picking more chests to earn more treasure (and hope that you don't pick a Zonk). If you pick all 4 chests that contain treasure without picking the Zonk, you win the Valuable Item as a bonus!


It's very true that offering Gold (or even direct power) for repeatable minigames can entirely break the game's economy, balance, etc. But there are enough tools available in pretty much every RPG that a good designer can always avoid letting this happen. The most effective way to avoid this is usually be carefully considering what rewards you grant for playing the minigame.

Triple Triad did an extremely good job of this, in my opinion. The rewards for playing the game came in the form of cards, which could provide a massive advantage in further matches, but the way that the "loop" between Triple Triad and the larger FF8 game was completed was to allow you to Draw from the card, essentially destroying it and turning it into Items, Spell charges, or new GF summons. Aside from the GF summons, which had no Gil (gold) value, these Items and Spell charges were mostly not worth that much Gil (though IIRC some were rare, meaning it could feel good to get them even if they weren't worth a lot). It was pretty much impossible to break the game's economy by winning and drawing from cards (it would take longer to do than most other means of earning Gil), but you could feel like a powerhouse earning cards to crush Triple Triad opponents with, and it also didn't feel entirely walled off from the main gameplay because the cards had value within the larger FF8 world via Draws.

Several RPGs with casinos don't let you play for the standard "Gold" (currency that can be used anywhere in the game), but rather award "Prize Tokens" or similar for winning at the casino games, which can be traded in only at the casino, for specific prizes. (This also has the benefit of making it feel less like actual gambling and more like an arcade, which may be an important distinction if your protagonists are kids.) Two that come to mind immediately are Pokemon and Tales of the Abyss. Pokemon offered unique skills (TMs) as well as Porygon; TotA offered unique weapons that couldn't be obtained anywhere else. When done right, this can be a superb method of allowing repeatable minigames without worrying about the larger economy. You can allow the player to redeem these Prize Tokens for items which may be useful but have very little Sell value, or to buy things like Costumes or Trophies which may have a lot of meta value to the player, but don't really affect their larger gameplay experience. Make sure there's something to keep the player playing once they've earned all the costumes and such, though. Even direct power-ups like Permanent +1 STR can be good as long as they're only presented in the postgame. This can be a cool way to offer a goal for players who enjoy both your core game and your minigame enough to keep playing long beyond where most players stopped.

Yeah you can always add something to the mini games and that can work too and make it more fun for the player. I can't think of an example right now but I remember playing games in the past with luck in it where the player could choose to keep what they have so far or risk losing it or gaining something even better, so what you're saying here is like that, a risk factor, and that can be fun.

I agree that the Pokemon example you gave is very good when wanting to make sure you're not break the economy.

Personally... And I think I'm in the minority on this...

I feel like, as a player, if you've put a Mini-Game in your game, you are admitting to me that even you think the game you created is so boring that you need to insert another game to make it more fun. In short, it's not a good sign to see a mini-game in your game for me. Especially if you've locked stuff off behind it.

Some people enjoy being distracted by another game within a game. I get that. But, for the same token... If you feel like you need a break from the game you're playing that says a lot about the game you're playing. Like, maybe it's just not a good game. Or, it's too long. Or, too tedious. Or has poor pacing. Most often, this is the case in a lot of games you see that have Mini-Games. I've rarely ever seen a video game with a mini-game in it that didn't exist because the main game itself had some pretty terrible problems. Final Fantasy 7. Really bad pacing issues and it's a game that's too long. That's why people praise its mini-games so much. It contains a lot of very unnecessary padding. Final Fantasy X had this same issue and it's got Blitzball. Final Fantasy 8 and 9 had that card game. Same issues. Okay, done picking on Final Fantasy. Pokémon and its various incarnations of "The Game Corner". These exist to make the towns in which they exist in far more interesting and useful than they actually are. They did a better job of this in Red/Blue where it was also there to facilitate the main questline and the pseudo-yakuza you were following around. Pokémon has long since had this problem where their mini-games just break the pacing of the game and exist for no other reason than as something to pad out the content of each iteration. Which, speaks to a problem with the dev team in that even they're getting bored of the formula. Why else waste so much dev time creating something that doesn't tie into the main mechanics of the games at all? Grand Theft Auto and its mini-games. What purpose do they serve? Some would argue "immersion", but if anything, they break Immersion. In fact, they exist to give the illusion of content in the game, when in reality the game only has a main storyline to engage in while giving you a free roam map with nothing in it.

That's most of my issue with any Mini-Game in a game. Why are you wasting so much time programming one instead of spending time making your main game BETTER? Why not just remove the Mini-Game altogether and make it a stand-alone game instead? Is it not good enough for that? If not, then why are you wasting time creating it and making sure it works?

Sort of the same argument people use when people tack on Multiplayer to a Singleplayer game. "Why did you even bother with this? Why waste resources to create something so mundane, substandard, and boring? Why tack this on to something that could've been a great game, and it's obvious that it suffered because of it?"

But, that's just my viewpoint on Mini-Games. I prefer you spent your time as a game dev giving me a single good experience instead of trying to slap several experiences together in places to try to keep me from noticing you couldn't even give me one good experience.

You're definitely in the minority on this! :p

What I genuinely find really funny is that, starting from some of the same ideas, you and I almost always find ourselves with such wildly opposite views of game design practices... you're stating that mini-games are only useful additions in games that are boring at their cores, while I'm creating a game where mini-games are the core of the gameplay (completely replacing RPG dungeon crawling)! :D

Possible Counterexamples of Minigames within Good Gameplay
I disagree about Final Fantasy 7 - I thought that (despite its glaring balance and pacing issues) the core gameplay was fun and very engaging for its time (it has admittedly not held up well since many other games have duplicated its formula and some have done it better). I would have enjoyed it very much without the minigames; I enjoyed it even more with its minigames.

I'd probably submit Banjo-Kazooie (not an RPG but your idea definitely applies to all genres) as the most definite counterexample to your theory that I can think of offhand. The platforming, fighting, flying, and puzzle-solving that would constitute "core gameplay" were all enjoyable, rewarding, and fun on their own, but adding little minigames that could be played in certain areas (usually keeping controls in line with standard gameplay, but changing the action and concept into something specific to that minigame, and usually with an emphasis on repeatability) gave the game even more of a giddy sense of fun and charm than the core gameplay could provide. Minigames that stood out to me were the Sprout-Eating in Bubblegloop Swamp, the Race on the Ice Slide in Freezeezee Peak, and the crazy Board Game that you have to wend your way through before facing off against Gruntilda.

On Variety for its own (very worthy) Sake
At a more conceptual level, I once received advice from a good friend @TheHonorableRyu and it was one of the most profound things I've ever learned about game design. He had thoroughly playtested one of my games, and mentioned that while he very much enjoyed playing it, it became "exhausting" over time because the action and tension were consistently too high, without enough changes of pace or other things to do when he felt like a change of pace. His analogy (which I really like) was: "While I really enjoy running a marathon or attending a wedding, the last thing I'd want to do afterwards would be to run another marathon or attend another wedding." I believe he mentioned, too, that this is why games like God of War include things like platforming and puzzle segments - because even if these segments are mediocre on their own, that the game is better for it because it gives your mind a bit of a refresh from constant combat.

Now this does feed into your idea of "your game is too long" to some degree, but due to the way that the human mind works, I believe it is almost impossible to design a single core activity that would be fun to most people for several hours on end, without any kind of break or any change in kind and pace. Diminishing returns set in quickly, and your "core" game might offer 50 hours of fun, but (like anything else) it's better enjoyed in spurts of just a couple of hours. So rather than having the player put down your game, or asking them to stretch their willful excitement for longer than natural, why not give your player the opportunity to keep enjoying the same game world and working toward the same goals, while experiencing a difference in kind (like a minigame or a completely different gameplay dynamic) in order to refresh their minds and avoid ennui?

I think this is the reason that RPGs are so successful (and sticky), in general. Minigames or not, they offer several different gameplay dynamics rather than a single core dynamic - physical exploration, written narrative, strategic menu-based combat, character customization, rich cutscenes, etc. - that all feel different and avert the diminishing returns in fun and attention that a single core activity would be subject to.