I’ve been thinking recently about the integration of minigames into so many of the games we play. Some are good, some are really good, and some are just plain bad. Compare for example the game of Yong in Dark Earth to the horrible conversation minigame in Oblivion. Yong was an Othello variant, and it was brilliant. I played that game much more often than was necessary to advance the plot, because it was fun. By contrast, the conversation minigame in Oblivion was there, but it was simply boring.

Minigames aren’t anything new. I remember minigames in Commodore 64 titles like The Legend of Blacksilver, which was the sequel to Legacy of the Ancients. Legend of Blacksilver was primarily a top-down RPG with pseudo-3D dungeons, but it had various little games which would increase your ability scores if you did well enough.

I should stop here to make it clear that I’m not a huge fan of minigames in general. This article may make it seem quite the opposite, but I’ve never been interested in Warioware or Wii Play, and I’ve never even played Raving Rabbids or Clubhouse Games. I simply enjoy the variety afforded by brief diversions from the main game like you’ll see with the air hockey minigame in Beyond Good and Evil or the pipe minigame in Bioshock.

A few years back, when I was playing Jade Empire and I hit a glider minigame that played like River Raid, I loved the idea that the game would have 2D diversions like this. This is precisely the type of gameplay of which I’d love to see more. The problem is that this is the only minigame in Jade Empire, although it repeats. I wanted more. I want minigames remniscient of old-school games. Two-dimensional games. Sidescrollers, top-down shooters, puzzle games. I want at least a half-dozen in one game, and I want them to have an actual effect on the main game.

Thinking about this, I can only come up with two games that have done this in a way that I really loved.

Firstly, Hillsfar. Hillsfar was a kind of sequel to Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds that I played on my Commodore 64. It had a horse-riding minigame for traveling between towns, a treasure-recovery game that played very much like Gauntlet, an arena minigame similar to Punch-Out! where you’d battle other warriors, an archery target-practice minigame, and probably the best lockpicking minigame I’ve ever seen, which involved pattern-matching in addition to the standard coordination challenge. And you could buy new lockpicks to better fit the locks.

Space Rangers 2 was another title that did a lot of minigames, and did them well. The best parts of the game were the text adventure segments, which didn’t all work like old infocom text adventures – they were all different. Some were more like the old lemonade stand game, where there’d be many turns in which you managed finances to try to reach a goal. Others were logic puzzles or interactive fiction. In addition to the text adventures, Space Rangers 2 had RTS and shoot-em-up minigames. Too bad that the main game wasn’t interesting enough to hold my attention.

While straightforward 2D minigames used to be mega-hits in the day of Centipede and Berserk, they were often coded by one guy. Today, when huge studios make multi-year projects out of developing games, adding a half-dozen of these should be relatively easy and inexpensive, and they can add some amazing variety to a game.

By way of example, I’ve thought up a theoretical game of the kind I’d like to see. Obviously, all the mini-games together shouldn’t comprise more than 15%-20% of total gameplay unless the player is choosing to play one over and over. I enjoy the variety of minigames, but if I wanted a minigame collection, I’d just buy one for the Wii.

Let’s say we have an adventure game that takes place in modern day. We could give it the standard computer-hacking puzzle minigame, some casino gambling with cards, and lockpicking minigame – many of these would be totally optional. I’d also like a frequently-encountered conversation minigame similar to the one in Indigo Prophecy. Throughout the conversation, you’re presented with 3-4 responses, and if you fail to choose one within the 5-6 second time limit, your character says something asinine which has a negative consequence of some kind.

We could also add a hand-to-hand combat minigame with mechanics similar to Karate Champ. Of course, no gi and likely no jumping spinning kicks, but something more appropriate to the character you’re playing. Of course, some people dislike or are simply bad at fighting games, so there’d be the option to run, which would lead to a foot chase minigame instead. This could be a sidescroller with running, jumping, climbing, et cetera. While we’re at it, how about a car chase minigame? This could be a top-down combination of Spyhunter and Pole Position, but with hard 90 degree corners thrown in. Sometimes, you’re chasing another car, other times you’re being chased.

For the set pieces where there are actually guns involved, a couple on-rails shooting sequences would work well. On-rails shooters usually aren’t my thing, but if they’re only a small component of the overall game, they could really add something.

Short stealth sequences similar to the original Metal Gear Solid would be another welcome variation. A isometric view of the character hiding around corners while infiltrating an office or warehouse could be a lot of fun.

Lastly, because they worked so well in Space Rangers 2, I’d love to throw in some brief text adventures. They can be as short as 5-10 minutes and still add some really interesting gameplay.

I don’t know why I feel compelled to vent my creativity this way, but hopefully it makes for some thought-provoking reading.