I decided I want to spend the next two weeks or so looking into minigame design. So as a nice starting point, I'd like to hear what you all think are the best minigames ever. DON'T JUST NAME THEM, DESCRIBE THEM - assume I have never heard of it and describe it well enough that I can understand how it works and why it's fun. For purposes of this discussion a "minigame" does not have to be within another game; stand-alone games like tetris, breakout, frozen bubble, pac-man, etc. can all be considered minigames. So, what is not a minigame? RPGs, adventure games, RTSes, etc. are not minigames. A minigame should be a casual game where the player can have a complete gaming experience in under an hour. The game should be somewhat randomized and have minimal story for reasons of replayability because the player is intended to play it many many times. The game should present either a self-contained level, like minesweeper or solitaire, or an escalating series of levels where the player is expected to eventually fail, like tetris and pacman. The metagoal is usually to attain some kind of high score, possibly because high scores pay out well inside a larger game.

So, here are some examples of my favorite minigames:

- Freaky Factory: This Neopets game is of the general class "conveyor belt game" and these are generally speed and accuracy games where the players assemble combos or adapt to a current order than needs to be filled. Each level has a timer and a number of stuffed animals (plushies) which need to be produced before the timer runs out. Raw materials for making the toys speed across the top of the screen in both directions. Clicking a ball of raw materials drops it into one of three cauldrons below, or onto the floor - inertia from the ball's speed is a complicating factor, they do not fall straight down. Dropping too much waste on the floor is a secondary loss condition, and an attrition mechanic as waste level is the only thing retained when a new level begins. Dropping the raw materials into the wrong cauldron not only creates waste but also cancels out an equivalent amount of materials that were already filed correctly into that cauldron. Dropping materials into the correct cauldron adds them to the available stock, and the requirements for the current toy are automatically fulfilled when the available stocks contain enough of the needed kinds of materials.

- Vasebreaker Endless: A minigame unlocked within Plants vs. Zombies. Plants vs. Zombies has an overall tower defense mechanic, but Vasebreaker adds a unique twist by giving the player partial control over when attackers are released from storage. The game takes place on a grid of 5 rows by 9 columns. The leftmost two columns are empty; the rest are filled with vases. Each vase contains either an enemy of assorted sizes which immediately begin walking to the left when released, one of a motley mix of weapons the player can place on any open square, a lantern tool that reveals the contents of the vases on the 8 surrounding squares, or 1-3 sun. The good items evaporate if you don't grab them in about 10 seconds. Sun is a currency used to buy a "panic button" - a bomb that blows up everything on 9 squares for the amount of hp equal to that of the second-largest unit. Each bomb costs 6 sun, so the player can't afford one every level. One enemy has a parallel behavior - it blows itself up when released and takes out any of the player's items in that 9 squares. All other enemies have the ability to slowly eat any of the player's items that they walk into, except the largest unit which has a faster ability to completely destroy any of the player's items it walks into.

In general I like "switch two/match three or more" as a minigame mechanic, though it would be hard to pick out one best example from the dozen near-clones I've played. And I like the general idea of fishing games, though I haven't encountered one I thought was extremely fun.

My favorite minigame is Overworld Zero from System Shock 2. System Shock 2 is an FPS/RPG so the player has an inventory, and one of the items you can pick up is the GamePig, which lets you play minigames while you're playing the main game (it's not paused or anything; you might get ambushed by enemies while you're playing the minigame). You also had to find game cartridges throughout the game after you found the GamePig. It actually served a purpose in the game because there are many actions in System Shock 2 that take lots of time to complete such as research (the player has to research some items before using them, and they can research parts of dead enemies to do more damage to them in the future) or waiting for the red alien goo to heal you. Instead of just waiting, you might want to read some of your unread audio logs (you can find audio logs around the ship which tell you about what happened and sometimes where items are) or play the minigames.

All of the minigames were controlled only with the mouse and Overworld Zero was a turn-based RPG where the player had to kill enemies, find coins, pay for healing, transfer items from one house to another for coins, and go to a shrine to level up. You could only move in 8 directions and it was tile-based. I think there were also some items you could find that boosted your health. If you beat the game I think you got nanites (money) for the main game, but only a small amount. There was only one map but it was randomly generated and the player had to kill some boss enemies after getting to a certain level to complete the game.

Someone actually made a clone of it in Java: http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/OverWorld-Zero-Download-60710.html

Basically System Shock 2's minigames were effective because there were occasions where a player would need to kill time, the player wasn't incentivized to play them (actually it wasted one inventory slot), and the games themselves were fun.

Anaconda, a minigame unlocked in Time Splitters 2. It's like snake, but with 360 degrees of rotation. Why did I like it so much? Two reasons: 1) I thought it was pretty random as a minigame in a FPS; and 2) I just loved the soundtrack... it reminded me of some good old days.

Chocobo racing is the one I'll always remember the fondest. I assume that it needs little or no further elaboration... ;)

I quite enjoyed the hacking mini-games in Deus Ex : Human Revolution. It was simply a case of clicking on bits of a 'network' to capture nodes until you have got to the goal, or captured the node to the main system, but you had to think about it a bit as certain nodes had higher chances of kicking off a 'back trace' which then made it a race against time. A few power ups/hacking tools could make the hacking a bit easier (tools which could freeze the trace, capture nodes without a chance of being detected etc) and there was also the reward of not going directly for the goal but capturing other nodes which would give you programs to use or cash which added that extra dimention.

Bayonetta also had an amusing mini-game which was in the form of an arcade shooting gallery game where you had a number of bullets to shoot 2D versions of creatures from the main game - provided a nice little aside to an otherwise frantic combat game.

Chocobo racing is the one I'll always remember the fondest. I assume that it needs little or no further elaboration... ;)

Well, I remember that well, though it sometimes frightens me how many forum members we have here who are too young to have played FF7 when it came out. I remember playing some of the less-dark parts with my little brother in my lap (he was 6 or 7 then, starting college now) but he had only a vague memory of it when I asked.

Chocobo racing is the one I'll always remember the fondest. I assume that it needs little or no further elaboration... ;)

Not gonna lie... I've never heard of it...

[quote name='mhagain' timestamp='1342994055' post='4962040']
Chocobo racing is the one I'll always remember the fondest. I assume that it needs little or no further elaboration... ;)

Not gonna lie... I've never heard of it...
[/quote]
Lol, ok. Chocobos are the mount in the Final Fantasy series. They are like yellow (usually) ostriches (ostriches can in fact be ridden, though it's not very practical). I believe chocobo racing first showed up as a minigame in FF7, but since then there was a mario-kart-like game called Chocobo Racing and FF XI Online had high player demand to implement chocobo breeding and racing until they did so. I'm not sure if racing was possible in the chocobo mystery dungeon spin-off series. There are videos of all the different kinds of chocobo racing on youtube, but here's a link to the FF7 version:
[media][/media]
Basically it is a horse-racing sim. I think the only notable gameplay element besides the breeding is the stamina bar - you can get an extra burst of speed when holding a button down, but stamina decreases. If the chocobo runs out completely they refuse to run and walk exhausted to the finish line.
Here's one from FFOnline:

*snip*

Ah, I see. Thanks

(ostriches can in fact be ridden, though it's not very practical)

I know, I rode a couple while I was living in South Africa

The snowboard minigame in the arcade in FF7 was the best.