What makes a good minigame?

Introduction

The Playdate version of Crankstone is finally reaching its last stage with minigames' gameplay more in line with what I had in mind when I started developing the game.

Before moving on to the PC version, I decided to give the Playdate build one final update. I already added new content with the Halloween and the Christmas update but I wanted here to make the existing minigames better to be more confident of the game's overall experience.

Thanks to Loïs who joined the studio in intership this summer, we were two and this allowed us to challenge our ideas, playtest more and make better decisions! This process turned out to be an interesting exercise and helped a lot to grow as a game & level designer.

Minigames have very simple concept but it surprisingly difficult to get it right!

So here is what we did.

The four principles to get it right

Here are 4 key principles for designing a good minigame. These are principles I'll carry forward into my future projects, whether they're indie games, branded games or serious games.

1️⃣ Making the rules easier to understand

The player should quickly understand what he needs to do, how to win and when he fails.

In Crankstone, minigames are played against the clock. I took inspiration from the dynamite fuse in Wario Ware to indicate how much time is left before game over. However, there's little room for instructions in a fast-paced minigame, and I don't want to clutter the screen with too much information.

That's why I decided to use a single and consistent instruction throughout the game. It needs to be short and include an input prompt.

When introducing new mechanics, the instruction stays the same. This is simply because the player may skip it because he already read it as he is now focused on the gameplay. Instead, by following the other principles, players gradually learn how the game works as they play, making the experience even more satisfying.

2️⃣ Adding feedbacks

Each player action should provide feedback, helping them understand the consequences of their actions and feel more immersed in the game.

In Sip n'Spin I've added visuals and sounds feedbacks. We show icons in different states to show what to do at each step, and there are sounds that gradually going up. Even the spinning sounds depend on the angle and direction. We trigger applauses and boos to emphasize the end. This participates in creating an atmosphere where players feel good even when failing.

3️⃣ Making the challenge progressive

The difficulty doesn't have to follow a linear curve, nor an exponential one. A jagged curve is a good way to introduce new challenges while giving players a little bit of breath before the next one.

Depending on your objective, the difficulty needs to be addressed: a good minigame shouldn't be difficult from the start so the player can get more comfortable with the mechanics before facing more demanding challenges. My goal was to make level 30 reachable for each game with little training. To achieve that we:

• gradually increase the game's difficulty using parameters : speed, pauses, delays
• introduce a new mechanic every 10 levels and lower the other settings so the new mechanic can be learned

So our difficulty curve looks more like this:

4️⃣ Making the game more varied

Introducing new mechanics and variations create a surprise, so the player doesn't get bored and falls into a routine. This makes the overall experience feel less repetitive even with very simple mechanics.

For example, when we introduce a second card at level 20 in Shufflin', we lower the difficulty with fewer cards, slower shuffling, and by using decoy cards in the opposite color. Then, we introduce similar cards (difficulty) along with different shuffling patterns (variations) to keep the player alert to new situations.

Mixing everything up for more fun

One of the game's main inspirations was Wario Ware. However, something felt off and I initially thought it was the lack of wacky elements like nose-picking and farting. But that wasn't it. The issue was that playing minigames in isolation can become monotonous. The solution was to introduce a mode that mixes them all together, randomly launching a minigame at each level while maintaining a progressive difficulty curve. This creates an element of surprise and a better rythm, and that's what makes it fun!

Some great games to consider as an inspiration