Minigames: jay or nay?

[leofox]

So.. i had this idea for making minigames. Basically, a minigame will be part of a quest, and be needed to make progress in that quest, or be a quest of it's own with a reward and such. Minigames are the simple arcade games like snake or chopper, maybe some i think of myself.

It could make this game more original as an RPG, but it could also make the game boring and frustrating if the minigames are too easy or too hard.

It gives me some refreshment in coding this game, but it's more to code so it'll take even longer to make this game and it'll also make the game bigger.

Bah, what a dilemma. What do you guys think?

[Weregoose]

So long as they are integrated into the storyline, I'd say go for it.

They don't have to be anything complex. For instance, having the player learn and repeat a six-step pattern with unlimited attempts should be fast enough to keep the entertainment value up while not being too distracting from the rest of the action. So in effect, the mini-games shouldn't feel like they are interrupting some important aspect of the story that the player would rather continue on with.

One other mini-game could be simple as searching for a missing (invisible) item that someone had dropped on the ground (in an appropriately-sized room; 12×8 should be small enough) and then handing it back to said person. Mini-games should all be kept reasonably simple; having anything excessively difficult would possibly be tedious and regretful to the player.

Furthermore, to have the outcome of any of these games impacting the actual story (as in causing one unforeseen event to become permanently altered) would personally be somewhat frustrating, as I wouldn't want to go back to see what I might have missed. On the whole, mini-games may very well be a necessary component to break up the otherwise placid consistency of one's playing through the script.

The anticipation of "what's coming next," regardless of the storyline, is always enough to keep me going.

[DJ Omnimaga]

go for it, if you have enough memory of course. It's always fun to have mini games that give you a prize when you win. In RL3 there was two racing game, a game where you try to jump at the right place high enough to ring a bell (if only PTI liked RL3 I could show a screenshot) and a game where you try to catch stars but try to not go outside the screen because winds dirtection always changed and a press ENTER button quick as u can game. Nothing much original but this might give you ideas

[Arcane Wizard]

As long as there would be a direct connection to the player's character, preferabbly as the one involved in the minigame, I'd say yes, otherwise no.

[leofox]

[DJ Omnimaga]

ah fine then, I was wondering in case you are limiting yourself on only 2 or 3 flash pages, like Spencer's Zelda at MaxCoderz

[leofox]

I kinda wanted to do that, but in the end it's the game that is important, not the amount of memory it takes.

And i don't think the games will take up more than one page anyway.

[DJ Omnimaga]

[Arcane Wizard]

As long as it fits on 1 calc.

[leofox]

Well, there are limits of course. FFTOM2 is just too big (it crashed PTI halfway loading it ). I'd like to have more on my calc than just one third of a game .

[DJ Omnimaga]

well yesah FFTOM1-2 is one case. The one thing I dont like is the fact that u need to go on your computer to download and install teh next chapter. In the process u need to backup your save file before resetting your memory. I always prefer to make my games fit on one calc and if u have to switch to another chapter u just archive/unarchive some programs. Anyone played Illusiat 12? It work in the same way but Illusiat 12 has no ASM programs included with the game. Thats all ASCII characters though and it's not optimised much since it was written 2.5 years ago
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/369/36937.html

[Babyboy]

go for the minigames, think final fantasy 10 and the trial areas. they help, but do consume ram and program time