1 Year of Service
I don't mind minigames in general, but I find minigames like QTE annoying.
Mini games
- Thread starter andrew2002
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11 Months of Service
I actually really like them, but I've encountered some awful ones. Like making me do actual jigsaw puzzles. As long as the minigame is short then I'll probably like it.
2 Years of Service
We apologize for English is not or first language. There was a huge request for more "chest" in our games. We hope you will bear with us as the error of putting more "chess" in our game
2 Years of Service
You seem to get me wrong there are many good and a few great mini games out there. It's just for every good there is ten bad, even a few terrible. What I'm asking is there was an otherwise good/great game but frustrating mini game make you quit.
10 Months of Service
Depends on the mini game or if you get/unlock anything by doing them. They should always include an option to skip them tbh, especially for people who don't give a shit about them.
1 Year of Service
yeah these devs don't know their audience. 99% of the people play with one hand or enable skiping unseen slides and just pressing ctrl lmao
1 Year of Service
I do wonder if with the sandbox or open world type of VN would work well with an old school style of point and click adventure type puzzles, like monkey island full throttle or space quest style. I can see them kind of being compatible
3 Years of Service
If minigames are unskippable just deleting the game
D
Must have been funny/irritating ma man just trying to bust one and all of sudden having to retake his GSAT for it lol
I think as long as the minigames dont get in the way (skippable) its fine
3 Years of Service
Minigaemz are ultra sooper no. If a dev adds dem dat dev iz doin a sooper stoopid.
3 Months of Service
Eh, I think a lot of it depends on whether the minigame serves some kind of purpose in the game world.
Like, fishing and farming minigames can be OK in my book, if the implementation isn't annoying and the prizes or resources actually do something. It gives some downtime between lewd content. It's only when a minigame is just transparently a time waster that it becomes annoying.
Optional minigames can also be ok if they're just to unlock cosmetic options or something like that. Blackjack, poker, and other card games can also be pretty fun if they're part of a stripping mechanic or sexual favors with NPCs are at stake--SPNATI would be a good example.
Other minigames that work in context would be short spanking minigames, bathing minigames, and pet care minigames that you see in trainer-style games like PinkTea's later stuff and some of Akabar's old trainers. I also really like rule-setting minigames or classroom management minigames in corrupt-the-school simulators, like The Headmaster and Corrupted Academy. The same goes for other minigames that are inherently lewd, like the waitress minigame in Third Crisis.
Bonus points if there's some kind of base-building mechanic where more lewd mini-interactions are unlocked as your base expands, like the wayfort in CoC2. While I'm not sure they qualify as minigames exactly, the different slave management options in Free Cities and XXXivilization are fun for the same reason--they give a sense of both growth and fine control, the impression that the player's influence over the world is expanding and more variety is being unlocked over time. Also, I just find any kind of resource management stuff inherently fun--I like solving problems and balancing different crises, so I always enjoy management mechanics in games.
Aside from inherently purposeful or lewd minigames, I will also put up with minigames in adventure game contexts. This may just be Stockholm syndrome from years of puzzling, but I have a lingering fondness for the riddles and sadistic item puzzles in old school adventure games. A little brain teaser never hurts. Solving little mini-puzzles can be fun for the same reason that games with secret areas are fun--there's some sense of discovery and mystery to the world, and the simple joy of puzzle-solving.
The sames goes for the Nintendo-hard mini games that were de rigueur in flash games of the early 2000s. Like, the arcade cabinet minigames in Frank's Adventure 2, that sort of thing. Sometimes irritation can be fun. The old "Window Girl" or "Sleeping Girl" style flash games (where the player has to gradually arouse a gal without going too far too fast) are a good illustration of how minigames can be frustrating but still build tension in, like, an effective and erotic way.
I don't miss the trivia quiz sections from series like Meet-and-Fuck at all, though. Those were always pointless, just a test of whether you could search the internet (and frequently full of wrong information, to boot).
Quick-time events are where I really draw the line--I hate 'em and they're never an improvement. QTEs are especially egregious if they interrupt turn-based combat or occur as part of an unskippable cutscene. Also, for similar reasons, mandatory stealth sections almost always suck, even if their inclusion makes sense from a narrative perspective. Anything with a countdown timer also tends to be a drag for the same reason, unless the time limit is very generous or is like a limited number of action points per round rather than a ticking timer. Hidden timers are also really annoying, like having to reach the spider gal in Princess Conquest in a certain number of turns before she starves, without any indication to the player that this is even a thing.
I'm also not a fan of "raise the NPC's disposition above a certain point so they'll talk to you" minigames (like that absurd "dispotion wheel" in Oblivion), or anything with two-pronged black-and-white moral choices like the Fable series, KOTOR, and those recent watered-down "detective" games where the "doubt" meme comes from. I feel they're particularly lackluster implementations of conversation minigames, and don't leave enough room for grey areas or real investigation. 90s adventure games and classic point-and-click detective games, despite some odd design choices, had a better grasp of how to make conversation and investigations fun. A good modern example of this done well in an ero game would be Defending Lydia Collier, though the implementation is bit too VN-y for my taste.
Grey areas for me would be bullet hell sections, hunting/shooting minigames, lockpicking minigames, rhythm/dance minigames, merchantile/trade minigames, dating minigames, chess minigames, pin-up collectathons/fetch-quests ("find all X to unlock a reward!"), and rock-paper-scisors minigames. I also have mixed feelings about slide puzzles/sokoban and those fruit-match things. They can really fun, but they're so transparently gamey and depend a lot on whether the implementation is competent. If it's trial-and-error gameplay or pretty reflex intensive, chances are players will find it polarizing, a waste of time, or just plain bad. Broken minigames in older software (for example, where enemy speed may have been tied to framerate) are a particularly cruel case, where the difficulty is inadvertantly hard. Certain flash games that used advanced action script stuff that Ruffle can't yet simulate require work-arounds or hacks to get past now broken mini-game sections.
Arguably some of the random encounters in RPGmaker games can be pointless minigames too, if fighting doesn't serve much of a purpose or is mostly just there to inconvenience the player.
But a bit of a challenge is welcome. Tastes will vary, but I feel like certain contemporary games give too many conveniences too quickly and expect way too little of the player. I like it when the solutions to a puzzle aren't immediately obvious or present in the immediate environment. If the world is interesting enough, I'm willing to put up with a bit of stat grinding, minigames, or jank. I prefer it when fast travel is something that is earned, and I don't think there should be a skip button for everything unless you're playing a visual novel or something that requires a lot of replayed sections.
At the same time, I was never a fan of bare stat checks ("your strength stat is too low. You slip into the pit and die!"). In that regard, minigames can sometimes help allievate grinding. Sometimes it can be more fun to play a short combat minigame to defeat an enemy or a conversation minigame to woo a maiden than simply grind stats til you pass the cut. It depends on how repetitive the gameplay is overall and whether the minigames are inherently fun or not.
Part of whether minigames work or not may also depend on how a game blends simulation and gameplay. Something like Rimworld (which has a lot of excellent lewd mods) is arguably more of a simulation rather than a game, so if minigames were added they would just feel crass and out of place. But at the same time farming games like Cult of the Lamb and Stardew Valley are arguably just as much of a simulation as Rimworld but rely almost entirely on minigames, for better or worse.
I would also draw a distinction between minigames and "games within a game", like the card game stuff in the Witcher series. Minigames are by definition short and often somewhat incomplete, like a little extra. Games within a game are something different conceptually and mechanically. I think I mildly prefer minigames, because they tend not to overstay their welcome, whereas games within a game can get pretty tedious unless the core gameplay loop is really fun or novel. All the indie deck-builders have gotten a bit stale, you know--I'm a bit sick of cards being shoehorned into every game.
This is probably an unpopular take, but I feel a lot of mainstream games could benefit from a bit more grounding in the type of "raw simulation" one finds in indie ero games. For example, major hits like Helldivers and Clair Obscur seem very much focused on style over substance, with splashy combat and operatic plotlines. They can be fun, but a lot of the depth is mechanical. The same vibe applies for a lot of recent anime, comics, and comic-franchise movies. They feel like works by superfans who have consumed a lot of games, anime, and comics but don't have much new to say about reality. It's like a picture drawn from another picture, rather than from real-world reference or "pure" imagination. Like, old school anime was obviously not more "realistic", but felt a little "rawer" and less self-referential, not caught up in multi-franchise crossovers or self-indulgent isekai. This is one of the reasons why I find indie porn games more interesting than most AAA titles--amateur devs tend to be pretty "raw" and experimental, but like in a genuine way, not for the sake of being avant-garde. So, I'm willing to put up with the weird and often frustrating minigames that sometimes show up in indie ero games, but not the stale stat-building minigames in something like the GTA series or recent Bethesda RPGs. If it's not corporate slop, I'll put up with a bit of pain. Balance is overrated, man.
TLDR: I agree that minigames are often badly implemented, but it's a more complex issue than just "minigames always suck". It's not quite so straightforward, and there's some subjectivity and nuance as to what makes a minigame fun or awful. In my view, a lot of it depends on how the game handles simulation elements. Some combinations of gamey stuff and simulation stuff work well, others are more a matter of taste, and a few (like QTEs in VNs) are just plain bad.
Like, fishing and farming minigames can be OK in my book, if the implementation isn't annoying and the prizes or resources actually do something. It gives some downtime between lewd content. It's only when a minigame is just transparently a time waster that it becomes annoying.
Optional minigames can also be ok if they're just to unlock cosmetic options or something like that. Blackjack, poker, and other card games can also be pretty fun if they're part of a stripping mechanic or sexual favors with NPCs are at stake--SPNATI would be a good example.
Other minigames that work in context would be short spanking minigames, bathing minigames, and pet care minigames that you see in trainer-style games like PinkTea's later stuff and some of Akabar's old trainers. I also really like rule-setting minigames or classroom management minigames in corrupt-the-school simulators, like The Headmaster and Corrupted Academy. The same goes for other minigames that are inherently lewd, like the waitress minigame in Third Crisis.
Bonus points if there's some kind of base-building mechanic where more lewd mini-interactions are unlocked as your base expands, like the wayfort in CoC2. While I'm not sure they qualify as minigames exactly, the different slave management options in Free Cities and XXXivilization are fun for the same reason--they give a sense of both growth and fine control, the impression that the player's influence over the world is expanding and more variety is being unlocked over time. Also, I just find any kind of resource management stuff inherently fun--I like solving problems and balancing different crises, so I always enjoy management mechanics in games.
Aside from inherently purposeful or lewd minigames, I will also put up with minigames in adventure game contexts. This may just be Stockholm syndrome from years of puzzling, but I have a lingering fondness for the riddles and sadistic item puzzles in old school adventure games. A little brain teaser never hurts. Solving little mini-puzzles can be fun for the same reason that games with secret areas are fun--there's some sense of discovery and mystery to the world, and the simple joy of puzzle-solving.
The sames goes for the Nintendo-hard mini games that were de rigueur in flash games of the early 2000s. Like, the arcade cabinet minigames in Frank's Adventure 2, that sort of thing. Sometimes irritation can be fun. The old "Window Girl" or "Sleeping Girl" style flash games (where the player has to gradually arouse a gal without going too far too fast) are a good illustration of how minigames can be frustrating but still build tension in, like, an effective and erotic way.
I don't miss the trivia quiz sections from series like Meet-and-Fuck at all, though. Those were always pointless, just a test of whether you could search the internet (and frequently full of wrong information, to boot).
Quick-time events are where I really draw the line--I hate 'em and they're never an improvement. QTEs are especially egregious if they interrupt turn-based combat or occur as part of an unskippable cutscene. Also, for similar reasons, mandatory stealth sections almost always suck, even if their inclusion makes sense from a narrative perspective. Anything with a countdown timer also tends to be a drag for the same reason, unless the time limit is very generous or is like a limited number of action points per round rather than a ticking timer. Hidden timers are also really annoying, like having to reach the spider gal in Princess Conquest in a certain number of turns before she starves, without any indication to the player that this is even a thing.
I'm also not a fan of "raise the NPC's disposition above a certain point so they'll talk to you" minigames (like that absurd "dispotion wheel" in Oblivion), or anything with two-pronged black-and-white moral choices like the Fable series, KOTOR, and those recent watered-down "detective" games where the "doubt" meme comes from. I feel they're particularly lackluster implementations of conversation minigames, and don't leave enough room for grey areas or real investigation. 90s adventure games and classic point-and-click detective games, despite some odd design choices, had a better grasp of how to make conversation and investigations fun. A good modern example of this done well in an ero game would be Defending Lydia Collier, though the implementation is bit too VN-y for my taste.
Grey areas for me would be bullet hell sections, hunting/shooting minigames, lockpicking minigames, rhythm/dance minigames, merchantile/trade minigames, dating minigames, chess minigames, pin-up collectathons/fetch-quests ("find all X to unlock a reward!"), and rock-paper-scisors minigames. I also have mixed feelings about slide puzzles/sokoban and those fruit-match things. They can really fun, but they're so transparently gamey and depend a lot on whether the implementation is competent. If it's trial-and-error gameplay or pretty reflex intensive, chances are players will find it polarizing, a waste of time, or just plain bad. Broken minigames in older software (for example, where enemy speed may have been tied to framerate) are a particularly cruel case, where the difficulty is inadvertantly hard. Certain flash games that used advanced action script stuff that Ruffle can't yet simulate require work-arounds or hacks to get past now broken mini-game sections.
Arguably some of the random encounters in RPGmaker games can be pointless minigames too, if fighting doesn't serve much of a purpose or is mostly just there to inconvenience the player.
But a bit of a challenge is welcome. Tastes will vary, but I feel like certain contemporary games give too many conveniences too quickly and expect way too little of the player. I like it when the solutions to a puzzle aren't immediately obvious or present in the immediate environment. If the world is interesting enough, I'm willing to put up with a bit of stat grinding, minigames, or jank. I prefer it when fast travel is something that is earned, and I don't think there should be a skip button for everything unless you're playing a visual novel or something that requires a lot of replayed sections.
At the same time, I was never a fan of bare stat checks ("your strength stat is too low. You slip into the pit and die!"). In that regard, minigames can sometimes help allievate grinding. Sometimes it can be more fun to play a short combat minigame to defeat an enemy or a conversation minigame to woo a maiden than simply grind stats til you pass the cut. It depends on how repetitive the gameplay is overall and whether the minigames are inherently fun or not.
Part of whether minigames work or not may also depend on how a game blends simulation and gameplay. Something like Rimworld (which has a lot of excellent lewd mods) is arguably more of a simulation rather than a game, so if minigames were added they would just feel crass and out of place. But at the same time farming games like Cult of the Lamb and Stardew Valley are arguably just as much of a simulation as Rimworld but rely almost entirely on minigames, for better or worse.
I would also draw a distinction between minigames and "games within a game", like the card game stuff in the Witcher series. Minigames are by definition short and often somewhat incomplete, like a little extra. Games within a game are something different conceptually and mechanically. I think I mildly prefer minigames, because they tend not to overstay their welcome, whereas games within a game can get pretty tedious unless the core gameplay loop is really fun or novel. All the indie deck-builders have gotten a bit stale, you know--I'm a bit sick of cards being shoehorned into every game.
This is probably an unpopular take, but I feel a lot of mainstream games could benefit from a bit more grounding in the type of "raw simulation" one finds in indie ero games. For example, major hits like Helldivers and Clair Obscur seem very much focused on style over substance, with splashy combat and operatic plotlines. They can be fun, but a lot of the depth is mechanical. The same vibe applies for a lot of recent anime, comics, and comic-franchise movies. They feel like works by superfans who have consumed a lot of games, anime, and comics but don't have much new to say about reality. It's like a picture drawn from another picture, rather than from real-world reference or "pure" imagination. Like, old school anime was obviously not more "realistic", but felt a little "rawer" and less self-referential, not caught up in multi-franchise crossovers or self-indulgent isekai. This is one of the reasons why I find indie porn games more interesting than most AAA titles--amateur devs tend to be pretty "raw" and experimental, but like in a genuine way, not for the sake of being avant-garde. So, I'm willing to put up with the weird and often frustrating minigames that sometimes show up in indie ero games, but not the stale stat-building minigames in something like the GTA series or recent Bethesda RPGs. If it's not corporate slop, I'll put up with a bit of pain. Balance is overrated, man.
TLDR: I agree that minigames are often badly implemented, but it's a more complex issue than just "minigames always suck". It's not quite so straightforward, and there's some subjectivity and nuance as to what makes a minigame fun or awful. In my view, a lot of it depends on how the game handles simulation elements. Some combinations of gamey stuff and simulation stuff work well, others are more a matter of taste, and a few (like QTEs in VNs) are just plain bad.
3 Months of Service
Yeah, Yakusa's a great example. It's pretty goofy, but a lot of fun.
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