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Mini-games - we’ve all seen them. They can be found in some of today’s top titles, such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and they go all the way back to old NES games like Blades of Steel and Super Mario Brothers 3. With digital storage increasing in size to astronomical proportions and console and PC performance reaching levels that make technology from two generations ago look like pocket calculators, the resource hit to current game development to add mini-games becomes infinitesimally small. As long as developers see the value of adding mini-games to their projects, the gaming industry can expect to see these video game featurettes to continue to proliferate. In some ways these games just stand out as a miniscule point of interest, but often they can be used to illustrate to a gamer what is truly fun about video games, and to show how far we’ve come. Finally, mini-games may be the solution to the abandonware and intellectual property rights conundrum.

Mini-games aren’t an entirely easy concept to define, but they can be broken down into three main categories. On one level they exist as a slight departure from standard game-play, but are still essentially part of the game as a whole. On another level, mini-games are full-fledged games that reside within larger titles, and are often hidden or are provided as un-lockable easter eggs. In a third way, mini-games are provided as slight entertainment to keep gamers occupied during load screens. The latter of these three interpretations of a mini-game isn’t seen as frequently as in the past, but there is a reason for this, which will be discussed later.

Examples of the first two types of mini-games can be found in Rockstar’s blockbuster hit, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Departure type mini-games are fairly abundant in GTA: SA, and they integrate directly into the progress you make in the game. Things like the ability to play a game of pool, or gamble on roulette are examples of mini-games that exist within the greater picture. These activities are helpful to your character in that they help to build up your financial status or increase your luck attributes. Yet, on their own some of these games can be played independently of wanting to actually progress in the larger GTA environment. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that a gamer may wish to fire up San Andreas just to play a few racks of pool or a few hands of blackjack. Furthermore, some of these mini-games are more entertaining and immersive than full blown casino or pool titles of the NES and Atari generations. The second form of mini-games: full-fledged titles that exist within a larger game, are also found in San Andreas. While walking around the San Andreas environment, arcade consoles are often encountered which allow players to interact with games like Duality or Go Go Space Monkey. Although the games are small, arcade-style games, they still exist almost independently of the whole Grand Theft Auto game. Duality, for example, is an Asteroids clone. It has its own set of rules, graphics, physics, and AI separate from those of Grand Theft Auto. Duality is its own game, you just have to be playing GTA: SA to be able to find it.

Gambling within a game certainly isn’t a new concept. RPGs and third-person action games have been doing this for years. Typically, there isn’t an entire casino to wager in, but often you can waste an hour of your time engrossed in a simple game of blackjack. It is important to note that there is a line between departure mini-games and using game elements as a tool within a lager title. For example, the memory game that was utilized in Super Mario Brothers 3 in order to gain various power-ups cannot be considered a mini-game. The reason for this is because you cannot spend a great deal of time playing the memory game, since it is a passing interface, or a small bonus. You essentially have little to no control over when and with what frequency you will play the game. Some of the mini-games in the Blitz and Hitz series also fall into a gray area. Although these mini-games can be played independently of the greater game, they really exist more as a game mode, in part because they are available from the main menu. A better example of a departure type mini-game would be the target-aim mini-game of Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. Another would be the Mario Brothers game that existed within Super Mario Brothers 3 (when trying to steal the other player’s power-ups), which mimicked the original platformer that was popular in the days of Donkey Kong.

Full-blown games within a game are also reasonably common in the video game industry. Adventure games were a common genre for featuring these types of mini-games. Space Quest 3 and 4 offered the Astro Chicken mini-game, which mimicked some popular arcade style games. Perhaps a better example of including a full game within a larger title is the old Lucas Arts game, Day of the Tentacle. As many fans of the adventure genre SCUMM games of the 80s and 90s know, Day of the Tentacle was the sequel to the classic, Maniac Mansion. During your adventure in DotT, players come across a computer that can be booted up within the game. Turning on the computer fires up a built-in copy of the full Maniac Mansion game. Thus, when gamers purchased Day of the Tentacle, they were in fact buying both titles in the series. The only caveat was that you had to find Maniac Mansion within Day of the Tentacle in order to be able to play it. This is wildly different from the inclusion of Go Go Space Monkey and Let’s Get Ready to Bumble in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, since Maniac Mansion was a known title with a much larger scope than a simple arcade game.

As was mentioned earlier, load screen mini-games are something that most gamers are familiar with, but have been lacking as of late in current titles. Obviously, a load screen mini-game is simply a small game that is available to play as a component of the larger game is being loaded off of the storage medium. Legally, most game companies aren’t allowed to present mini-games during load screens anymore, due to a patent issued to Namco in 1995. The details of the patent (which is available here) aren’t as simple as protecting the idea of playing a game as a section of the game is loaded. Most of the verbiage of the patent deals with the definitions of loading, recording medium, and keeping the player interested in the game. There is a lot of legal jargon in the patent, and perhaps it is possible to work around Namco’s load screen mini-game exclusivity, but it probably isn’t worth it to game companies to butt heads with Namco just to provide a 15 to 20 second load screen game.

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