Microgames

Microgames

Minigames are small videogames included within larger videogames. They are often included as Easter eggs or to add variety to the larger game. The hit first-person shooter BioShock used a minigame version of Pipe Dream—a classic puzzler—as the mechanic used to hack door locks and machines. Final Fantasy 7 introduced a Chocobo Racing minigame that allowed players to capture, breed, and race large, rideable birds. In Animal Crossing, players can decorate their home with playable NES games.

Some games are made up almost entirely of minigames. Party games like Mario Party, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, and 1-2-Switch allow players to compete in a series of minigame events. Evoland I + II are RPGs that mix many videogame styles and mechanics both by including many minigames and by evolving the presentation of the main game itself.

Minigames provide many benefits in game design. They offer a change of pace from the main game, reducing player fatigue. They are usually low stakes, reducing player stress. A well-placed minigame can improve the pacing of the main game significantly. Offering a break before a spike in the action will increase the apparent contrast in the intensity.

2K Games

BioShock, 2007

The first-person shooter game Bioshock used a minigame version of Pipe Dream—a classic puzzler—as the mechanic used to hack doors and machines.

BioshockGame Page

Square Enix

Final Fantasy VII, 1997

Final Fantasy VII introduced a Chocobo Racing minigame that allowed players to capture, breed, and race large, rideable birds.

Final Fantasy VIIGame Page

Nintendo

Animal Crossing, 2001

In Animal Crossing, players can decorate their home with playable NES games.

Animal CrossingGame Page

Nintendo

WarioWare, 2003

WarioWare presents the player with a rapid-fire sequence of microgames that demand only a single action from the player and take just seconds to play. As soon as the player completes one challenge, another begins.

WarioWareGame Page

Munro Hoberman

Aeronaut, 2020

Comp Form alumni, Munro Hoberman, created this low stakes flight simulator game.

AeronautGame Pagemunrohoberman.comArtist Site

Tomasz Wesołowski

Beat Rocks, 2021

Tomasz turned the classic aestroids arcade game into a rhythm challenge. The entire game is just under 13 kilobytes and is made entirely with Javascript.

Beat RocksGame Pagekos.gdArtist Site

2DArray

Froggy Road, 2018

The video game studio 2D Array made a Frogger-inspired game using only 560 characters of code.

Froggy RoadGame Page2darray.netArtist Site

Minigames don’t have the weight of a full game. They don’t have advance a story or provide the amount of mechanics, levels, and content expected of full games. They are free to focus on a small set of ideas, deliver some fun gameplay, and move on.

The WarioWare series, which debuted in 2003 on the Game Boy Advance, pushed the single-minded focus of minigames as far as possible. WarioWare presents the player with a rapid-fire sequence of microgames that demand only a single action from the player and take just seconds to play. As soon as the player completes one challenge, another begins.

Designing and building Microgames is a great way to explore game design. Their small scope allows even a single person to conceive, build, and test a game idea in a short amount of time. Each microgame is stripped to its essential element, allowing no distractions to cover up weak central mechanic. When building a microgame is left with a little to worry about as possible beyond the essentials of game design.

p5.play

The p5.play library builds on p5.js to add features commonly needed in interactive applications, especially games. The p5.play homepage describes the library like this:

p5.play provides a Sprite class to manage visual objects in 2D space and features such as animation support, basic collision detection and resolution, sprite grouping, helpers for mouse and keyboard interactions, and a virtual camera.

Since p5.play builds on p5.js it should feel pretty familiar. One key difference is that p5.play provides a scene graph. When you create a new sprite, p5.play remembers that it is part of the scene. When you set the velocity of a sprite, p5.play remembers that for you too. When you call drawSprites(), p5.play will move and draw all the sprites.

Study Examples

p5.play Animation

This example shows the basics of p5.play: creating, animating, and drawing sprites.

Character art by Buch @ opengameart.org

p5.play Interaction

This example shows how to use the .mouseIsOver property of a sprite for user interaction.

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