Mini Games – An Anatomy Of Visual Novels
Entry posted by Pallas_Raven in Analysis
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This is a condensed version of the full article which can be found on my Main Blog Here.
Small But Mighty
When it comes to additional styles of gameplay within visual novels, they do not need to be as grand or demanding as a JRPG or SRPG component and the smallest of gameplay cycles can have a far greater effect in the right situation. Enter the Mini-Game, short and simple mechanical simulants that aim to prove value in being concise. Including these lends a form of texture to events and character actions without committing to a more extensive gameplay suite which might impact the player’s direct engagement with the narrative. The manifestations of the mini-game come in several forms from entirely distinct side activities to representing conflict in a more directly to creating empathy with the characters. Each one offers a distinct set of challenges for a visual novel to overcome in order to justify their inclusion without harming pacing or immersion since by their nature mini-games are very abstract. Let’s engage in bite sized gameplay and dive into what mini-games can offer.
Detached Side Activities
By far the most common way of including mini-games in a visual novel is to make them detached side activities. This means they are either exist in a separate space to the narrative, often only accessible through the extras menu, or they are within the main game as entirely optional events. Those which exist separately tend to be used by fandisc style games where the content is likely already a buffet of often detached narratives designed to offer the player small dishes of excitement. Mini-games seamlessly slot into this colourful collection since they provide the same bite sized experiences the game is based around, but in a slightly different form in order to keep up the sense of novelty fandiscs rely upon to differentiate themselves from the original title. Take for example Fate Hollow Ataraxia and its Illya Castle mini-game. This side content is sectioned from the main narrative as is much of the unlockable elements and it contains a distinctive and humourous small story about the servants fighting against Illya. Its light tone is in line with the rest of the optional elements and acts as a suitable reward for engagement as well as embodying the celebration of Fate Stay Night’s success.
As for the visual novels which contain mini-games as optional content within their main narratives, these lean on their mini-games as a type of pacing mechanism in order to prevent the player from getting bored or rushing through the story too quickly, but in a way that does not take away the player’s agency. This means that a player who does not like the mini-game in question can simply skip over it without it negatively impacting their experience while still allowing for those who do resonate with it to control their playtime in the mini-game. Perhaps the developer who is in love with this type of mini-game the most is Key with Little Busters and Summer Pockets being excellent embodiments of this core design idea. These have a baseball and table tennis mini-game respectively and share the common element of being completely skippable, but still in-depth enough to hold the attention of the player in a way that ties into the narrative space. Each time the mini-game is played these visual novels can provide a release from the drama and a means of player enforced sidetracking to give a needed sense of freedom.
Metaphor For Conflict
Another common reason to include mini-games is to use them as a stand in for internal or external strife. Sometimes a visual novel might want a specific moment or repeated action to stick out in the player’s mind and it does not want to entirely rely on its native narrative presentation so it instead opts for a mini-game that acts as layer of metaphor on top. These are often abstractions of the activity being engaged in and represents the mental space of the characters occupy. Making these events stand out also gives the player an insight into how the characters perceive the world which better allows the player to fill their shoes and feel for their journey. In a broader context it reinforces the tone of the game by presenting it in a more kinetic fashion than might otherwise be expected from the medium and lending a texture to the title it would otherwise lack.
In The Character’s Shoes
There are visual novels where detached and abstract mini-games would ruin their grounded and intimate nature. For this situation the mini-game can take on a more direct approach by systematising basic or mundane actions to give the characters a sense of physically believability. This can be anything from flicking switches to putting a key into a lock, things we do everyday and do not think about. What this does is create a tactile link between the characters on screen and our own lives in order to play off this bridge so a player might be able to empathise with them through their shared reality. It is easy to underestimate just how much these little touches do to liven up the game in the moment and provide breathing room even if it is in a much smaller way to the other types of mini-games.
The DS era of visual novels is where this type of mini-game really came into its own due to the console’s touchscreen allowing for more kinetic interactions with the game. To see this in action we can look to Last Window: The Secret of Cape West which often asks the player to engage in everyday or basic activity mini-games in order to process. These are cleverly used to put the player into the grounded shoes of our investigator protagonist through mixing in simple detective work among these everyday actions to create an understanding of the skills that they are utilising. The title also knows that overusing these small moments can lead to a reduction in their effectiveness and so tends to use them in short burst where they would have the most impact. Beyond the ability of these mini-games to create a link between player and game is the way in which they slot nicely alongside other gameplay styles. VA-11 HALL-A is a good showcase of this quality since its main bartending loop is accompanied by a few of these grounded mini-games such a cracking some beers with the boss. Having these simple diversions has the effect of permeating the character downtime with a sense of gameplay continuity while not demanding the player learn another set of complex systems.
Conclusion
No part of a visual novel is without value and mini-games show us just how powerful that sentiment can be when used to support greater tonal and thematic elements. Through being detached from the central game they can offer a useful and player enforced pacing mechanism or provide a novelty in order to keep the player engaged. When merged into the central narrative they allow for the expression of conflict in a more direct but still abstract manner to help the player feel what is going on in a kinetic way. They also give the player a way of experiencing the more banal aspects of the character’s lives and building a connection to them through how this echoes their own day to day activities. Of all the styles of secondary gameplay within visual novels, the mini-game is perhaps the least invasive and easiest to implement to great effectiveness and it is definitely worth considering when developing your own titles.
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