Mini-Game

Saving Dream Land can wait until I get that plushie!

A Mini Game is just that: a miniature game.

More specifically, it's a specific type of highly temporary Unexpected Gameplay Change in a video game, in order to break up the tedium of doing exactly the same thing over and over - as a result, they hardly ever Genre Shift to anything even faintly close to the original game's genre. They're one of the oldest video game tropes, and one of the most persistent.

Mini Games vary so widely that it's difficult to summarise them all, but they ultimately divide into two categories - mandatory and not mandatory. A mandatory Mini Game is one you have to succeed at just to continue the game (such as hacking in System Shock and BioShock); a non-mandatory Mini Game is one which is optional (such as Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII). Occasionally a Mini Game might be so optional it isn't even accessed via the story, and has to be accessed via the main menu. Completing a Mini Game can give the player rewards in the main game, or be required for 100% Completion. If the Mini Game is luck-based, and needs to be beaten in order to continue the game, it's time to grind up some money, tape down the controller and go and do something else for a few days.

Good Mini Games can be an excellent and fun way to reinject life into an otherwise repetitive game, and a good way of stretching the gamer's skills by forcing them to do something a bit different. Similarly, there's a shock value in springing a Mini Game on a player unexpectedly, which can add drama (such as Metal Gear Solid 3, which sprung a Mini Game on the player as a nightmare).

Minigame Games are games that have nothing but minigames, such as WarioWare, Cooking Mama, Bishi Bashi and the Ape Academy series. You might not get the same mileage out of a Mini Game package as you would from a hundred-hour RPG, but that doesn't mean they're not fun.

Occasionally there is the slightly disturbing situation of the Mini Game being more fun and exciting than the real game. There are games with many minigames included in a Minigame Zone.

Game Within a Game is a subtrope in which Mini Game is a in-Verse game playable by Player Character. Video Mode is a common type of Mini Game for Physical Pinball Tables. Not to be confused with Gaiden Game.

Fun fact: Namco Bandai actually held a U.S. patent on using this trope in a Loading Screen, which explains why their games usually feature fully-realized minigames that resemble some of their classic hits. Said patent expired in 2015.

Specific types of Mini Games:

• Betting Mini-Game
• Digital Tabletop Game Adaptation: Simple adaptations of public domain games are sometimes used as mini-games.
• Fishing Minigame
• Game Hunting Mechanic
• Hacking Minigame
• Herding Mission
• Hot Coffee Minigame
• Lockpicking Minigame
• Memory Match Mini-Game
• Persuasion Minigame
• Racing Minigame
• Mini-Game Credits
• Pop Quiz
• "Simon Says" Mini-Game
• Unexpected Shmup Level

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Important, significant, arty, egregious and funny examples:

Adventure

• In Conquests of the Longbow, winning a game of Nine Men's Morris is required to receive an amethyst.
• The Darkside Detective is mostly a point-and-click adventure game, but each chapter includes a moment where the protagonist has to perform some skilled task such as picking a lock, rewiring a power junction, or following a radar signal, each represented by a different mini-game.
• Mario Party Advance: What's the mini-game equivalent of a mini-game? The game is already a mini-game game, but includes even smaller games (more like toys) called "Gaddgets." Some of them are actual mini-mini games (like one where you try to pick the right-colored wire to not blow up a bomb, one where frogs race to catch a fly, and others), but others are more just for fun. One, for example, lets you decorate a cake, one translates messages into Morse, one creates different foods based on the ingredients you pick, and one lets you smash things for fun.
• Escape from the MindMaster had five mini-games that tested your memory and reflexes.
• The Quest for Glory series has a number of mini-games, most relating to the Thief and his abilities. Shadows of Darkness and Dragon Fire each had separate mini-games used to disarm traps, while Trial by Fire had a tightrope-walking mini-game that appears optional at the start, but makes a comeback as part of the Thief's endgame. Wages of War had Awari, a boardgame based off of Oware, a real game played in Ghana.
• Shenmue had a variety of minigames to play, including darts, pool, a QTE-based boxing game, and fully emulated versions of classic Sega games like Space Harrier and Hang-On.
• Shenmue 's spiritual successor, Yakuza, had myriad ways to kill time when not beating the snot out of gangsters, including casino games like Blackjack and Poker, slot machines and pachinko, fishing, UFO Catchers, batting cages, table tennis, golfing, arcade games, karaoke, hitting the hostess clubs, and more.
• Steambot Chronicles had a stellar 9-ball minigame, as well as rhythm minigames for all sorts of instruments from a humble harmonica to an accordion.
• Vexx includes two different varieties of mini-game in the main game, with several different levels: A "ring battle" game, and a "platform battle" game. While they're single-player only, they pit you against three CPU enemies, which suggests that multiplayer might have been planned at one point.
  • There's also a few miscellaneous minigames, like the Pirate's Challenge minigame that involves changing all of the tiles to one color (black or white) while cannonballs bounce across the board to change the colors. It's not that hard, but just watch out for the crushing block that slams down to reverse all of the colors.

Beat 'em Up

• MadWorld has 'Bloodbath Challenges', incredibly bloody sessions of cruelty that involve killing Mooks with special props and weapons. Some are more difficult than others.

Fighting

• The Super Smash Bros. series has a tradition of having a shooter minigame during the credits. In Brawl, you can actually earn extra coins with this. Brawl also has the Coin Launcher minigame, which lets you use said coins to shoot things and earn extra trophies and stickers.
• The Ur-Example of fighting games, Karate Champ, has three. One involves Brick Breaking, another has your character breaking or dodging stuff thrown at him, another involves knocking out a rushing bull.
• The Mortal Kombat franchise has several mini games throughout it's run time, ranging from actual side games with their own rules, to unique spins on traditional fights:
  • Chess Kombat, exactly what it sounds like...although unlike chess, two pieces fight each other when they meet, with the winner pushing the loser off of the board. This first showed up in Deception along with it's PSP port, Unchained.
  • Endurance, pitting the player against 2 or more kombatants at once.
  • Motor Kombat, a kart racing minigame with a violent twist, first introduced in Armageddon.
  • Puzzle Kombat, a Puzzle Fighter-style minigame that first showed up in Deception along with the DS port of Ultimate 3.
  • Test Your Balance, exclusive to the Playstation Vita port of Mortal Kombat 9. Tilt the Vita to keep a fighter balanced on a perch, whilst weathering the occasional tossed body part. Fail, and they die, usually messily.
  • Test Your Luck, a traditional one-on-one fight with a slot machine added. Whatever slots are landed on decide the opponent, the buffs/debuffs and who they'll go to (if not both) and any applied stage hazards.
  • Test Your Might, the iconic strength-testing game from the original Mortal Kombat, making infrequent returns throughout the series. Players had to tap buttons to pass a threshold and break the object in front of their character. This could be played head-to-head with another player as well.
  • Test Your Sight, a basic shell game first appearing in Deadly Alliance. Characters attempt to visually (or audibly in Kenshi's case) track a prize hidden under a container. Fail and the consequences are dire.
  • Test Your Slice, Fruit Ninja with body parts.
  • Test Your Strike, MK9's unique take on Test Your Might. Instead of passing a threshold, players tapped rhythmatically to keep within a threshold, in order to break one certain object in a pile of others. Failure means the character used breaking the wrong object and hurting their hand...except for Smoke, who gets his soul sucked out by the magic box he was aiming for.

First-Person Shooter

• Left 4 Dead 2 has three mini games you could play in the Dark Carnival campaign. The first one is a shooting gallery where you shoot Moustachio and his cronies for points in order to get Gnome Chompiski, which would get everyone an achievement if he is seen all the way to the end of the campaign. Another mini game has you test your strength against Moustachio buy smashing a red button with a melee weapon to hit a bell, but you could only succeed by taking an adrenaline shot beforehand and smacking the bell gets you an achievement, but alerts a horde. The last game is basically whack-a-mole with the park's mascot instead of a mole and you gain points if you smack or shoot the characters popping out. Getting 42 points nets you an achievement and a horde.
• The Conduit requires the player to solve a minigame to unlock secret weapons caches.
• Lupin the 3rd: The Shooting has different objectives for each level, primarily objectives of simply shooting the bad guys. Different levels have the player attempting to shoot a certain target, use a special device to nab treasure, or steer a car to avoid traffic. Failure to meet the objectives results in a life lost and losing all of them is instant game over.

Platform

• Kirby games often have mini-games.
  • In Kirby Super Star, three of the eight games were mini-games. Gourmet Race was a mini race-game where you raced against King Dedede to collect food. Megaton Punch was a timing game, and the last was a quick-draw game. Kirby Super Star Ultra added more.
  • The "bosses" in Kirby: Canvas Curse were actually special varieties of mini-games. After fighting the boss, you could play the mini-game later for fun.
  • Kirby's Dreamland 3 had one mini-game per world that you needed to beat to earn a Plot Coupon. After beating the game, you unlocked "Mini Game Mode," where you got to play through all five at once.
  • Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards had no real minigames to speak of in the main game, but included 3 little multiplayer mini-games in a side mode. They actually had their own little goals to complete, but didn't affect the main game.
• Ty the Tasmanian Tiger: Bush Rescue included an entire mini Wacky Race game, with a fairly large roster of selectable characters and a number of tracks. While they could be played in the main game, the "cart mode" was accessable straight from the main menu without having to be unlocked. (Playing the main game did get more tracks, though.)
• LocoRoco 2 has several unlockable mini-games including a whack-a-mole type game, a crane game, and an Expected Shmup Level.
• La-Mulana has two minigames, both of which are, just like La Mulana itself, tributes to past MSX games. One of them is a dating sim-like game that eventually turns into a brief round of Snatcher. The other, PR3, is a Parodius clone, and is required to complete the Bonus Level of Hell.
• Mushroom Men not only has several mini-games in the main game (including one that's a homage to the original Donkey Kong, it includes several mini-games in the "gallery" menu (like pachinko, memory, and a maze-building game) for the fun of it.
• Ape Quest is an RPG, but uses minigames in addition to Random Encounters.
  • Another Ape Escape example would be Mesal Gear Solid: Snake Escape, a Metal Gear Solid clone (no pun intended) starring a Solid Snake monkey named Pipo Snake. Mesal Gear was actually marketed more aggressively than the actual Ape Escape 3 and was probably responsible for most of its sales.
• The Wario Land series has had a few mini games, ranging from a roulette type game to target shooting to golf in the earlier games, and some strange little mini games used to get the coins to buy items for boss battles in Wario Land 4
• The WarioWare series had the toy/souvenir room, which came with various weird interactive stuff to mess around with and quite a few full length mini games of some of the microgames in the main game itself. Two of these that appeared quite often, Paper Plane and Pyoro, were actually made into standalone games and released for the DSi's download service.
• Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Sonic Adventure has a handful of minigames, including two different pinball games in the Casinopolis stage for Sonic, the "Sky Chase" railshooter segments from Sonic and Tails's campaigns, a whack-a-mole game for Amy (which is necessary to progress at one point and can be used to get character upgrades), and a simple cart-racing time attack game in Twinkle Park.
  • Sonic Adventure 2 has a cart-racing minigame based on Tails and Rouge's driving stages. Beating one stage unlocks the game for one player, while beating both unlocks two player racing.
  • Sonic Battle has five minigames: Knuckles' Mine Hunt (a Minesweeper expy), Shadow's Speed Demon (a 4-player race), Amy's Treasure Hunt (a 4-player scavenger hunt akin to the Emerald-hunting stages from the Adventure games), Tails' Fly & Get (a 4-player platforming challenge), and Soniclash (a 4-player pinball battle).
• In the Doctor Who Edutainment Game The Doctor and the Dalek, the minigame is the whole point. It's a platformer intended to teach kids the basic concept of programming. So every level has a point where you're suddenly no longer controlling the Dalek directly and instead giving it a series of commands to follow in order to reach a goal. Then it's back to the platforming.
• In McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, you can play the "Block Game" (very similar to Columns) to win items.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: Swanky's Bonus Bonanza, where successfully beating quiz games can gain you lives.
• Yoshi Touch & Go: If the player earns a high score in the Marathon and Score Attack modes, they unlock a minigame called Balloon Trip.

Pinball

• As the Ur-Example of the Video Mode, Caveman has a video screen embedded in the playfield, where players could enter and play a dinosaur-hunting maze game.
• In addition to the various Video Modes, Psycho Pinball has several full-screen minigames centered around the game mascot, Psycho the Aardvark. The games even differ according to the platform.
  • The Mega Drive version has "Runaway Train", where Psycho has to run across the top of a locomotive; "Whale's Belly", where Psycho jumps across floating rings to throw crabs at a whale's ulcers; and "Moonsquares", where Psycho must travel across a set of disappearing platforms.
  • The DOS version has "Dodge the Express", where Psycho must avoid a series of oncoming trains; "Big Deal", a high-or-low card game; and "Strong Arm", an arm-wrestling challenge against a circus strongman.
• The Flintstones has the Bedrock Bowl-O-Rama, where you shoot at a set of bowling pins and are rewarded with either a gutter, a spare, or a strike. The number of frames bowled counts towards the player's bonus, and getting three strikes starts Bowl-O-Rama Multiball.
• Dutch Pinball's The Big Lebowski carries it one step further with a miniature Brunswick bowling lane embedded beneath the playfield.

Puzzle Game

• The games from the Uncle Albert's Adventures series are filled with various mini-games.

Real Time Strategy

• Starcraft II Wings of Liberty's campaign has the Lost Viking game inside of the cantina, which is a Bullet Hell type shooter.

Rhythm Game

• Cool Cool Toon's story mode is occasionally broken up by "Notty Games", where you're given a beat and need to repeat it by tapping a specific button. The first one (defusing a bomb) tells you which button you need to press, but later ones instead give you clues at the beginning of the game that you need to remember.

Role-Playing Game

• After the success of Final Fantasy VIII's Triple Triad game (the rules of which changed as you progressed through the game), all Final Fantasy games succeeding it contain a card or collectible game with number-based rules. Final Fantasy X-2 contained a particularly incomprehensible multiplication-based Mind Screw which, unfortunately, was required to win a powerful Dress Sphere on top of 100% Completion. Apart from this, Final Fantasy games have oodles of Mini Games. Again, Final Fantasy X-2 had the most, feeling at times like a Mini Game package. Final Fantasy VII had some very high-quality ones, including a painfully-addictive motorcycle game, a clever strategy game, and a submarine combat game.
  • Sphere Break, said unfortunate mini-game in X-2, has the benefit of being a Luck-Based Mission where Continuing is Painful and the tokens required to play are not readily available from any obvious source. Fortunately, the only opponent worth playing (the one with the Dress Sphere) is standing right next to a save point and playing to win is substantially easier than practicing (since a good amount of possible, otherwise correct moves have the side effect of eating your tokens and making it impossible to ever play again, which you don't have to worry about in your last game). You also have to be really good at adding and multiplying small numbers quickly, which no amount of grinding or online walkthroughs can help you with.
  • Final Fantasy VII runs a gamut of mini games throughout its duration with varying levels of quality. These include one which requires you to perform CPR on a little girl through use of a pressure gauge, another pits Tifa and Scarlet in a bitch-slapping fight and another is an infuriating puzzle sequence the involves untying Tifa from a chair with only her head and legs.
  • Final Fantasy IX has a horribly implemented card game with poorly explained rules. There are no rewards to be had outside of a card player ranking that is so difficult to max out that the game designers never programmed a reward for it other than a glitch.
    • Oddly, it was this card game that Square chose to include with their PlayOnline service, alongside Final Fantasy XI.
  • Final Fantasy X's lightning dodging minigame and blitzball minigame deserve special credit for both being mandatory to access the most powerful weapons for two characters, and being about as fun as being struck by lightning and a drowning simulator would sound.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has its own Gold Saucer, where players can participate in minigames and events to win tokens which can be exchanged for prizes. These games include (but do not limit to) a weekly lottery, scratch-off cards, Chocobo Racing, Triple Triad, Doman Mahjong, and a realtime strategy game called "Lord of Verminion".
  • Final Fantasy XV featured a small handful of minigames. In addition to its own version of Chocobo Racing, there is also "Justice Monsters Five", a pinball-esque minigame (which also received a short-lived standalong mobile phone version). There is also a Fishing Minigame where Noctis can partake in his pastime of angling, catching fish either for food or to trade.
  • Even the original Final Fantasy had a minigame, if you get on the ship and press B enough times.
• Dark Cloud includes a Fishing Minigame, and Dark Chronicle added fish races ("Finny Frenzy") and a golf-like minigame called "Spheda".
• Breath of Fire IV was often criticized for its onslaught of minigames. Indeed, each town had it own minigame you needed to complete in order to progress. The Fishing Minigame though was really well done.
• The Battling Mini Games in Xenogears, while a good basic 3D fighter, first appeared in a mandatory context, to the frustration of many gamers.
  • Xenogears also had a card game in it, which was mostly a simple math exercise.
• Xenosaga had Xenocard, a surprisingly full-featured, well-developed TCG, with booster packs and everything.
• Pazaak in Knights of the Old Republic. Utterly pointless, only occasionally mandatory.
• Similarly, Swoop Racing in the sequels was, mercifully, entirely optional.
• Any minigame in Mass Effect, from opening a safe to disarming a nuclear bomb consists of pushing the A, B, X and Y buttons at the right time. Except for resetting the AI core, which was just a simplified Towers of Hanoi puzzle.
• Mass Effect 3 has the Citadel DLC, which includes its own Mini Game Zone that features casino games, "Shattered Eezo" (a fighting game), "Claw Game" (a crane game), "Relay Defense" (a game reminiscent of whack-a-mole), and a holographic battle arena.
• The racing sequence in Chrono Trigger.
  • Chrono Trigger was full of minigames far beyond that; the opening "Millenial Fair" area is one big mini-game fest, from betting on races to soda drinking contests and a button-matching sequence that actually becomes integral to the plot later on. And that's excluding the in-story minigames, such as a soup-drinking contest in the stone-age to prove your worth to a bunch of cavemen.
• The Kingdom Hearts series features quite a few, especially the sequels. Many of them are mandatory, and all of them are required for 100% Completion:
  • The Gummi Ship, a rail shooter that you're required to play to travel between worlds. The sequel made it easier on you by only making you play each level once. (Though the "Bonus Missions" are insanely difficult)
  • The 100 Acre Woods, a world filled with nothing but minigames.
  • Mushroom Heartless. In KH 2 FM+, each mushroom has a different challenge, many of them very difficult.
  • The Twilight Town Help Wanted board, which you are required to play during the Five Hour Prologue.
    • Not strictly required actually, but you get a small reward for earning your portion of what the group needs, and a bigger one for getting all of the money for everyone.
  • The Atlantica Rhythm Game levels.
  • The Tron Light Cycles.
  • 358/2 Days is relatively free of minigames, unless you count the Grandstanding game (keep a ball airborne as long as possible) and following Pete as minigames.
  • Birth by Sleep introduces the completely optional Command Board game, as well as having Disney Town replace 100 Arce Woods as the minigame world of that game.
  • And countless others. They even make you play one during the final boss battle.
• The World Ends with You has Tin Pin Slammer, which is either quite endearing or...quite the opposite. Either way, it's the only way to get certain pins and items. Feel free to wail in despair. It's also the subject of a particularly funny bonus chapter parodying it.
• Towards the end of Mother 3, Porky challenges Lucas to a series of three mini-games: a whack-a-mole game, a race, and a balloon-blowing contest. The thing about these games, though, is that Lucas has to lose on purpose in order to advance the plot. But only by a small margin. While this part is annoying to many people, it really helps depict Porky as the big fat jerk he is.
• Romancing SaGa 3 had 3 of them 2 were limited only to Mikhail's Scenario: A War Game in which you could control an army which starts off as retaliation against a coup to actually assailing an enemy fortress and holding it for a brief time. You could play the game with other characters but it could only be played twice; one is being paid as a mercenary for an army, and the other is distracting the enemy forces to allow you to sneak into the Point of No Return. Another was a simulation where you control the kingdoms' assets and rule over provinces, this also allowed you to make armor; some that required materials. The third Mini-Game involved you creating a company and buying out commodities in 3 rounds; The first was to make your company large, the second was to defeat a company importing illegal goods, and the last was to defeat human businesses that allied themselves with the Abyss demons. You get paid 10,000 after completing each round and it also allows you to recruit a character after you clear the first round.
• In Robopon, the first game had a couple, some of which were really fun. When you go to fight Kamat, these games become mandatory, as each faction of his/her army specializes in one of the various games.
• Fallout 4 has hidden holotapes that, when plugged into a computer terminal or your Pip-Boy, contain games. Most of these games are essentially the series's takes on Donkey Kong, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Pitfall!, and classic Western RPG/s.
• Persona 5: Various human parameter increasing activities like the batting cages and video games involve lining up ui elements, hitting buttons at the right time or hitting them as fast as you can. This is a notable evolution from previous Persona games, which featured no such thing when doing after-school activities (other than Persona 4's Fishing Minigame) and were instead passive. Mini-games include a Fishing Minigame, Betting Mini-Game, Racing Minigame and a Pop Quiz.
• Star Ocean: The Divine Force has Es'owa, a board game with miniature figurines that plays not dissimilar to Dots & Boxes. Each player takes turns placing figures on the board, with each piece having an attack value and an assigned role that determines their special abilities (Soldiers can allow the player to play a second piece if they have three on the board, Wizards increase nearby allies attack power, etc.), and encircling enemy units with your own units eliminates them from play. The pieces, themselves, are based on characters from previous Star Ocean titles, and can even be equipped as stat-boosting accessories.
• Max: An Autistic Journey has several, such as the recurring breathing mini-game to calm Max, driving to or from school, playing the psaltery, a racing game with Charles and an optional "Vaccination" shmup.
• Dragon Quest V has tons, especially in the DS remake. Slots, poker, the monster arena, the slurpodrome, the tombola drawings, the "Bruise the Ooze" machine in Debora's room, and especially the T'n'T boards, the last of which is monstrously complex and very aptly termed "Stark Raving". All are optional.
• Bug Fables: In Chapter 2, the Harvest Festival lets Vi play Whack-a-Worm, where she must hit worms with her Beemerang before they burrow back into the ground in the time limit. Once Kabbu gets his boulder-breaking ability, the party can visit an area where the game can be played at any time. Also, once the Underground Tavern is made available, Leif can play Spy Cards, a card battle game where new cards are unlocked from the Spy data of enemies. Also, once the Ant and Termite Kingdoms reestablish relations in Chapter 6, the termites will open a "Termacade" in Ant Kingdom City with two mini-games: "Flower Journey" (a clone of Flappy Bird) and "Mite Knight" (a 2.5D Maze Game). The player can earn tokens from the Termacade games that can be redeemed for prizes.

Simulation Game

• In Potion Permit, diagnosing patients, researching new potion recipes, and doing part-time work involve playing minigames. Your performance in them determines your patient's satisfaction and if you succeed in research or part-time work.

Soulslike RPG

• Bloody Spell have several mini-games between all that fighting and adventuring, which you can partake or pass up (without penalties). Winning these games grants you experience points, against all odds; you can meet a Street Urchin who offers to play a Shell Game with you, control a mounted crossbow to shoot at vermin in a rat-infested cavern, throw hoops to catch ceramic vases of different sizes, and all that.

Wide Open Sandbox

• The Grand Theft Auto series have worked in more and more as they go. Most are optional, and those that are mandatory are usually mandatory once, with optional repeats. In San Andreas there are two different rhythm Mini Games, one for dancing on foot, and one for dancing in a low rider.
  • The infamous "Hot Coffee" section is a rhythm minigame (though this is only available in early versions of San Andreas before the morals police forced its removal).
  • Both San Andreas and the three games that make up the Grand Theft Auto IV series contain multiple minigames including pool, bowling, arcade games, air hockey, darts, car races, casino and card games, arm-wrestling and San Andreas even has two triathlon events that one can compete in, if one knows where to find them and when. Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories also have a few mini games, but nowhere near as many.
• Bully/Canis Canem Edit had a variety of Mini Games to play as lessons. This involved rhythm Mini Games for Chemistry, fighting Mini Games for Gym, and timed anagram games for English. All were actually pretty good fun.
  • Not to mention the literal games that you have to complete in order to get 100%.
• Saints Row 2 had video blackjack and poker at a casino.
• Animal Crossing had "minigames" that were entire NES games.

Other

• Assassin's Creed: Altaïr's Chronicles contains its share of minigames. One involves removing a key from an enemy's bag, and another involves pushing pressure points on an enemy's back at the right time and in the right sequence to make them yield to Altair.
• Calico, a Life Simulation Game about running a cat cafe in a world of peaceful animals that you can ride or carry, after the January 2023 update, all cooking is now down in the form of minigames. They have a lot of variety to them, such as playing pool/billiards to collect ingredients, carrying bowls on your head to collect ingredients, and bouncing on cupcakes with a pogo stick to put decorations in them.
• Although not a video game, Destroy the Godmodder has a standard enough gameplay style that the sudden changes of game rules during certain events qualify.
  • The Halloween event in the second game. Everyone ends up playing as TF2 combatants trying to take down the Horseless Headless Horsemann, completely bereft of the the charges, entities and free respawns that characterize the game normally.
• In Fishing Vacation, there's a mini-game that can be played once per day where you dig up and catch worms to use as bait. The more worms you catch the more chances you have to catch things. You can also dig up what looks to be human bones.
• Bouts in Fleuret Blanc could be considered this. Though they are a major gameplay mechanic, they mostly optional, and are significantly different than the Adventure Game and Visual Novel format of the main game.
• Fork Parker's Crunch Out: There are two minigames in the game.
  • One involves pressing random buttons to fix the company's internet connection.
  • One has Fork using Pork to catch food dropped by a delivery drone and spitting it back out at it to bring it down.
• To get money in Pou, you have to go to the Game Room and play mini-games.
• Sakura Wars (1996) has a handful of minigames, the most notable one being Koi-Koi, a Japanese card game that can be played with Kohran.
• In Spiritfarer, gathering resources and crafting items take the form of various mini-games, such as a rhythm game for singing to the plants and racing to stand under the spots where lightning would strike to collect them in bottles.
• Teddy Together has its share of minigames about activities such as cooking meals to feed Teddy, and bathing Teddy.
• Sugar Rush, the racing game featured in Wreck-It Ralph starts with a minigame where you have to bake your own kart by collecting the right ingredients and filtering out the trash that drops. Ralph does poorly, leading Vanellope's kart to be lopsided, but she loves it anyway.

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