Revival: Minigames for Non-Combat Missions (with pictures!)

[ThomastheCat]

Preface: Some of you may remember this thread from both closed and open beta. I've delayed in re-posting it for a few reasons; I wanted to let the post-launch furor die down a bit and I wanted to totally revamp at least some of my initial concept images.

Now that both of these requirements have been satisfied it's time to re-post the minigames thread. I have seen a lot of posts in various feedback sections with the same general thought: give players some minigames or skill challenges to fill out the non-combat missions and offer some more mission variety.

Minigames are an appealing way to do this because, while they might have high overhead, once they are done they could theoretically be re-used and strung together in quite a few different ways which would greatly enhance the genesis content without putting a ton of strain on Cryptic's development resources.

Having said all that, it was repeated over and over again in the other threads that any such games should be skippable by those who have no desire to play them. Some suggested offering a difference of skill points for the captain vs. skill points for the bridge officer depending on if the player did the game themselves or just delegated it. But again, the key here is that they COULD be skipped if the player wasn't interested.

Another thing that people mentioned which I won't really go into below is the concept of social minigames - poker, 3D chess, tongo, dabo, darts, etc. That's also a great idea and would really spice up the social areas of the game.

Anyway, on to the meat and potatoes of the thread.

Two of the most well-known examples of games to incorporate minigames in a similar fashion are the shooter Bioshock and the RPG Mass Effect. If you haven't played them, in both games to perform a successful "hacking" operation you needed to complete a very short (15-30 second) minigame.

In Bioshock the hacking game was based on the classic game Pipe Mania. In Mass Effect it was a radial version of Frogger.

One of the neat things about these minigames is that they didn't break immersion; in both cases you felt like the activity of the minigame (connecting a pneumatic circuit or inserting a hostile computer program) was directly related to the objective you wanted to accomplish.

I'm a huge Trek fan and I am enjoying the combat aspects of STO, but I agree with the other opinions around the board that non-combat gameplay needs a huge shot in the arm. I think the suggestion of adding minigames to the standard "Go here, press F" missions would be a great way to accomplish this.

Anyway, below are some suggestions for mini-games and how they could translate to non-combat mission tasks that sound appropriately Trekkish. (Keep in mind that these are rough comps and that I'm not a game designer or a programmer.)

PIPE MANIA MINIGAME

STO_Minigames_PipeDream_20.jpg

Bigger Image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i...peDream_20.jpg

The Game: In this game you would rotate each node to let a fluid stream through a maze of channels. If you accidentally direct the fluid into a damaged node the operation would end and your console might blow up, or you would just need to try again depending on the difficulty of the puzzle.

The Allegory: If you've seen much Star Trek you know that they're always re-routing the EPS flow or diverting plasma coolant or deuterium or something from one place to another to make the ship work (or keep it from blowing up.) In the "Azura Blues" mission a player could execute this game to turn off the plasma feed and stop the fires in the corridors.

RADIAL FROGGER AND MINESWEEPER

STO_Minigames_Frogger_20.jpg

Bigger Image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i...Frogger_20.jpg

This is based on the hacking allegory from the original Mass Effect. Incidentally, here is a really cool blog post about the development of this mode for the Mass Effect PC game.

In the version presented here, there are other types of programs the player can use to clean up "corrupted" data sectors - think of it a little like mine sweeper where you have to flag squares adjacent to the threat. I could see this game being one of the more involved ones.

GUITAR HERO

STO_Minigames_GuitarHero_20.jpg

Bigger Image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i...tarHero_20.jpg

The Game: This would be a simplified rhythm or simon-says style game. You would use the arrow or WASD keys to plot the points on the line graph as they passed to the right.

The Allegory: They're always doing something with EM waves. Analyzing them, generating them, plotting them, etc. Using the rhythm game model you can make it fun to plot EM waves of your very own, and use it as a device to add some more variety to the "go here, scan this" missions.

SINE WAVE

STO_Minigames_SineWave_20.jpg

Bigger Image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i...ineWave_20.jpg

The Game: You need to match the frequency (width) and amplitude (height) of your sensor's decryption wave (white) with the incoming signal (red). I believe this minigame was used in Elite Force or Elite Force 2.

The Allegory: Enemy communications or other signals are sent along certain frequencies and you need to be able to decode them. By modulating your main sensor array to a specific EM band you can isolate these signals and access their contents.

3D PLOT COMPARE

STO_Minigames_PictureCompare_20.jpg

Bigger Image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i...Compare_20.jpg

The Game: The player would be presented with two 3D plots. The goal would be for the user to match the sliders so that the lines joining each pair are parallel. This could be complicated by the fact that if you raise the plot in one area it is lowered elsewhere, or perhaps both plots are constantly in a state of flux so it takes some skillful timing to get them to match up.

The Allegory: While it's a little vague how "scanning" works in Star Trek, in a lot of cases real-world sensors (RADAR, SONAR) work by emitting a signal and then measuring the image that signal returns. This minigame would be simulating the analysis of that returned signal and is general enough to apply to a variety of situations where a player has to scan something (plants, rocks, ship parts, etc.).

The keys, as mentioned in that article about Mass Effect, are to not create something that is so short it's trivial and not so long that it's just a chore. Individually these mini-games don't have much going on with them but taken together with the rest of the STO experience as it is shaping up and I think you'd have a pretty dynamic presentation!

Skill Chains - Linking Minigames

These minigames are all pretty simple and you couldn't build a mission around just one. But if you put the games in their proper context you could link several of them together to create a pretty involved non-combat mission as part of an episode or a patrol.

For example, the "repair weather sensors" blinky-hunt could be reworked as such:

1. Examine the first sensor. Your engineer tells you that there is a command lock-out and you have to hack in to repair it. You play the frogger mini-game to get access to the computer.
2. Once you access the computer you see that a few data transfer conduits are disrupted. Play the Pipe Dream minigame to re-establish data flow.
3. After accessing the data you recovered, your science officer tells you that there are some strange meteorological readings that need to be analyzed. You play the picture compare minigame to refine the data.
4. Once you have analyzed the data, you realize that a massive storm is likely days away from striking the planet but you need to confirm your findings from the global sensor network. Play the Sine Wave minigame to tap into the network.
5. The readings return conclusive. You hail the planetary authorities and warn them of the imminent danger. They thank you for your trouble and send you on your way. You've saved the day again!

So, with the minigames and a little extra flavor dialog between each game you can transfer a "press F 4 times" mission into something that feels a bit more involved and meaningful. And as is mentioned elsewhere in the thread by a few people, the games are small enough that they are modular and could hopefully be worked into a pre-existing workflow for mission creation. (Not knowing exactly how the Genesis system works this last part is pure speculation, but a fan can dream.)

[ThomastheCat]

ASTEROIDS

STO_Minigames_Asteroids_20.jpg

Bigger Image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i...teroids_20.jpg

The Game: Everybody loves asteroids! Navigate the probe through the level with the arrow keys, firing with space key, to destroy the enemy viruses while leaving healthy tissue alone.

You should be quick though, as the viruses will infect healthy tissue and send it after your probe! Also to note, this might be a good opportunity for co-operative minigame play, with other players taking care of their own infected areas and then coming to your aid if they get done before you do.

The Allegory: Dr. Crusher did it. The Emergency Medical Hologram on Voyager did it. Now you can too! Use a medical nanoprobe to eliminate a Borg infection by flying around inside a patient's bloodstream. This example uses Borg nanoviruses, but a small art change would turn the scenario into something purely biological.

BEJEWELED

STO_Minigames_Bejeweled.jpg

Bigger image:
http://www.secondstartotheleft.com/i..._Bejeweled.jpg

The Game: This is a riff on the oh-so-addicting puzzle game "Bejeweled" - or more specifically, "Bejeweled Twist." You have glyphs of various colors that you need to put in a sequence of at least three to make a set. The trick is that you do this by rotating a 2x2 set of glyphs clockwise. There are possibilities for combos and the like.

In this iteration, it might be so that once a set is created those pieces are "off the board" and you cannot use those slots to rotate other pieces into anymore. This would require some work in designing playable maps, but could make for an interesting variation on the theme.

The Allegory: How does the Universal Translator work, anyway? Well, from the little I understand about linguistics and Star Trek Technobabble, it uses a set of pre-coded phonemes, language patterns and cultural anthropology databases to detect recognizable patterns in new dialects and translate them in near real time.

But sometimes it doesn't work right or sometimes it needs a hand. You can join the company of officers like Captain Picard and practice xenoanthropology on ancient alien ruins that you come across in your travels. See some ancient alien ruins and need to know if it's a weapons silo or daycare center? Whip out your translation matrix to find out!

Perfect for science officers looking to for ancient worlds explore or engineering officers looking for ancient technology to loot.

[naenee]

This looks like a very good idea to me

[stoneyface]

first off, i love the idea. i think it is a great idea to expand the game in different ways to break into new ground. these are some good ways to break up the monotony of certain missions and make you use your brain. i just hope that minigames like the one based on guitar hero do not need full use of your hands to use. i am disabled and play with an ergodex keyboard and guitar hero and it's clones are unplayable for me. i would just advise that you keep things like that in mind when designing different minigames. you have to make them accessible to everyone.
i hope that some of these ideas get a close looking at by cryptic. it would be neat to see! what about achievements too?

[TheRavencroft]

My version of STO I wrote a long time ago was based more around a Crew on one ship rather than everyone having their own ship. In that kind of game these types of minigames were for each station a player could use to help the crew as a whole to complete missions.

I would of prefered a MMO like that for STO but sadly got this.

ANYWAY, I am glad someone brought this up and I am glad it has some wonderful concept art for it too. Keep up the great sugestions.

[TheFreyMan]

Wow.. those look amazing.

Hats off to your work, I'd LOVE to see these.. you could incorporate them in ground missions, etc.

Well done!

[Hornet331]

Probs for the huge ammount of work and thought you put into this post *thumbs up*

But for myself i hate mini games in games (god, why the xzibit fad springs into my mind...)... its ok for the first few time but than it just gets annyoing. In bioshock i used hacking maybe... well only when absolutly needed, in batman AA the *door overloading* also was kinda meh... nececary evil.

None the less i think this thread is worth to be considered by the devs.

So +1 for your idea and +10 for your effort.

[Tendai]

This is a fantastic idea that I hope the Devs pick up on. I think it would be a start in making the missions more entertaining and the game less shallow.

[Hyperion2206]

Really great work! 2 types were already in Elite Force II and I really enjoyed them; I would be glad if they made it into this game as well!

[Smylere]

I'm reminded of an old, and particularly atrocious, TNG game for the original Game Boy. One of the few fun parts of the game was the mini games. There was one where you had to re-establish the flow of energy, or something like that, and the game gave you a grid that you had to reconnect, similar to the flow pipes game.

I think it's a great idea to include at least a couple of these ideas into the game. It'll add a lot more depth and fun and lengthen the game play time. It'll also add a bit more "Trekkie" feel.