This is a game design masterpiece. No, I'm not exagerating. The way the map and tasks are designed around the 1 minute loops you have before "dying" and awakening again at your home is perfectly tuned to be fun and rewarding.

This doesn't only applies to the "main mission", but all the side objectives it has available. It really takes takes advantage of the time limit for sweet fun activities, but it also put a lot of humour in that. You have to listen to a very slow talking turtle to know where's a treasure or wait on a long queue to get another reward.

I really couldn't get off this game until I finished... and then until I got 100% (which took less than 3 hours)... and then I played it again in an extra game mode just because I was really having fun in this small world.

Yes. Is a very short game. That's not a problem, is the perfect length for a game like this

I can't say Minit is perfect tho. My main problem with it is the way the collectables work, specially in the latter part of the game. A few items are only useful to get one or two coins and those can only get you an upgrade to run (useful, but unnecesary) and an extra heart. But because the way the game works, hearts are kinda useful.

Yes, getting those items is fun and it feels rewarding, but the items aren't really great. My second problem is only if you go for completion. The way you get a couple of the secret coins are really obscure and I can imagine how can you found them without looking a guide online. As an 'explorer' this is a little frustrating. I don't want the game to tell me where is everything, but It should at least point you in the correct direction.

Am I overthinking if I say that the plot of the game, where you find a cursed sword that kills you every minute and have to destroy the sword factory to fix everything, is a commentary on the gun industry? I mean, having a weapon shortens your life expectancy and the factory is destroying thise pretty small world.

Yes, I'm overthinking that, but you won't convince I'm not right about it. He he he.

Anyway. I loved Minit and I see myself playing it again and again once in a while just to have a little fun. Also, the soundtrack is amazing.

Minit is a more than decent action-adventure game that borrows heavily from the structure of 2D-Zelda titles, most notably A link to the past. The added gimmick - once again influenced from a Zelda-title (guess which one) - is that you are cursed to die every 60 seconds, only giving you a limited time to explore your surroundings and make permanent progress by finding items or finishing mini quests.

I believe that the time restraint adds one interesting element to the game: structuring gameplay loops. Knowing that I only have one minute to make a change, my mind is narrowed to focus on several small goals, giving a more condensed feeling of the classic Metroidvania-formula. It can feel a little bit like this:

I should use this run to explore the beach to see if I can find something. I see a shop and a stranded fish. Oh, a boat, I will have to remember that...DEAD - Hm, let's check the shop instead. Ah, this guy wants me to kill 5 crabs. I may not have time for that now, so I will go up north. Oh, an item blocked by boxes...DEAD - It's crab cake time. Done, let's visit the shop. Nice, I got a cup of coffee, now I am strong enough to move some boxes...Wasn't there boxes up nor- DEAD

It is my belief that dying accentuates the progress you are making in a clear manner, achieving a great game tempo for a 2-hour experience. Unfortunately, the time limit is not utilised in any interesting way in regards to puzzle solving and allowing for interesting decision making, apart from a few exceptions. One of the best moment in the game is when you find a dungeon with a maze so long to traverse that it takes you just a bit over 60 seconds to actually reach your goal. When finding seven coins spread around the world, you are able to buy running shoes that enables you to reach the end of the maze in under 60 seconds. This is one of the very few times that the developers actually lets the timeloop affect the puzzle solving, but overall the game design is more akin to classic Zelda-quests. Kill these bandits. Help this person. More emphasis on the minit would make Minit stand out more.

I think my main takeaway from playing this game, is how a monochrome and pixelated map with simple interactions and design elements that only takes about 2 hours to fully explore to me feels far more immersive and alive than most enormous 60 hour open world games made by triple A-studios.

I think this comes down to one key aspect that almost every open world game fails at - memorable interactions and events. Even though the overworld in Minit is small, it is condensed and filled to the brim with characters and small puzzles that are specific and unique. A neverending desert. A duck that you have to push around in order to find his/her wallet. A rampaging bull. A chest hidden behind a waterfall. These one off-episodes isolated are not that impressive, but together they build a believable and tangible world. Now compare this with the classic Ubisoft-recipe (which seems to be the benchmark of all Open world-games nowadays). Worlds are large and with amazing graphics, but most interactions are copied and pasted over the world, making the game world more similar to a business flowchart than a vivid, breathing place.

I find it a kind of tragic reflection on modern game design that 1000 people studios with billions of dollars to spend, fail to make a more lasting impact than what is possible for 4 people and a miniscule budget to achieve. Because what separated Gerudo Valley in 1998 from a fortress in Assassin's Creed today is not necessarily the core level design. It is that there weren't 58 Gerudo Valleys.

I really enjoyed this!

The game is really simple, but it does enough unique things to feel fresh. The progression through finding upgrades was well done, all the items felt satisfying and helped you progress to new parts of the world.

The map was well designed - everything was connected through shortcuts which you keep revealing as you play more, and I loved seeing how it all came together. It was neat how many different ways you could arrive at different locations - particularly the factory, and the game forces you to make your way around it in a clever way at the end.

What makes the game feel unique are the various design choices such as the focus on the watering can, the "find the hotel guests" quest, and areas like the lighthouse, the boat ride to the small island with the mechanical switches, the octopus with its missing tentacles, the "hidden temple" with it's three unique challenges, and the ultimate climax of the game being about this weird cursed sword factory. None of this is super revolutionary, it just helps give the game it's own flavour.

The game's physics and mechanics were always satisfying. Swinging your sword feels good, as does throwing it. Moving around, pushing boxes, swimming, cutting down trees, etc. It all works well.

The 60-second gimmick was not used very well, in my opinion. It's not a drawback at all, because everything is so well-connected that you never really lose progress, and running through the world doesn't get old. But it doesn't add much to the game. I don't think I'd have felt much differently about the game if it had just played out like a normal adventure game with no timer. I'm not sure what else they could've done with it, but it doesn't feel integral.

The soundtrack is really good! There aren't a lot of tunes, but they were all really catchy and I would always look forward to hearing them each time I returned to an area.

The story is bare bones, but all the characters you meet have fun sprites and their dialogue is pretty clever.

Overall, I liked it a lot, and even though it doesn't do anything mindblowing, everything it does do is well-executed and feels fresh enough.

Minit is a little dose of a game with a particularly interesting concept - the player gets a cursed sword that kills them within 60 seconds. Without any extra powerups to extend time or anything, the player must set out and explore the island they are on and why the cursed sword got there.

The player's main item is a sword which they can use to slash enemies but can also grab ahold of a few different collectibles and items such as hearts and coins, a watering can, some coffee, a camera, flippers, and other things. The area is a little intimidating for 60 seconds at first but the main way that the player can traverse forward farther is by using obtained items to open up shortcuts and using different hub rooms to resurrect from. It can get a little unwieldy at first when searching the land but they'll be able to connect the world with enough shortcuts by the late game to speed things up.

Progression very much depends on the player's ability to quickly pick up on and explore their environment. With four major hub rooms to sleep in and a fair bit of the island to explore, it can be easy to get lost and overlook things, especially on a 60 second timer. There are some ghosts along the way that offer hints but I did find myself pretty stuck in some places (coin hunting, hotel guest hunting). Luckily the game doesn't require 100% completion to beat the game, so it's not super frustrating.

The game has a charming monochrome look, with a slightly cartoony 8-bit look that resembles a Game Boy game. There isn't too much visually that stands out (with exception to some stuff near the end) but the chiptune tracks are pleasant enough.

Minit is a short game that's highly recommended to pick up. Utilizing a unique mechanic and not overstaying its welcome, it's a couple hours that are definitely worth playing. It even has a couple of New Game + runs if you're willing to play all of what it has to offer!