Mini Game

A mini-game is a smaller game nested within a bigger game.

A good example is the hacking mini-game from the first Bioshock, which was basically Pipe Dream.

Some good examples from strategy games are the battles in Heroes of Might and Magic, Age of Wonders, Master of Orion II or any Total War game - all these drop you into a mini-game that is very different from the main game loop to resolve the outcome of the battle.

ECS Design

I’m not going to try to squeeze this one into an ECS mould because it won’t fit. A mini-game is more like a state change in your game where you switch out the main systems for a bunch of other systems that implement your mini-game rules.

What you’ll need to implement this is:

• A trigger in the main game loop to transition to the mini-game state.
• A way to send data from the main game to the mini-game.
• A trigger in the mini-game to transition back to the main game.
• A way to send results from the mini-game back to the main game.

Related Mechanics

• Nothing yet…