Minit Review

Genre: Puzzle / Adventure Game
Players: 1*
Playtime: 3 Hours (Includes beating the game at 110% completion; Played on the Nintendo Switch)

If you married the art style of a Tamagotchi with the gameplay mechanics of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, you might get something akin to what is the game that is Minit.  The hook that is unique to this game though is that your protagonist finds a cursed sword that will kill the player literally every 60 seconds, to which you then respawn at your last abode.  This small but significant mechanic turns what is a relatively small island into a captivating labyrinth where time becomes the driving force for many a humorous and thought-provoking encounter to be found.  But can a game that is in fact beatable in just 7 minutes truly hold that much depth to it?  Let us take a minute to explore just that in examining the pros and cons of this island adventure.

Gameplay Mechanics / Puzzle Design

With the mechanic of death looming over your head every 60 seconds, every second to be had in Minit is a valuable resource in which to push the boundaries for exploration and discover new items or vital pieces of information.  Even if you should die without having physically obtained anything for forward progression, every run still feels important and worthwhile for what was learned can be just as valuable as any coin or heart found.  Thanks to the quick style play style of each short-lived life, there is an addictive cycle to keep playing run after run, with new ideas constantly popping up in which to try next in your ever continuing search to lift the curse.

A hilarious moment to be found as this elderly turtle offers a painfully slow conversation, to which you anxiously listen in hopes for a clue to some treasure, but know all too well that death is inevitably ticking closer.

Aside from being just an incredibly unique mechanic, so much of the world and puzzle design is crafted in such a way to embrace the challenge and wit of this clever time constriction.  Trying to find the location of several enemies, then beating them and claiming your reward within a minute.  Trying to navigate a maze of portals or reach the end of a long twisted tunnel.  Figuring out how to push a series of boxes to a needed destination.  All of these actions / puzzles are made more interesting and gratifying given the tight restrictions required to overcome them.

Writing / Humor

Though the art direction offers a limited amount of expression for the many flavored characters found in Minit, their personalities shine through thanks to such colorful and humorous writing.  There is such quirkiness and silly novelty to be found in every bit of dialog, sign post, and more scattered about this weird island.  And often times there are plenty of laughs to be found uncovering a new character near the end of run, having your conversation cut short from death's cruel countdown, and wondering where in the world the rest of that conversation was going to go.  The gear which you obtain in this game is also delightfully charming, with the likes of coffee which I did not realize for the longest time was the reason I could suddenly push boxes.  But later reading the description of the item ("A good way to start the day!  Allows you to push boxes."), it made an adorable amount of sense.

Accessibility / "Co-Op"

With a very simple and easy to understand premise, Minit is a game that is not only very accessible for players of many skill levels, but an incredibly inviting experience in which to have other players join in.  In fact, you may have noticed in my above outline of this game that I listed the number of players as 1 with an asterisk.  That's because although it's technically a single player game, the quick nature of each run makes this for a surprisingly fun and engaging co-op game, in which players trade off with each death.  I'd argue this is actually the ideal way to play as even while not playing, there is such a collaborative energy bouncing different play styles and ideas from player to player.

Art Direction / Sound Design

While the art and sounds of Minit may not blow anyone away, there is an undeniable charm achieved with its retro inspired aesthetics that's worth noting.  It's simple, clean, and manages to add in enough personal qualities to give it a distinct look.

Art of the many monochromatic, but colorful characters found in Minit.

Full Completion

Because of the short length of this adventure, players will likely be encouraged to keep playing to full completion (that is 110% in this game).  Unfortunately, this is where the game's engaging timed death mechanic begins to become a cumbersome affair.  It deters finding those last few difficult secrets in the game when you keep having to repeat the same treks over and over again.  And some of those last few puzzles are rather convoluted / poorly communicated, which makes this death mechanic all the more frustrating / unlikely to find solutions without feeling the need to eventually just look up the answer.

Challenge vs Reward

Adding to that frustration is that many a complicated puzzle / trek in the game doesn't always lead to a satisfying reward.  For instance, the rewards for getting all the coins or retrieving all the tentacles in the game are rather useless considering by the time you've earned such, there's little left in the game to do.  It'd be nice if there were some hidden challenge or more interesting rewards worth putting in this extra effort.

Anddddd it's another coin.  Yay.

Short Playtime

As mentioned above, this game is rather short sitting at around 3 hours for full completion.  If speed-running is your jam though, you may get some more life out of this game as it is perfectly suited for such (and it knows so too, having a leader board for such as seen here).

From one simple and clever mechanic, Minit succeeds on all fronts in delivering a superbly charming and engaging experience for both players and viewers alike.  Although the rewards for challenges in the game may be rather superficial often a time, there is still plenty of gratification to be found from slowly pushing the boundaries and uncovering every nook and cranny of this witty little world.  And this experience is made all the better with a group of good company to share the laughs and creatively tackle together.  Though a brief silly adventure on the whole, it's also an adventure full of many memorable minutes, of which that there are plenty.

If you have questions or thoughts about this game, please feel free to comment and discuss below.  Thanks.  And happy gaming!