Minigame is a very small and simple [game](game.md) intended to entertain the player in a simple way, usually for only a short amount of time, unlike a full fledged game. Minigames may a lot of times be embedded into a bigger game (as an [easter egg](easter_egg.md) or as a part of a game mechanic such as lock picking), they may come as an extra feature on primarily non-gaming systems, or appear in collections of many minigames as a bigger package (e.g. various party game collections). Minigames include e.g. [minesweeper](minesweeper.md), [sokoban](sokoban.md), the Google [Chrome](chrome.md) T-rex game, [Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection](stppc.md), as well as many of the primitive old games like [Pong](pong.md) and [Tetris](tetris.md). Minigames are nice from the [LRS](lrs.md) point of view as they are [minimalist](minimalism.md), simple to create, often [portable](portability.md), while offering a potential for great [fun](fun.md) nevertheless.
Minigame is an ideal project for learning [programming](programming.md).
Despite the primary purpose of minigames many players invest huge amounts of time into playing them, usually competitively e.g. as part of [speedrunning](speedrun.md).
Minigames are still very often built on the principles of old arcade games such as getting the highest score or the fastest time. For this they can greatly benefit from [procedural generation](procgen.md) (e.g. endless runners).
Almost any traditional game idea can be made into a minigame if we simplify it enough, but for inspiration here is a list of some common minigames and minigame types.
- **button smasher**: Games whose goal is achieved mainly by smashing a button as quickly as possible, usually e.g. sprint simulators. This may perhaps even include a game that requires you to press a button as quickly as possible (achieve fastest reaction time).
