"Avenging father can wait. Those moles are provoking me."
"Welcome to the Pianta Parlor. Saving the princess is important, but it can wait!"
— Lahla, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
An area in a video game that is host to a number of minigames where the player can win items or cash, sometimes by betting money in a casino-like area. Most of it will probably be optional, but winning at some of the minigames may be part of the main quest, or give access to rare or important items. Often comes in the guise of a casino or theme park.
Pinball Zone is often, but not always, a form of this. Can lead to being Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer. Don't worry about the world-threatening catastrophe you have to stop, just Take Your Time.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Action-Adventure Games
- The Legend of Zelda series.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has several minigame locations, but many of them are found in or near the Village of Outcasts in the Dark World. The most profitable game is in the Light World's Lost Woods, where you bet 100 Rupees for the chance to win 300. You can quickly gain maximum Rupees by locating the chest with 300 Rupees; every time you enter, it will have moved one chest to the right.
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has Hyrule Castle Town as young Link, hosting series classics like the Treasure Chest Game, the Target Shooting Gallery and the then-debuting Bombchu Bowling minigame.
- The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask has several games in Clock Town (notably, the ones in the East area are revamped, more difficult versions of those found in Castle Town in Ocarina of Time). Several Heart Pieces can be won thanks to them.
- The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games: Rolling Ridge in Oracle of Ages, hosted by the Gorons. There are several minigames like a Shooting Gallery that is played while riding a minecart (present), a baseball-like game where Link has to redirect projectiles onto targets (past), a difficult dancing minigame (both eras), and a survival game where Link has to dodge exploding bombs in an area with conveyor belts on (present). In a rare situation for the series, winning all these minigames is required to clear the game.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has several minigame locations, but most are located in the sky somewhere. The place that most fits the trope, however, is Dodoh's mancannon game of chance.
- Little Big Adventure 2 The island of Otringal, on the planet Zeelich has two casinos, and more slot machines elsewhere.
- Gallowmere Plains in MediEvil: Resurrection host eight minigames that ultimately reward the player with the Infinity +1 Sword if they finish them all.
- Yakuza has at least two casinos, plus pachinko and a dice parlor. Later games even add arcades where you can play ports of old SEGA games.
First-Person Shooter
- Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl has a mini-example in form of the casino floor of the Phylex Tower. You can take a break from rampaging through the evil corporation HQ and the search for your daughter to play some video blackjack or fruit machines.
- In TimeSplitters Future Perfect, Mr. Khallos has a slot machine aboard his freight train (it occurs just before you try to stop the missile). Whether or not you can actually win anything from it is anyone's guess... Anna, the scientist at Mission Control, chides you upon playing it.
Metroidvania
- Craz'd! has the Crazy Carnival, where each game is available for one ticket (worth 60 coins) each.
- In An Untitled Story, you can buy a house in SkyTown for which you can then purchase decorations which include arcade cabinets with minigames that give out heart containers for beating their highscores.
MMORPGs
- Final Fantasy XIV introduces the Manderville Gold Saucer in patch 2.51, with Chocobo Racing and the popular card game Triple Triad as the first available minigames to enjoy. The collection of minigames has since grown to include "Lord of Verminion" (an RTS inspired on Lord of Vermilion), Doman Mahjong, and various other minigames and events.
- Kingdom of Loathing The Casino on the Wrong Side of the Tracks. The Rogue Program familiar introduced in June 2010 added the Game Grid Arcade, which includes such mini-games as Space Trip and The Fighters of Fighting.
- Phantasy Star Online 2 introduces a Casino Lobby in Episode 3, which includes slot machines and shooting galleries.
- World of Warcraft has the Darkmoon Faire, a neutral amusement park with minigames to engage in for adventurers tired of killing monsters and taking their stuff.
Party Games
- Mario Party 7: Neon Heights features four different in-board minigames that the players can play to earn coins: A shooting gallery, a baseball minigame, a matching game, and a game where they have to launch a rocket.
Platformers
- In Banjo-Tooie, all levels have at least one minigame each, but their greatest density is in Witchyworld, appropriately enough.
- In Blender Bros, part of Cosmo Heaven is dedicated to minigames.
- In The Legend of Mystical Ninja, Zone III is an amusement park on Awaji Island, where you can play a quiz show, concentration, Gradius or a Breaking Out, as well as various betting games.
- Pac-Man World 2's very first level has an arcade in which you can play classic Pac-Man games. You're not allowed to play any of them though until you collect enough tokens to unlock them, so it's common for you to end up dropping everything and going back to the first level to play a new arcade game as soon as you get enough tokens to do so.
- Unlocked after beating DDDark Castle in Something Else. It lets Luigi collect lives by playing variations of the minigame played every 100 stars. However, Luigi has to pay all of his stars in order to play. There's also a secret that lets Luigi do this without playing the mini-games.
- Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! has Dragon Shores, which can be accessed after beating the final boss, though you still need to get a certain amount of Orbs and Gems in order to open the gates. Completing the minigames and rides will earn you tokens that unlock the cutscene viewer.
Roguelike
- Ancient Domains of Mystery: The best way to accumulate a lot of money is to 'h'andle a slot machine in the casino, put a heavy object on the space bar, and leave for an hour to amuse yourself.
Role-Playing Games
- BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm has the Subscription Stadium in YouTube. Half of it is a Monster Arena, and the other half is the Let's Play Speedway, an obstacle-dodging cart minigame with tracks based on various other games.
- Bug Fables: The Termacade houses two minigames, Flower Journey and Mite Knight, that both involve a unique token currency that can be used to buy items and certain Medals. It becomes available at the same time as Chapter 6's dungeon.
- Chrono Trigger has the Millennial Fair in 1000 AD, a festival celebrating Guardia's millennial year where you can play several minigames that award points that can be redeemed for rewards. It's also quite plot-relevant for a minigame zone, as it's where Crono meets Marle and first goes back in time. It's also where your actions come back to help or hurt Crono in his trial and where the party gets a clone of Crono to aid in his resurrection after he dies.
- Dead Rising 2 takes place in an Expy of Las Vegas; there are several slot machines and casino games to play, the place is also crawling with zombies. Of course you could just kill the zombies and THEN play the casino games. The giant slot machine in particular can net you $100,000 out of a $1,000 bet and that's not including the Terror is Reality minigames where you can also win money.
- The Dragon Quest series.
- Dragon Quest II was the first game in the series to include mini-game areas, although back then it was a simple Lottery Shop which could be found in every town.
- Dragon Quest III expanded the concept to Pachisi Tracks and Monster Arenas.
- Most every game since Dragon Quest IV has had The Casino, where in a remarkable fascimile of reality for a swords-and-spells turn based adventure, poker and slot machines suck up the player's time and gold like a black hole.
- Fallout: New Vegas has, as you might expect, a few casinos.
- The Strip itself has three usable ones, each run by a different criminal organisation. They're functionally similar but with different aesthetics. With a standard character build you'll probably do as well as real life visitors to Vegas, but a high Luck stat will tilt the games in your favour.
- The Dead Money DLC features the Sierra Madre which also features the same games as the normal casinos, but run by entirely silent holograms in an eerily silent casino. The sheer incongruity lends an amazingly black comedy edge to the whole thing.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy IX has the auction house in Treno, and the three areas that host the 'Chocobo Hot and Cold' game. The fact that the latter has such insanely catchy music
probably helps.
- In chapter 5 of Final Fantasy X-2, both Blitzball and Sphere Break available in Luca for the player's amusement.
- Final Fantasy XIII Nautilus, which is presented as Cocoon's premiere amusement resort. Although the characters are too busy running for their lives to gamble or ride attractions, they do stop for the floor show and engage in a brief minigame for some items.
- Final Fantasy XIII-2 has the Serendipity level, a zone featuring slot machines, card games, chocobo racing, and a prize kiosk.
- Final Fantasy IX has the auction house in Treno, and the three areas that host the 'Chocobo Hot and Cold' game. The fact that the latter has such insanely catchy music
- Golden Sun: Tolbi, Contigo, and even Lemuria have gambling locations.
- Granblue Fantasy: The Jewel Resort Casino where you can play poker, bingo or slot machines.
- The Kingdom Hearts series:
- The first game, second game, and the PS2 version of Chain of Memories all have 100 Acre Woods as the center of most Minigames. The main games also have the Olympus Colosseum, which is filled with battle mini games. Part II also has Atlantica.
- Knights of the Old Republic has a cantina full of various people with which you can play pazaak (head-to-head messed-up blackjack) and a place to sign up for swoop races.
- Legend of Legaia
- In the first game, Sol Tower is home to both the Muscle Dome and the Disco Club.
- In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Little Fungitown has an arcade where the player can play minigames to earn yellow beans.
- Mass Effect:
- Mass Effect features a small casino in the Citadel where the player can play Quasar, a game similar to blackjack.
- In the Mass Effect 3 "Citadel" DLC, there's the Silver Coast Casino, which features Roulette, varren races, and Quasar; the Armax Arena, where you can have holodeck matches with party members (including ones from previous games like Wrex, Jack and Miranda); and Castle Arcade, which has a fighting game, a whack-a-mole esque game, and a UFO catcher.
- Persona 2:
- Pokémon:
- In Pokémon Gold and Silver, the remade Johto region gained the Pokeathlon, where you can use your Pokemon in sports competitions. Winning earns you points, which can allow you to get those really hard-to-get evolution stones.
- Starting with Pokémon Black and White, there has been a website available that includes minigames that link up with the handheld games to provide bonuses.
- Festival Plaza from Pokémon Sun and Moon is where the lottery shop is relocated, provides several "missions" that can be played with online guests, and other activities. Unusually, the Plaza is available any time in the game after a certain story point.
- The series has the Game Corners, which house slot machines or Voltorb Flip tables for the player to play. They can use the points they gain from it to buy items and Pokémon.
- The Pokémon Stadium games have the Kid's Club, a tent that houses 9/12 mini-games based around four of a certain kind of Pokémon competing for the best score.
- Super Mario RPG has Grate Guy's Casino, which is referenced a couple of times in the game, but actually finding it a Guide Dang It!. Especially disappointing in that the games aren't terribly profitable.
- Star Ocean: Till the End of Time Gemity City, in story. For the actual players, there's a betting minigame and a battle arena, which isn't a minigame at all.
- The Tales Series
- Tales of Eternia Jini. There was actually not too much to do there, other than play cards and auction off your stuff for the area's native currency, which exchanged at roughly 100 gald to the Jini (the rate fluctuated from visit to visit) and was used basically to buy other auction stuff.
- Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening has the Mind Mines, an area where you can earn Fortune Tickets to buy things from Uiroq by playing a minigame where you venture through the eponymous maze-like mines and collect tickets in randomly-placed locations on a time limit. In addition, there are also a couple items hidden in the mines that are needed to access Neo Vinclum, the super-secret bonus area.
- The casino in Xenosaga Episode 1. Unlike real life, the odds on the "higher or lower"-type card game are heavily weighted in the player's favor.
Simulation Games
- The island in Animal Crossing: New Leaf, where you can play minigames to earn silver medals, which you can exchange for exclusive items. For 50 medals, you can join Club Tortimer, which allows you to play online with players all around the world.
- Littlewood: Port City Deluca contains both the Casino in which Deluca coins can be spent for a chance at winning prizes and the building associated with the in-game Card Battle Game. The latter building also the only place in which said card game can be played until the player can build a special table in their own town.
- In Potion Permit, the Arcade Centre in Lazy Bowl Tavern has playable arcade machines such as a Whack-a-Monster minigame.
- Stardew Valley has a few arcade games at the Stardrop Saloon (a Weird West shooter called Legend of the Prairie King and an unlockable Endless Running Game called Junimo Kart), the various mini-games at the annual Stardew Valley Fair, and the Casino in Calico Desert.
Wide Open Sandbox
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has Las Venturas, which is modeled after Las Vegas. Not only are there casinos with several different minigames from slots to poker, there are also places to bet on horse races and slot machines in smaller bars.
- In Red Dead Redemption, each saloon or bar contains at least one way to gamble away all your hard-earned cash.
- The video arcades in the Shenmue games. In between questing to avenge his father's death, Ryo apparently manages to find the time to collect gashapon toys and beat his high score in Space Harrier.
Other
- Alekon: When you're not exploring various places in the World of Fiction, you spend the game in Dream's Doorstep. There are multiple dulled fictions in the game who will, when restored, host various minigames, like the Orashell's Conceal and Reveal game, and Jolly Flipper's donut ring-toss game.
