The notion of guiding a resizable circle and capturing lines flying by (vertically and horizontally) is not something you would immediately find engaging. After seeing the gameplay trailer prior to actually playing it, I just could not imagine fun going beyond 10 minutes with this title. I mean, come on, we’re talking about circles and lines.
As the old saying goes, never judge a book by its cover.
Minutes is casual gaming on the surface that contains a deeper and more complex experience in its gameplay underbelly. Navigating a circle while avoiding black lines, while trying to run it into colored lines doesn’t seem all that difficult, but in fact it’s considerably more cerebral than you might imagine. Red Phantom Games has done an excellent job with forcing gamers to develop strategy, think ahead about the pattern of the black lines as they fall and drive players to find the best, most efficient way to obtain color lines. That’s the addictiveness of Minutes. Play-Fail-Find a better way-Repeat.
As the game progresses, the enemy lines get more complex. They start moving in tight directions, and fast, which leaves little room for navigational error. That’s when the real beef of this game comes into play. RPG throws in black squares that turn into circles for a brief period of time and then back to black squares. If you catch them at the wrong time, you are penalized. Catch them at the right time and you’re rewarded for your efforts. Again, all of this is happening at once, which makes the game enormously chaotic — but in a good way.
And things don’t stop there.
Other pieces are thrown into the mix, such as a rotating circle containing stretch out black and colored lines. Again, the game adds a lot of progressive chaos to the experience and keeps the players constantly on their toes. If trying to get from level to level wasn’t motivation enough, Minutes also gives you goals to complete and unlockable upgrades to acquire.
The goals are what you’ve seen before in puzzle/strategy games of this type. There are scoring tiers you are required to achieve (at least the first tier) to move on in the game and also smaller goals like completing the level with no damage or completing the level and collecting all lines. Small things for sure, but motivation to replay levels and get better.
The upgrades are simple button unlocks that allow you to do things like slow down time briefly and/or perform a one-time shot and eliminate enemy lines around you. Simple in nature, but powerful when you add it to the complex style of gameplay and strategy. Again, Minutes really fools a lot of people into thinking that it’s a one-dimensional title, when it clearly is much more than that.
By the way, have I mentioned that the levels only last a minute? Thus, the name, good folks. The gameplay is fast and furious thanks to this time limitation and it keeps you locked into your actions. This combined with the above gameplay style really brings you a solid experience when playing, though the game does have its frustrating moments where it feels like the entire house is coming down on you at once. Trying not to get too overwhelmed is another key to enjoy Minutes, but at times the game does pour it on thick. That’s probably the only downer to the entire title, which is a good thing.
Regular gameplay aside, Minutes also features a daily challenge that is so far nutso. The daily challenges give you some pretty gnarly obstacles to overcome, while gaining the most points possible to compete on a day-to-day leaderboard. It’s a nice add-on that gives you a multiplayer feel from afar, but not much more than that.
Speaking of multiplayer, I wish that Red Phantom Games could have found a way to include a multiplayer experience. Maybe a one-on-one or a co-op experience would have made Minutes feel a bit deeper than it currently is. Maybe the next time around they could consider this, but as it stands right now, this is a game that you will return to in-between other titles you’re playing on your PlayStation 4. It will be a way to relax from the day-to-day first-person shooters or epic adventure games. It’s a short spurt sort of experience and one that is certainly worth the asking price of $7.99.
