The team behind the indie adventure Minit returns with a side-scrolling racing game

The indie jewel Minit, launched in 2018, was like a breath of fresh air. The monochrome adventure game had an apparently absurd time limitation – killing the player every 60 seconds – and turned it into a passionate love letter to top-down classics like The legend of Zelda and an ingenious and intelligent search that launched constant surprises to the player.

Now, the main team behind Minit – Nuclear Throne and Disco Room developer Jan Willem Nijman, designer Kitty Calis, composer Jukio Kallio and artist Dominik Johann – are back with a new spinoff title, Minit Fun Racer. The game takes the same central idea and applies it to a side-scrolling cycling game that resembles arcade titles from past decades. All proceeds from the game, which is being published free of charge by the independent label Devolver Digital, go to charities, including Doctors Without Borders and Special Effect.

Minit Fun Racer is released today for $ 2.99 on Steam and itch.io, with the last store having an option to pay what you want for those who would like to give more.

Image: Devolver Digital

Minit Fun Racer it has less narrative than the game on which it is based and an even more restricted time restriction of less than 10 seconds to start. You are simply thrown on a road full of obstacles and challenged to find your way to the end before time runs out and you start from the beginning. But Minit Fun Racer lives up to the original, hiding many secrets to discover through experimentation.

The main engine of progress in the game is to earn coins and use the currency to unlock new upgrades, which, in turn, help you progress further along the route. But there are Easter eggs and fun little unlockables in the side mission style – like a horn to wake the sleeping cats by the side of the road or an impromptu helicopter chase if you hit two police cars – that make the game worthwhile. fully explore.

“We wanted to make a complete game, not just something you would buy just for charity,” says Calis. “The bigger it gets, the more we can help and, in the end, we want people to have fun and do good too.”

In my first game sessions last week with a preview version of the game, I died – a lot, as expected. But after my first updates, I felt that I was making steady progress and really enjoying the fast-paced trial and error design. And the new song by Kallio, a longtime Nijman collaborator who also co-wrote the captivating Fall Guys soundtrack, it’s a fantastic addition.

“Our philosophy has always been: you have fun doing something that really stands out in the final product,” says Nijman. Asked about another Minit spinoffs or sequences in the future, Nijman and Calis say they have not yet ruled out future work – or as Nijman called it, a “Minit cinematic universe” – using the game’s pixel art style or its central time constraint.

“Never say never,” says Calis.