Minit Fun Racer

Genre: Auto-Runner

Players: 1

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Review:

Minit Fun Racer, released on PC in 2021 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023, is a side-scrolling Auto-Runner designed like an obstacle course. An odd spinoff of the already-odd Minit, this game challenges players to try to survive as long as possible without crashing into obstacles, ideally making it all the way to the end where a relaxing beach awaits you.

Much as in Minit, you’ll automatically die after a limited amount of time, making progress difficult. In this case, that amount of time is a mere 10 seconds, which doesn’t give you much time to do anything. However, after collecting coins on a few runs, players can purchase permanent upgrades, enabling them to add time onto their clock by collecting coins, upgrade their durability to survive more than one collision, get faster speeds, better turning ability, and so on. As such, much of the “Roguelite”-style game loop of Minit Fun Racer is surviving as long as you can, collecting coins, and then upgrading to survive even longer next time.

This gameplay loop works well for this game, though there is one issue – the map you’re driving on isn’t endless, and you will reach the end of it before long. Within an hour of play, you’ll have likely fully upgraded your vehicle, knocked out most of the in-game achievements, and seen pretty much everything there is to see. And while you may come back to this game after that as a fun time-waster, it’s a shame there isn’t more depth here than that.

Having said that, this game only costs $3, and what’s more, both the developer and publisher have pledged that all money made from this game will be donated to a rotating selection of charities (with Doctors Without Borders and Special Effect being two of the charities named to be recipients of this game’s earnings). With this being the case, it’s pretty easy to forgive this game’s short length.

The presentation here is also pretty simple, using only black and white pixel art, though this is largely in line with the look of the original Minit, and to be fair it does still manage to have a good amount of personality to it, despite how limited it is visually. This is joined by a chiptune soundtrack that works well enough for the game, even if it isn’t especially memorable.

In the end, Minit Fun Racer is an enjoyable bite-size experience that won’t last you for very long, but it won’t cost you much to get it, either. It’s charming old-school fun, and if the small price tag doesn’t sell you on it, perhaps the pledge to forward all of the money to charity will. In either case, I don’t think this will blow anyone’s socks off, but I definitely felt like I got my money’s worth from it.

tl;dr – Minit Fun Racer is an old-fashioned Arcade-style Auto-Runner that plays out like an obstacle course with some “Roguelite” elements. You likely won’t get more than an hour or so out of this game, but for the low price of $3 it manages to be enjoyable enough while it lasts to worth the price, and the pledge that all earnings from the game will go to charity makes it that much easier to give it a try.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2023 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Arcade / Party Game, Best Driving/Racing Game, Best Value ($3), Most Overlooked (No Metacritic score for any platform, no OpenCritic score)

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