Are you a fan of the old retro adventure games like The Legend of Zelda? Equally, do you appreciate modern titles where time is ticking down like Half-Minute Hero? Well then you might already be the perfect audience for a game by developers JW, Kitty, Jukio and Dom called Minit. Time is a constant element of Minit’s main gameplay design. Minit will thus ask you a very simple question, what can you do in one minute?

Minit is an adventure game where time is the name of the game. Players have literally 60 seconds to survive where upon death, they are resurrected and must once more try to find solutions to make progress happen. Minit begs the players to think smartly about each action and equally not be afraid of dying to find the path to success within it. If you need a simple indie adventure game with a truly remarkable theme to it, then you’re going to love Minit. Plus, unlike other adventure titles, Minit won’t make you rage too much, we promise that.

Minit follows a tale of a strange bird-like being that has just found a sword laying about on the beach. Unfortunately, this sword isn’t a normal one and comes with a heavy burden to the wielder. Our bird-like friend now has 60 seconds before a powerful curse takes his life. Death however isn’t the end for him as the sword is equally able to revive the user over and over again. Can this little creature find a way to remove the curse and get back his normal life? Time is of the essence in Minit!

Here at Honey’s Anime we have played quite a bit of adventure games that seem to make time the central focus of gameplay. We’ve played titles like Half-Minute Hero and the more recent The Longest Five Minutes—which we reviewed personally—and we love the mixture of time and use of RPG/Action/Adventure gameplay those titles have. Recently though, a new game has released that seems to take some inspiration from these games and titles like The Legend of Zelda to create a truly curious title. The game we are talking about is called Minit—like the word minute yes—and after we completed it we have some thoughts we’d like to share with you folks out there reading this. Let us see how it compares to other retro adventure/indie games in our review of Minit for the PC!

In Minit, players assume the role of a small bird-like creature—we have honestly no idea what it is—who has found a cursed sword. Rather than becoming a hero and saving the day, our bird hero now must escape an endless loop of death/rebirth that comes after every minute or 60 seconds. Players will need to frantically move across multiple maps and solve puzzles to inch closer to saving our friend from his cursed fate. Now many of you are probably wondering how can an adventure game work with a 60 second counter looming down on you every moment? Well that is the question we wish to answer for you.

As we mentioned before, Minit is an adventure game where you go around small monochrome designed locations like deserts and dungeons with a timer impeding constant progress. The main goal of Minit is to make small dents in progress during each Run—what the game considers as one individual minute cycle—and gain items/knowledge on what to do next. Players can find various tools like gardening gloves, sword throwing gloves, running shoes and even a watering can to help them solve the various puzzles before them. Minit allows players to find home locations which will be the area you revive in when you either die from the 60 second counter running out, get killed by enemies and or choose to kill yourself prematurely via a button press. We never felt like Minit was unfair with its timer and enjoyed always pushing forth to find a new area to make note of or a new item that would help us later in some way.

Minit is a game where trial and error coincide with smart puzzle/adventure designs. Rather than have a player run around aimlessly for hours, Minit makes your mind work as you move a block around to then see it contained a secret path or an NPC that might help you later. While enemies and some environmental pieces reset upon each death, items gained and some puzzles completed stay that way allowing players to make moves that feel worthwhile. Minit truly blew us away that even if we struggled to find a random item here or there—which sometimes Minit does have a few very random puzzles to solve—we never got worked up or lost our cool. Minit is a very calm game despite a counter that begs for you to move or die.

Minit’s charm also comes from the art design and wonderful music that are presented to you. We love how Minit looks like an old Nintendo game or even a Game Boy—and not color—title. We equally loved the music that made every Run through an area feel action packed and thrilling. Hearing a new track play meant we finally found a new area to explore and it gives Minit a true feeling of advancement unlike other adventure games like it. While Minit could be attacked for its overly simple design, we here at Honey’s Anime love this simplistic feel and think Minit works better for it.

Minit might be a very simplistic game in every shape and form but the end result is a fun 2-3-hour adventure title with a lot of heart and some fun retro-like gameplay themes. We personally loved solving puzzles and finding items that would make every minute trial feel like a form of progression. Death comes plentiful in Minit but equally so does knowledge. Each death brings the player closer to Minit’s completion and by the end of the game you’ll want to see if you can find every missed item and equally try again via the hard mode where players only get 40 second runs. Minit is a truly solid adventure title perfect for those who need a short but fulfilling experience. We whole heartily recommend nabbing Minit if you love retro adventure games and indie titles in general.

We have played many games similar to Minit but a lot of them feel very formulaic and unoriginal to one another. Miniti stands in a league of its own for being a charming adventure game with a true urgency to make every life count. Everything from the incredible retro style music and monochrome art design keep Minit working as an indie game that should be played if you fancy fun adventure games. Are you curious about Minit and plan on downloading it for yourself? Tell us what you think of Minit as well as our review in the comments down below. Don’t forget to keep stuck to our hive for more game reviews and gaming articles courtesy of us here at Honey’s Anime.