minigames in my game, yay or nay? :)

[Mouth for war]

I'm making a huge project...Been working for over 6 months on a free roaming RPG with turnbased battles. You control entirely how to build your character. Leveling up only gives you skillpoints, never increased strength,defence etc. automatically. It's up to you how to make everything. Anyway...hacking is a skill you can increase...I have a semi-lame minigame for hacking...you shoot a bolt of electricity in 1 out of 8 directions and make it bounce against stuff to get it to bounce in to the electric wiring (Even though it doesn't really look like wiring hehe) Today I thought of another idea...when hacking...an image will be shown and you must guess the right word...simple...but...should I have this or if you have enough skillpoints for hacking, you just open the locks automatically? Some people seem to like minigames and others not...so...what is your opinion?
Thanks!

(General discussion seemed like the most accurate place to post this since it's a non ags game. If not I'm sorry)

[Mandle]

I would have to ask: How often would the same minigame have to be played over during the course of the game?

I'm assuming that the difficultly of the games increases as your skill level does, making it more challenging to level up your skills as the game goes on, and that each attempt costs you some resources (if not then it's just a blockage in gameplay with little meaning).

But even then: If you have to play the same minigames like 100 times during the game to get your skills to the level that you can win...That could get annoying...

[Mouth for war]

Well you can only attempt to hack a lock with a level 8 skill if you have added 8 points to your skill! And it's not gonna be that many I think. The regular locks that require you to have the appropriate lockpick skill has no minigame...you just open it when you have the required skill that's why I thought that one minigame could be fun to throw in there Losing resources...didn't think about that actually. Don't know what could be lost when you attempt a hack

[Mandle]

Don't know what could be lost when you attempt a hack

Your character's:

NERD=====---------COOL

Meter drops?

[Mouth for war]

Haha yeah perhaps

[ollj]

a hacking minigame can easily disrupt the pacing and flow. For a point and klick adventure, immersion is essential, and immersion is too easily disrupted by bad pacing.

Treat your minigames as puzzle, and make sure the puzzle makes sense within all contexts. otherwise it may just break immersion too much.

[Mouth for war]

It's a RPG I'm making, not an adventuregame