Minigore got updated yesterday. It was sold as an episodic game, but bad luck and bugs have conspired to make it seem like an age between the release of the game and the first update. It’s finally here, though, so let’s have celebration.

Or not, as it happens.

There are a couple of big bugs in this update, for starters. If you flip the screen orientation in the options, the game will freeze and will need to be reinstalled. If you choose not to use OpenFeint the first time the game asks, then you’ll never be able to use it.

I didn’t get hit by either bug and I liked what I saw when I first started the game. There are now little icons round the edge of the screen showing where the enemies are, which makes them easier to track down during the slow early stages of the game and provides a useful indication of danger later on.


This is a good change. The update also includes the latest version of OpenFeint, which is far better than earlier versions. I, as you’ll know if you’ve been reading this blog, have had my problems with the OpenFeint system, but Minigore seems to use it well and actually uploads your scores when you go online if you were offline when you got them. Good work, Minigore developers, may other developers follow your lead.

The bad news is, though, that this update has pretty much broken the game for me. The problem with Minigore is that it starts far too slowly. In a fast arcade shooter like this, you shouldn’t have to spend the first few minutes of the game hunting down enemies. You should be the hunted. The new system for showing off-screen enemies helps with this, but it’s still a pretty boring game for the first few minutes. I don’t much like it.

Of course, this can all be solved by switching to Expert mode, which ramps up the difficulty much more quickly and turns the game from a slog into an enjoyable shooter. Except it doesn’t any more. Now, you need to earn 2,000 points in Normal mode to unlock Expert. Which means I’ve had to play eight games of boring Minigore so far to try and unlock good Minigore. My best score is 1,868, so I haven’t managed it yet. It’s getting very old, very quickly. I’m having to play a game I don’t like to try and unlock a game I do – and which I could play quite happily until the update hit.

There’s no option to play the old version. The game I liked has just been taken away from me and replaced with a game I don’t.

The other major change is for the worse, too. In the old version you had two lives, in the new version you’ve got three. No, no, no. Minigore works best as a fast, frantic short-lived blast. Extending the length of a game isn’t making it better in this case, it’s making it worse. I don’t want games to last ten minutes, I want to be struggling to last two.

I’ll probably keep plugging away at boring old Normal mode to unlock Expert mode, just because I want to get back the game I liked so much. Even then, though, the extra life may well extend the game past the exciting stage and into slog territory. I’ll just have to see.

Minigore has had a coveted place on the first page of my iPhone games since it was released, but I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to last.