Minabo: A Walk Through Life

Have some high points, but they soon give way to glaring faults. Not the worst, but difficult to recommend.

Minabo: A Walk Through Life is an easy-going, happy-go-lucky clicker that can evoke some deep thought and reflection. It’s fairly simplistic, though, so its price might raise an eyebrow but if you’re looking for some downtime between games or while watching TV, this could fill a gap.

Minabo is an experience that we recommend trying, but it lacks in the execution of playable variants that can give rise to the very ideas it promises.

It's an argument for how humans have the capacity to ably control their emotions, of course, but it fails to effectively land when the surrounding gameplay is so tedious and randomized. The world of Minabo: a walk through life, as visually colorful as its characters and backdrops are, is frustratingly opaque, and its turnips often fail to reveal recognizable specks of personality on any given playthrough. As a life sim, there’s very little life to be found here, just a span of rudimentary clicks in overly long sessions which never get within spitting distance of an understanding of human relationships or a reckoning with existential dread, outside of this: life’s too short to play Minabo: a walk through life.

While I know there are more casually-minded people out there, Minabo may be a bit too tame even for that crowd

Overall I’m sure if you have stayed reading this review until now, you will have surmised that I have mixed feelings about Minabo – a walk through life. While I applaud the developers for trying something different from every other game genre out there, I think choosing a nondescript vegetable like a turnip to convey the feelings it is meant to have to the player was the wrong choice. Moreover, the game may have lovely music and beautiful graphics, but it’s not enough to make the gameplay interesting and make you want to continue playing.

What makes this game so characteristic are especially the super cheerful and colorful graphics and the good background music that manages to remain varied, but also the same. The seasons are beautifully depicted with falling leaves, snow, growing leaves on the trees and then the sun that comes up again. The UI is well-arranged and clear, although selecting the right character is sometimes a chore that takes too much time. In terms of content, the game seems hefty with 25 quests to choose from, but because the gameplay is so simple and simplistic, you'll probably have seen the game before. Minabo is therefore a game that you can play through in between and then leave it for a while, to be able to pick it up again later. The concept is unique and refreshing, but also so monotonous that it could get boring rather quickly. All in all, I certainly don't want to put the game in too negative a light, given the mainly positive undertone that it manages to radiate as far as I'm concerned. In addition, it even manages to arouse a slight moral sense in me, which is actually quite special for such a playful title as this one. I would say: Give it a chance and live that life and get the most out of it! Because it's short…

An example of indie well planned and well executed. It is a different game, but at the same time it knows how to connect with the player.

Minabo: A walk through life has an interesting idea at its core, but ultimately it is not a jaunt worth taking. A lack of heart and the absence of a compelling gameplay hook are obstacles simply too large to overcome.

Minabo - A walk through life takes some basic systems and fails to make them fun in any meaningful way. While the thought experiment is interesting, it’s just not much of a game.