Template:Episode updated V.2“The MInigame”, alternately known as "The Games" in some countries, is the seventeenth episode of the first season of the animated television series Lovely World. It is directed by Harrison Reid and written by Billy Mcconnell. The series follows the adventures of the main character, Edward, who gets teleported into an in-digital world and is tasked with surviving while creating his own “world”. The episode follows Edward, John and Michael as they are informed that they are among the people to participate in the games. The episode originally aired in the United States on Children’s Avast Television on May 21, 2011.
The episode was inspired by the reality television series The Games of Life, and the writer, Billy, contacted Brinley Greene to create sets for the animated series. Billy was also inspired by episodes five to ten to come up with an idea for the episode, in which he wanted the games to completely feature pets, but John and the former agreed that humans would be the ones to appear in the games.
Plot
In the morning, Michael is excitedly told by Edward and John that there is a special event that is supposed to take place at the village’s town center within the next couple of days. Michael gets interested and upon learning what the event is really about, which is a series of minigames for the villagers to take place in, Michael expresses his interest. However, when John wanted the both of them to participate in the event, they refused to and only wanted to check the minigames out. As the events get closer, after seeing a large gathering of villagers getting ready, the two decide to get themself popcorn and drinks. However, an executive from the event knocks on Edward's door and informs him and Michael that they have been chosen as two of the twenty people to participate in the games. Confused, Edward informs Michael of the notice, and with only a day remaining, the two accept the offer and quickly prepare for the games. In the morning, Edward and Michael travel to the hotel where the villagers are training. The two part ways, but Edward is concerned that he will make mistakes. Hours later, the games begin, and the two reunite to prepare for the first round of games, where they are surprised to see John participating in the event.
The first game is "Hide and Seek," and when the event begins, the villagers hide for protection. Michael drags Edward with him to a dark corner of a crafted house. After hearing screams, the two become more excited and nervous, but remain silent. Michael goes outside to check, but is abruptly dragged by the "suspect" who declares his loss. Edward and John eventually win the round with fifteen minutes left.
The next round, “Shooting Chaos”, involved the villagers shooting each other with a large amount of water that creates force upon hitting a target. When the game began, Edward and John saw that two people had teamed up and decided to make them their target. The two quickly run away and dodges the “bullets”. Upon seeing a water gun, Edward rushes to grab the weapon and successfully goes back to take cover with John. However, a trained villager appeared in the back of them and started shooting at them. The two dodge unexpectedly and go their separate ways. However, John slips on water and falls on his face, causing a nosebleed. The person then shot him with water, which exacerbated the injury. Meanwhile, Edward hides behind a group of trash cans, and after spotting a confused person, he makes his target and shoots him, resulting in his death. After ten minutes, Edward and six other players are declared the winners of the round.
The third round, "Run For Your Life," has the villagers running twenty miles across the entire village. When the game begins, Edward quickly takes the lead and waves goodbye to his teammates. Michael and John in the audience are watching and cheering him on. However, only two miles into the game, three villagers caught up to Edward, who was exhausted, and began an argument with him. Edward became annoyed and yelled at the villagers for bothering him. The other two mock him for even trying, and Edward, enraged, grabs an ice cream from his pocket and throws it at the two villagers. This caused the two to fall down and resulted in a small pileup. Edward felt bad, but continued on with the race. Despite getting more exhausted over time, Edward pulls through and wins first place at the edge of the village.
Following a one-hour break, where Edward, Michael and John chats with each other, the fourth round is planned to start, where the former and the three others are forced to build their bases within two hours before a group of cannons opens fire to test the stability of the shelters. When the round began, Edward and the three villagers rushed to get their resources and began building their bases. Edward wants to go for a similar design of his temporary house, but plans on having stones and metals built on top of the wood. The other villagers secretly group together and plan each other’s bases. Edward noticed this and quickly prepared the metal for his house design. With only thirty minutes left, the games got intense as the round now allowed the four of them to open fire and wrecked on their bases. Edward panics and after seeing the villager next to time preparing to wreck his base, the former rushes to the top and uses bullets to create holes within the latter’s base. The two got into an argument shortly after and Edward ignored him later on. After adding the stones in-place, Edward sees that there are only seconds left until the game is over. As the three villagers finish and prepare to leave their bases, Edward hides underground. The round ended and the cannons opened fire. Much to everyone’s shock, Edward’s house stays fine while the others’s bases get damaged. With that, Edward is declared the winner of the minigames and is overcome with joy. After the finale, Edward goes and hang out with Michael and John, ending the episode.
Production
"The Minigame", like all episodes of the first two seasons from the Lovely World television series, was produced by Starlight Productions and is based on the Lovely World books. The episode was directed by Harrison Reid and written by Billy Mcconnell from a story by John Collins. Billy Mcconnell came up with the idea for an episode centered on a series of games. While developing the story, Billy drew on ideas from previous episodes of the television series, particularly episodes 5-10, to create the concept of games centered on pets rather than humans. However, John reportedly persuaded him that the games should be played by humans instead, which Billy agreed to despite feeling that the idea of having pets in a series of minigames was "uninteresting". When developing the episode, John Collins was inspired by the reality television series The Games of Life and used some of the games' ideas from the series.
To develop the games in the episode, Billy contacted the creator of The Games of Life, Brinley Greene, to create sets. Greene, who was previously working on building sets for his reality show, focused toward developing new sets and he used ideas from the sets that he had used. Originally, the "Run of Your Life" game was developed first, and Greene intended for the round to be around ten miles long, but due to the production crew's desire to incorporate comedy into the section, Greene extended the round ten miles beyond the original version. The scene in where John have his nose bleed was inspired by an incident that took place inside of the Starlight Productions studio. The person who had the nosebleed was inspired to use ideas from real-life accidents, and he convinced the scene toward the end of the production. The additional animation for the nosebleed costed around $100 to work on and was done by a single animator. In earlier versions of the story, Michael and Edward were expected to win the first round, but the former lost in the second round. However, John suggested a story change, and in order to focus on Edward's character, he ordered that Michael be removed from the plot and replaced as a background character. This led into minor arguments between the animators and John Collins, where the former had liked the idea. Those who liked the idea reportedly refused to work on the episode and instead developed the next ones, but quickly returned to the former as production came to a close.
Critical reception
"The Minigame" generally received a positive reception from both television critics and audiences. The episode originally premiered in the United States on Children's Avast Television on May 21, 2011. It was watched by around 1,001,592 million viewers. In a December 2012 review, Sebastian Clarke gave the episode "B-".