Maximus Jones is a minigame compilation to find a literal MacGuffin.
It has a bare, almost a parody of a story and a couple of minigames.

As you can see, you will be teleported to your game area and leave the place after you have finished it. You can repeat them to your heart's content if you would like to, or move on immediately.


PLOT CLEAR. COMMENCE GAMING.

The overall atmosphere is completely humorous and certainly mocking itself on numerous occasions.
Everyone only speaks in caps and your hero seems both stupid and made fun of at a couple of occasions.

The 5 minigames themselves are fairly solid, with only the first one, a big boulder-puzzle being slightly difficult, and the others adding more flavor than anything else.

1. Boulder Puzzle

You will go through a boulder-filled maze with various checkpoints. You can get stuck very easily, so you have the option to reset to the last checkpoint. It is not long enough to become to tedious and requires a little bit of thinking.
Work hard so you can get extra dogfood on your way.

2. Chain Fetch-Quest

What it says on the tin. You search the area and interact with the people to trade one item for another to finally find the secret passage.
There is a lot of humour involved and while some of these are too crude for me, it is quite funny overall.
Difficulty was non-existant, but it is more of a break after the first minigame.

For some reason your character portrait changes back and forth. Must be a faceshifter.



MUST HELP.


3. Shop Minigame

In this game you have to get customers the right item and then estimate how valueable that item is - the customer will offer a certain amount of money, but you cannot know for sure whether that is enough to pay the cost. So you can decline and try to raise the price, or you can accept it.
Depending on how well you sell it, you either lose or gain money. You win after a certain amount of gained money.

It was quite fun to estimate the price, although food seems severly overpriced (a mushrooms costs more than half the price of an axe or an armor).
The item selection was for mere flavour, as you can always leave the menu to get to the right shelf and there select the right item.
It would be strange to have forgotten it in such a short time. That aspect would have been more challenging if you had to remember multiple items at once - and then give them to the correct customer.


A cape ... cape ... cape, where, oh where might it be?

It will only be fun for such a short while, as you will know the price range by then. For a longer version you could combat this by a changing market, and thus changing prices.
Nevertheless, it was kept well into a short length and was enjoyable for the little while.


4. Good vs Evil (aka Craze vs LockeZ)

This minigame is far too simple and far too easy for what it is trying to do. There are a cat and a dog representing a good faction and an evil one.
Three switches, one to freeze one of two people standing there (a paladin and a girl, of course), and one to finish the game once you have brought both factions on your side.

There really is not much to say about that one, play around a bit, have some bribes ready, and you are good to go.

It would have been more interesting if you had to solve a certain test to enter a faction, such as answering questions or anything to give - if not difficulty - at least a lot of flavor to the minigame and the decisions.
This one felt completely bland compared to the rest.


5. Blackjack

Yes, Blackjack. You can wager coins, with a starting amount of 20, but since it is about getting three wins, coins are completely and utterly obsolete. Which makes me wonder why they were added in the first place.
You could add something to unlock or something funny if you lost them all.

Nevertheless, you need to get three wins and that is that. There are no visible cards, you will only see the point count. As for aces, you will have to decide what value they will have right away (no swapping later).
I found myself taking for this longer than necessary because I kept mashing the buttons too much - it is not very hard. And as blackjack goes, there is also a lot of luck coming into play. Thankfully, the three wins do not need to be in a row.

It is a simple game, it works, but it has not added anything to make it more interesting, visually appealing or worth going back to.


Having cleared all game you get a totally amazing, baffeling wonderous .. and brief ending.
This is a really simple minigame compilation with a good dose of humor. With as many bland parts as there are neat parts, it comes down to a very mediocre game.

It is not good, it is not bad. It is decent.