Despicable Me: Minion Rush

Despicable Me: Minion Rush (commonly known as Minion Rush) is a mobile/PC action video game in the Despicable Me franchise.

Players can do various tasks, like defeating bosses, to earn the title "Minion of the Year."

Rules
Players play the game by controlling a minion, and the minion can be either Dave (the default character), Carl, Jerry, or Mel; they can also compete with others in hilarious, fast-paced challenges. While the minion runs, there are three lanes on the track, with some floating bananas on it, which minions can collect by being controlled to move left or right to run through them.

Minions should avoid obstacles (swipe up to jump and down to duck) and attacks from bosses unless they are equipped with certain power-ups, and they can get prizes, including bananas or tokens, when the player collects all fruits in a Jelly Lab machine or matches certain qualifications in global races or events. In addition, minions can run in different costumes once purchased.

There are a few game modes in Minion Rush, and they are: Jelly Lab mode, Global events mode, Special Mission mode, and Races mode.

Characters
Main article: Minion Rush/Characters

As mentioned above, there are plenty of characters in Despicable Me: Minion Rush, and they fall in two categories, Minions and bosses. Only minions and their costumes are playable.

Among the minions, Dave is the minion that is with the most available costumes for purchase and the default character of the game; Carl, Jerry and Mel were introduced in later updates; Paul only appears in the intro video and is not playable.

Bosses include Vector and El Macho, who appear in the Despicable Me franchise, while Meena and The Villaintriloquist are non-canon villains, but were designed by Illumination Mac Guff studios. Currently, by unlocking some Jelly Lab areas, the player can see villains appear in certain levels.

Jelly Lab
Main article: Jelly Lab

The beginning of Minion Rush is the Jelly Lab, in which the levels can be unlocked by completing goals from the previous one (but levels can't be skipped). By completing enough levels, new machines and locations can be unlocked and players will be awarded. In each update since early 2015, new levels have been added.

Events
Events are daily, multiple day, or weekly contests where players compete to win prizes like tokens, prize pods, and bananas. Each event has a goal like highest score, furthest distance, highest despicable multiplier, or most bananas collected in a run, and each one takes place in a particular location. The top prize is typically either a costume or a number of tokens, with less valuable prizes for players in lower ranks. The player can choose any costume to compete, although occasionally particular costumes will get bonus abilities.

Special Missions
Main article: Minion Rush Special Missions

In special missions, players need to collect special items in appointed locations during the run, and it's independent from Jelly Lab, events, or races.

There are three stages in each special mission, and the items collected are different in different stages; by completing all of them, players can receive many prizes (including a costume, some prize pods and tokens, and more) as a reward. If the player already possesses the costume, they will receive more tokens instead.

Minion Races
Main article: Minion Races

In minion races, players can play as Dave (can be with costumes), Carl or Jerry and race two other opponents chosen randomly in the world. The player should choose a kind of weapon, called gadgets, to participate in the race. Gadgets can be used offensively or defensively. After downloading the game, a whole set of gadgets are given to the player for free, however, after the first few races, players can spend 7,000 Bananas for a basic set of gadgets or use tokens to purchase much more useful sets of gadgets. Players are given prizes for winning continuously in a race, and the number of continuous victories will be recorded on a brand-new counter called streak. However, one will lose the winning streak if they lose once, unless they spend some tokens to maintain the streak.

In addition to defensive and offensive, gadgets are also categorized in three levels: one-star, two-star, and three-star, higher level makes the minion powerful in races.

Other Versions
Minion Rush has multiple versions available across the globe. Currently, the only platforms that release updates at a frequent base are iOS, Android and Amazon Appstore (Kindle). However, other platforms such as Samsung (Galaxy Apps Store), Windows, BlackBerry, etc., no longer release updates. In China, Android devices that run the Qihoo 360 Mobile Assistant have access to another version of the game that is called 神偷奶爸：小黄人快跑. Click here to see the official press release from January 2014. During that time, both the Chinese and the Global version were running in parallel with almost the same layout, game objective, missions (pre-Jelly Lab) and later on Jelly Lab areas, same costumes with almost the same abilities, but the Shop had different prices for the costumes, slightly different gameplay, and most importantly the Chinese version was not linked to any other Global version.

Only iOS and Android versions are updated on a monthly rate. The rest are operative (online servers keep working, daily and weekly events and races are held, etc.). The Chinese version has not been discontinued, however the update rate is significantly lower than the Global version. It features some exclusive costumes for Dave such as the Panda Minion costume and the Monkey King Minion costume, which have never appeared in any other version. It also offers a daily buff, which is basically an extra perk for the day. The currency that is used in the Chinese version also varies and includes Bananas, Tokens, Puzzle Pieces and real money (Chinese Yuan).