Some games come in big packages and have a ton of depth to game in them, some come in small packages and have a lot of strategy, and some come in small packages and are a fun little filler. The Mind falls much more into the latter category of game.

In The Mind, you are playing through levels trying to, as a group, play down your cards in numerical order. In the first level, you each have one card, so it shouldn’t be that hard. The next round two, and so on and so forth. But there’s a twist to the game, you are playing down these cards in order without communicating, and you have a limited number of times that you can mess up. The good thing is that by beating levels you can gain more lives or you can gain ninja throwing stars (it makes no thematic sense). These throwing stars allow you to all discard your lowest card without having to play it, that gives you an idea of what everyone’s next lowest card is to get the game moving again if everyone is afraid to play. Then you try and make to the highest level where you can unlock a secret new way to play the game.

If you read yesterdays article on game versus activity, you would have seen that I used The Mind as my primary example (check it out here). And, I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone that I consider The Mind to be more of an activity than a game. There technically is a point where you can win, if you beat all the levels for your player count. But to do that, there isn’t really skill, unless you are all able to count silently at the same speed, and then the skill really doesn’t come from the game. In the Mind you really are just waiting around until you feel like you’ve waited long enough, then wait a little bit more and then play the card in hopes that you’ve waited long enough. They pitch it as this quasi mystical connection that you can get by all being in sync and playing cards, but that doesn’t make it a game, it makes it an activity that has been gamified.

Now, with all that said, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It can be a fun activity/game. However, compared to a lot of other games, I think that this one is quite group dependent. If people aren’t able to sit still through this game and just enjoy the experience of the guessing aspect, the game is going to fall flat. And for people who play quite a number of games, the concept of this game can be hard to wrap your head around. All you’re doing is trying to guess when to play a card, there are no tells really and the game says no communication, but does that mean if I have a 2 and a 99 in round two and I play the 2, can I then lean back in my chair to show that I don’t have a card coming up for a while or is that communication, that’s something that the rules don’t tell you, so if you want to know the rules, you’re going to have to guess for that. However, if people can get into the silly nature of trying to guess and just have a good time and silently cheer when you can play numbers at lightning speed in order because you have the 46, 47, and 49 between the group, that’s fun. But even then, it’s more muted than it should be, because the game doesn’t allow for communication.

And then there are the ninja throwing stars. That could have been anything, I guess the idea of a rabbit with ninja throwing stars (yeah, I forgot to mention the rabbit), is silly. But the game itself when played isn’t that silly. Why not go with a carrot instead of a throwing star? Or, if the idea of a throwing star is that you cut off the bottom cards or throw away the bottom cards, it seems like there’s a better option or maybe a ninja instead of the rabbit ninja. This is clearly an abstract idea that you could do with any set of cards that increase in numbers. But the theming off it is odd, but in the end, I guess doesn’t matter. Again, though, for people who play more thematic games, the weird theming could throw them off versus just being a more simple completely abstract with no theme game.

Overall, for me, The Mind is a miss more than a hit when it’s made it to the table and for my playing experience. This idea of being connected and feeling when you can play cards seems to be the excuse people give for playing the game when it’s just hoping you’ve waited long enough before playing your next number. And the fact that the mind is supposed to hit that kind of filler and light style of game that can often border on party style game, it just doesn’t work for that. There are plenty of other simple and silly games where when you have that moment that you want to cheer about, you can actually cheer about it and it causes the excitement around the game to grow. Eventually with The Mind, I feel like I’m just forcing myself to play more as are the people I’ve played with, not because we’re having fun, but because we want to get over whatever hump we’ve been getting stuck on. Would I play The Mind again, sure, if people wanted to, but I’m not going to pull it out myself and I’m not going to play it 5-6 times in a row, maybe 3.

Overall Grade: C-
Gamer Grade: F
Casual Grade: C

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.