Mind Up! is another new game to me and a pretty new game overall. One that I think will maybe get missed because even though it’s from Pandasaurus, a company that has made games like The Fox Experiment, it’s a small box little card game. Mind Up! looks like a game that you should find at Target or other national convenience stores. And, well, that probably means the game is getting overlooked, but let’s see if Mind Up! is more than that?

How To Play Mind Up!

Mind Up! is a game of few actions, you don’t make that many decisions in the game. And it is a game where you are trying to collect colors of cards to score the most points possible. How this is done has a nice little twist or process on it.

Each player has a hand of cards, starts with 7 will be 9 by the end of the game. Players pick one of those cards to use to get another card. As there are “x” number of cards in the middle of the table where “x” is the number of players. Those cards are sorted low to high, and depending on what number you played, you get where you fall into order of the played cards low to high. Then you keep the played cards in the middle and now those are the cards you are trying to get when you play out your next card.

Simple thus far. Like I said, it’s a color set collection game and you want to collect the most of the highest scoring color. Which color is that? Well, five colors are in play and the color that you play on your five scoring spot is your highest scoring. But you need to add colors left to right. So if the five is in the second spot, that is where you want to put cards. And colors always match where you already played that color.

The Big Twist

Mind Up! does have one big twist that I didn’t mention in the how to play. You play Mind Up! over three rounds. At the end of each round, after you score, you collect your cards and draw one new one. Those cards you just scored, those are your new hand of cards. It is possible that you’ll want to take a less than ideal card because it is good for you in the next round.

It’s a little twist on the game, maybe more than a big twist. And remembering what numbers are out there, it’s somewhat useful. But the big thing is that you know what colors are out there after the first round. If there is a higher number of purples than oranges, you know you don’t want to have your oranges on your five scoring spot.

Scoring

And I want to talk about how scoring works for Mind Up! as well. I said, it is set collection of the colors and that is true. But once you get a card, it is worth noting, the number on the card doesn’t matter. That only matters for where it is in the line-up of cards to pick.

Scoring is instead multiplying the number of that color of cards that you got with the scoring position it is in. If you snag three blue cards on the three scoring spot, those are worth 9 points. If you get two oranges on the five, that is worth 10 points. Easy enough math to keep the game nice and simple as you play.

There is a minor twist on scoring. And that is that you also have +1 or +2 on some cards or -1 on some cards. This does not impact the multiplication. So with my two oranges on the five, they are still worth five. But then added and subtracted numbers get factored in.

And finally with scoring, the order of the scoring cards changes every time. You play with 1 through 5 as your multiplier. But between every round one person randomizes their cards and everyone else matches that order. So the five might be in the first spot or it might be in the last spot. So strategy on where you get a color changes every round.

Who Is This For?

I think that Mind Up! is kind of that mass market card game. And I mean that in a good way. There is an action in the game that you take. You don’t need to think about a lot of things, it’s simply play out a card to hope to get the card that you want. And then you add that card you get to your collection. But compared to something like Uno there is no take that or thing that can artificially lengthen the game. It is always fast.

So for that, I think people should look at Mind Up! as a filler game. And it does play like a filler. Everyone plays out their card at the same time. Everyone gets a card at the same time. And scoring, you guessed it, everyone scores at the same time. The game is made to play quickly no matter the player count. And I think that it does a good job of that.

Final Thoughts on Mind Up!

I enjoy games like Mind Up! And as it is small game, it is going to stick in my collection. I think that Mind Up! is a fun game though. Even with it being a small box, that is not the element that is keeping the game around. It is that I sit down and can play a game of trying to guess what your opponents are going to do that is always going to be fast.

It is going to be a bit random as to what cards you are able to get. At least through the first hand, after that you have more control and more knowledge. But again, it is a fast filler game, it can have a bit more of that as you figure out your strategy and how you want to play it.

And I like the element of figuring out how or if you want to go for getting cards on the five spot. If the five is in the fifth spot, you need to spend four turns hopefully getting cards out to there. If the four is a whole lot sooner can you load that up more than someone who is pushing out to the five. It’s an interesting puzzle to figure out each time.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: B+

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