“…”
“Should we play a throwing star?”
“Yeah, OK.”
“…”
“We lost.”
This is going to be tricky. When we started writing reviews, we wanted to concentrate on co-operative games which are best, or at least very good, with exactly two players. Then, we slowly overstepped these boundaries. There are games that might be better with more players, and there are games that should be played as single-player, but we still enjoy playing with them together.
And now, here we are, with The Mind, and I would be very hard-pressed to call this a game at all.
In the… well let’s call it the experience that is The Mind, players draw a certain number of cards from a deck. On their cards, there will be one number between 1 and 100, and the aim of the experience is to lay these cards down, one by one, in ascending order. And here comes the incredible twist – there is no communicating whatsoever! The group has cards to keep track of your life points (you lose one life point after one mess-up), and there are throwing stars with which everyone can discard a card from their hand. During the first level, everyone draws one card, if you manage to beat that, you are on to the second level, with two cards each, and so on. After beating specific levels you get a reward, either a new life point or a throwing star. That’s it.
The Good
There is nothing good about The Mind.
OK, I guess it doesn’t commit genocide, so that’s good. But you are not supposed to do that in the first place, so there’s no cookie for you, The Mind.
The Bad
Everything that is in The Mind is bad.
First of all, the no speaking rule. How wonderful, right? A game where you are not allowed to speak, or give any other signs about the game whatsoever. You’re just sitting there in silence. And not only does it feel stupid, it’s a very annoying and cheap gimmick. I just hate this rule in games, and I feel like it is simply there to cover the fact that the game has no clever mechanisms, and this is how they need to nerf the players, so the primitive task becomes a “challenge” again. If you add this to your co-op game, thus robbing the players from the enjoyment of discussing their strategies, the rest of the game better be superb, so the overall quality is still all right.
So far, no game gets away with the absolute ban on speaking or signaling in my book. There are a couple of good examples of partial communication limitations, like Hanabi or Gloomhaven, or heck, Charades, and those are all airtight games. The Mind? Not so much. We have already established how it’s not even a game.
Another issue with this rule is that it’s very vague. You have to do some level of body language, but what’s the limit? Can you lean back, very clearly expressing that your card is high? Can you expressively cough? Can you nod, and count together? The game strongly implies that your group should find what it finds to be acceptable, to find the exact rules that makes it enjoyable for you. And I’m sorry game, but no. That’s what I’m paying you for. I paid money so you tell me how to have fun. It feels like otherwise I’m just doing playtesting that you were supposed to do. You might consider it sad how I require strict rules enforced upon me by an invisible force before I can have my share of fun, but that’s just how I roll. I personally blame the Prussian education system I was exposed to in my youth.
Second of all, I mean, what is this? Is this some kind of meta joke? I’ve played with some bad games in my life, but I can usually pinpoint two or three main issues, and if those were changed, I would consider the game to be close to acceptable. With The Mind, there’s nothing to theoretically build on. There’s nothing there, no foundation. It’s a full-speed nihilistic gimmick. I bet every one of you reading this could come up with a better game using nothing but one piece of paper in ten seconds. Or hell, you don’t even need a paper. Everyone thinks of a color, and then you go in circles and guess it, if you get it wrong, you lose a life, and you can exclude colors with very appropriately themed throwing stars.
While we are at the appropriately themed throwing stars, it feels like beating a dead and boring horse, but the artwork and the theme is excruciatingly uninspiring as well. In a game about reading minds and getting in sync with each other (supposedly), why are the lives and levels represented by drawings of bunnies, and why is the lose a card bonus represented by a throwing star? How are throwing stars coming into this?
There is no mind-reading here, no grand experience, no glimpse into the unknown metaphysical. You are just laying down cards, one after the other, and hope for the best. And then you mess up, and oh no, suddenly we can’t read each other’s minds, oh no, and we were so much in sync, should we try again? No, you shouldn’t.
The Co-Op
There is no co-op in The Mind. This is the worst type of game (sorry, I meant experience), where your group has a common aim, but your interactions are void of any meaningful / intentional interaction. You are simply there to provide the luck aspect to the other players.
The Recommendation
In case it’s not clear: I do not recommend to play with this game, and this is the worst co-op game I have ever played. It redefined our point system, because after this, I will be very reluctant to give anything else a triple-1 score. Play Hanabi instead, that game starts with a very similar premise, but actually gets good.
Info
| Release Year | 2018 |
| Genre | Luck |
| Difficulty | Medium |
| Number of Players | 2 to 4 |
| Length | 10 - 20 minutes |
Rating
| Overall | Terrible |
| Story | Terrible |
| Co-Operation | Terrible |