How to Play The Mind & Review

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Jesta ThaRogue

The Mind is a cooperative hand management game.

Title: The Mind

Year Published: 2018

Designer: Wolfgang Warsch

Publisher: Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag

Players: 2-4

Game Time: ~15 minutes

Set-up Time: ~1 minute

Ages: 8+

Theme: Abstract

Mechanisms: Hand Management

How to win: Complete the final level

Game Description

The Mind is more than just a game. It’s an experiment, a journey, a team experience in which you can’t exchange information, yet will become one to defeat all the levels of the game.

How to Play The Mind

Round-Up

This game gets compared to The Game and Hanabi for obvious reasons. They’re limited communication co-ops with rules that are easily bent/broken.

The Game has rules that are set out but they are pushed to the limit. I’ve played a few games where a player has basically said the number of a card they’re holding in their hand. They did it indirectly but the message was so loud and clear they may have well just said, “I have 32”.

I liked The Game at first but after a few plays, I lost interest.

I know people who play Hanabi together a lot have secret signals. I’ve heard of groups that argued during and after a game because their secret signals clashed and mistakes were made. 🙂

Also, I don’t like the memory stuff.

So The Mind is interesting, the communication rules are clear: No Communication.

Rule Changes

I play by the German rules but the American version has slightly different rules… In those rules, you are allowed to use body language. I’m not sure how I feel about it.

On one hand, I don’t like the idea of being able to give away clues. “I have a high number in my hand so I’m going to sit back to show this”.

On the other hand, it stops some of the accidental ‘cheating’ people do where they do sit back automatically… I’ve done it.

I’ll try the American way next time I play and see how it works.

Now there is no memory element in The Mind, but there is a bit of a waiting game. That period when you KNOW you can’t go next yet everyone else isn’t doing anything can be frustrating. I assume at most points everyone is either thinking the same or thinking ‘Should I play now?”

I like how sometimes that goes on for a few seconds then everyone smiles, then starts to giggle. 🙂

One of the best things is as long as you play fairly sensibly you can’t really be blamed for playing a card too early… hopefully 🙂

So, give this game a go and if someone gives their opinion on it and they haven’t actually played it, ignore them. They have no idea…

Rating

A very fun unique game that is very tense, but not in a bad way.

I give it 7/10

The Mind Ups and Downs

In Ups and Downs, I look at the individual parts of a game and give the bits I like and up, and the bits I don’t a down. At the end of it, the game gets a score which is added to a League Table. Does it matter? No! it’s just a bit of fun 🙂