Nacho Grande's Friday Game Review: The Mind

Besides collecting baseball cards, one of my other major hobbies is playing board games.  Admittedly, I don't get to play as much as I'd like but if nothing else, I can at least collect board games with the hopes of eventually playing them.  Luckily for me, my son (who is almost four) seems to enjoy board games thus far in his life so hopefully that will continue and he'll eventually be willing (and wanting) to play some of my games!

For today, we have a game this is definitely family-friendly though the suggested ages are 8+.  The game is called The Mind by Wolfgang Warsch, published by Pandasaurus Games.

Game Summary:

In The Mind, 2-4 players attempt to play out all of their cards in order in a cooperative fashion.  If the players succeed in playing out every card in numerical order, they win and move on to the next level of the game.  If they mess up playing a card, they lose a life.  Once all the team lives are lost, the players lose.  Sounds simple but there's one catch I haven't yet mentioned...the players cannot communicate at all!

The Mind is a simple-to-explain game that consists of 100 cards numbered 1-100 as well as 5 live cards, 3 throwing star cards, and 12 level cards.  That's it.  

Game Set-Up:

Before the game begins, the players begin with a specific number of lives and throwing stars (dependent upon player count).  For example, in a three-player game the team would start with 3 lives and 1 throwing star.  For three players to win the game overall, they need to successfully complete levels 1-10 without running out of lives.

How to Play:

The game begins with the Level 1 card showing.  For each level, every player is dealt cards equal to the level itself (so during Level 1, each player gets only one card).  Players look at their hand but cannot communicate to the other players in any way.  Once all players indicate they are ready for play to start (the rules book gives a non-verbal way to do this but you can also simply have everyone say "ready" if you prefer), then the game begins.

Players look at their hand and try to figure out when they should play their card(s).  The goal is to get the cards arranged in order from 1-100 (obviously there will be plenty of skipped values).  For example, if a three player game had the following cards dealt:

• Alice:  8
• Bob:  92
• Curtis:  54

Then for the team to succeed Alice would have to play her 8, Curtis his 54, and then Bob his 92 in that order.  In this situation, it's quite likely the team would succeed.  However, the game can be a lot trickier - imagine a round 1 batch of cards being dealt like this:

• Alice:  32
• Bob:  36
• Curtis:  35

Yikes!  Good luck completing that one without losing a life!  

In the above scenario, if Curtis had played his 35 prior to Alice playing, the team would lose a life (any cards with a numerical value lower than the mistake card that was played are discarded) and then play continues from there (unless the lost life was the team's final life in which case the players lose).  

The only other real rule of the game is the throwing stars.  At any point during a level, a player can suggest a throwing star be used.  If all players agree, then a throwing star is used (meaning that each player discards their lowest card in their hand).  The throwing star is then returned to the supply and play continues from wherever the players left off.  

Winning the Game:

As I said earlier, this is a cooperative game so the players either win or lose as a group.  Players win by beating the required number of levels (as determined by player count) and players lose if they run out of lives prior to beating the required level.  

My Thoughts:

I think The Mind is a genius little game, especially for the first ten or so times you play the game.  The first few times you play, I can virtually guarantee that if your team loses someone will immediately want to run the game back and try over right away.  I've probably played The Mind 20+ times at this point and yet I'm still keeping this one in my game collection (it does help that it's a small card box).  This isn't a game that I would personally want to play all night long but there is something to playing it consecutively with the same group - you'll find you probably do a lot better in subsequent plays as you become more in turn with how each other person at the table plays the game!

The Bottom Line:

Pros:

• Easy to learn
• Quick to play
• Few components
• Small box
• Cheap price

Cons:

• Not a ton of strategic depth
• Less exciting once you finally beat the game
• Not a good game for visiting with others as everyone is required to be silent

Overall Score (out of 10):

6:  Ok - will play if in the mood

This is a great game, especially for those first plays until your group beats the game.  Once you do, you'll probably move on to something else (but then you'll want this game in your collection to play with the next new batch of people where the fun starts up all over again).  For a relatively cheap game, this one comes highly recommended by me!

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Note:  I've gone back through all of my game reviews and changed my scoring to mimic Board Game Geek's scoring scale.    

Board Game Geek's Rating Scale:

10:  Outstanding - will always enjoy playing

9:  Excellent - very much enjoy playing

8:  Very good - enjoy playing and would suggest it

7:  Good - usually willing to play

6:  Ok - will play if in the mood

5:  Mediocre - take it or leave it

4:  Not so good - but could play again

3:  Bad - likely won't play this again

2:  Very bad - won't play ever again

1:  Awful - defies game description