TL;DR
What is it? An incredibly simple game of playing numbers in the right order. I know that doesn’t sound like much but trust me it’s brilliant.
How many people? 2–4 works best with 3 or 4.
How long does it take? 15 minutes (but it’s intense)
Who is it for? Small group looking for something a simple co-op game.
Buy it: On Amazon here
The Gist
Why we recommend it
How long could you wait?
How patient are you?
How patient are the people you’re playing with?
You’re staring at a 30 on the table and you have a 55 in your hand, is now the time? No, let’s wait some more. Now? No, no, it’s not quite time. Ok it’s been to long I have to play the 55! You did it, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Then the silence begins again.
On the face of it The Mind is a ridiculously simple game. There are numbered cards from 1 to 100, you dish some out and just have to play all the cards from your team in ascending order. Every time you do that you go to the next level and get more cards.
That challenge though is not a small one. You cannot communicate. You can’t talk, nod, wink, cough, write, text or send smoke signals. You can offer nothing in your facial expression. Nothing.
So how can you explain anything to your team mates? How can you tell them you have the 55 and if they have something lower they should play it before you do.
All you have is time and feel. When I heard about this game I didn’t get it. when I played the first round I didn’t get it. But after those first couple of rounds. I understood. I was hooked.
That’s because this game has such dramatic tension, emphasized by the silence you’re playing in. Doing nothing can feel intense when you have to wait what can feel like an eternity to just play a card. Then that immidiate moment of panic when you do and you look at your team mates, hoping you made the right call. You get a spike of happiness when they look relieved as well, then back to silence.
Although sometimes you don’t have to wait, you are all smashing down cards like machine guns as you rattle out all the numbers close to each other, hoping you can drop your 43 on the 42 before anyone lays anything higher.
The pressure can build to utter euphoria when you finish a later level. After minutes of silence without being able to celebrate now you can!
It isn’t just about your own perception of time though, it’s about everyone else’s. Learning how they think, when they might make a move.
As you get into that zone with your team you’ll find that you start to develop a sixth sense, there’s a sense of flow you’ll all fall into. It’s intense. So much so that after a game I often needed a moments break, that’s despite a game usually only taking 5–10 minutes.
It really is a game that get’s into your mind.
Support Best Play and pick up your own copy of The Mind here from Amazon.
