Miscellaneous > Other Games

The Mind

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Kuildeous:
I had read about The Mind, and it intrigued me. I finally got to play a few games at Origins. It doesn't feel like it'd be a game that would work, but it does. I wouldn't expect to get hours of enjoyment out of it at a time, but it's a fun time-killer.

The premise is that you have a deck of cards numbered 1 to 100. At level 1, each player is given a card. The players indicate they are ready by placing their hand on the table. That's the only communication. Now you have to play the cards in ascending order without talking to your teammates.

Some cards are easy to play. If you have a 1-9 in your hand, you should probably play that immediately so that nobody else plays a higher card. But if you have one of those moments where the lowest card in someone's hand is a 48, expect a grueling contest of wills as people try to figure out if they have the lowest card since nobody jumped in first. It reminds me of the logic puzzle of men wearing black and white hats, and the person in front can figure out what his hat color is if the men behind him don't immediately say anything.

Each subsequent level gives you more cards, which is perhaps a bit easier than level 1 because you're likely to see a better distribution of cards, but you still have to contend with the fact that four players at level 5 are trying to lay down 20 cards in numerical order.

There's another element that I haven't seen much of, but I believe that when you gain a "shuriken" after a level, you may spend that shuriken later to have everyone discard their lowest card. So if you reach that 48 scenario, then you may be able to ease things a bit.

It's a goofy game, and it's not exceptionally deep, but it can make you feel like it is.

crj:
Has anyone tried playing it with (other) musicians?

My assumption is that each round degenerates into counting 120bpm minims for 100 seconds. Or, if you're impatient and hardcore, 120bpm semiquavers for 25 seconds.

I know that even without any kind of reference, my absolute sense of time is accurate to within 3%. So consecutive cards would have to be spaced by about 30 for there to be any risk of collision. My feeling is that would happen rarely enough you could just spend a shuriken when it did.

Kuildeous:
I wondered about an unspoken rule of counting. I feel like maybe that's kinda cheating, but how can you stop yourself without intentionally shooting yourself in the foot?

But it would assume that everyone else is counting too, and that can backfire. 

No idea if musicians would just naturally fall into that without any discussion ahead of time.

Watno:
I was really surprised I enjoyed it as well.

Btw, I was totally counting.

gkrieg13:
I think you are allowed to do anything non-verbal as long as you haven't told anyone what it means.  That means that when one person has the 99 and one has the 100, walking out of the room with the 100 should be a valid play, showing that you would never play it except for last. 

I actually enjoy playing the mind more with people who think the signals they are making are under being understood, when you have no idea what they are trying to tell you by putting their card out further on the table

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