Joined in 2023 
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The Mind is one of the most fascinating games I’ve ever played and probably my favorite limited communication game. The trick is that players can’t discuss anything about their own cards, or as the rulebook says, “no sharing of information, no secret signs. 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. If all the players agree, the throwing star is deployed and each player discards the lowest card in their hand by placing it face up to one side.
Play multiple games with the same group and chances are you will naturally start to read each other better and have some of those cool moments where you somehow know who has the 58, who has the 59, and who has the 60. If you’re looking for more traditional card games that use a traditional 52 card deck, then you are also in the right place.
Obviously with numbers from 1 to 100 form follows function, but they are clear and still good-looking. Start proceedings by separating the Star and Bunny cards equal to the number of participants and deal these out. That means that at a game night The Mind works better as an appetizer as you wait for everyone to show up, or maybe a palate cleanser between games.
If the players have one or more lives left, and a player holds a very high card (say 95-100) it could be advantageous for that player to throw that card immediately and lose a single life, to force teammates to have to throw all of their lower cards and resume play with very few cards left in the collective hand. I’ve played it with about 20 people now, including kids and non-gamers, and it never took more than a couple of minutes for them to get the hang of it. In the two player game, you play over 12 rounds, but you only play 10 rounds with three players and 8 rounds with four.Take the following common situation: you’re slowly nudging a card towards the center when out of the corner of your eye, you spot one of your mates parroting you. Very few games rely so completely on non-verbal communication, and that's exactly where this title lives and dies.
When that happens, you’ll be nursing a bruised palm from a dozen high-fives, then hopping up on adrenaline for the rest of the evening.You may start the game believing you don’t stand a chance – but then you find some sort of cerebral rhythmic connection with your fellow players, and progress further than your collective wildest dream!
This is the simplest game that I've taken the time to review, but even so, it may be the one with the most immediate electricity running through its gameplay. The concept of this co-operative card game for 2-4 players may seem simplistic or trivial, but it’s one simple caveat that turns this from a good game into a great game: players are not allowed to directly communicate with one another in any way. An odd rabbit character features on all the life cards and the box art, though I never really was able to discern a purpose for this character. And while a lot of The Mind will feel like this in the initial couple levels of your experience, it’s really in the later levels and second, third, fourth or tenth playthroughs where it starts to shine. As the game progress and advances to higher levels, players become more harmonised and the right time becomes easier to determine.Now I would know they likely drew cards that are all a distance away from each other or all grouped together in an unfavourable fashion. The same could be said of a lot of games though, particularly co-operative games and certainly legacy games. Of course, time passes by “in the head” of each player, but this is normally quicker than one second per number and it changes depending on what level is being played. If you’re not into super-competitive gameplay or if you’re looking to work on team-building skills then this is the card game for you.
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