The Mind is quickly becoming one of my absolute favourite games.  Its a card game for 2 to 4 players, ages 8 and up and takes roughly half an hour. Don’t let the simplicity fool you this one becomes tense pretty quickly. I brought this one to a cottage. It was definitely the hit of the night and I couldn’t get people to stop playing it.

To set up the game you will need to set aside your life, throwing star and level cards based on the number of players.

• Two players – Levels 1-12 – 2 lives – 1 throwing star
• Three players – Levels 1-10 – 3 lives – 1 throwing star
• Four players – Levels 1-8 – 4 lives – 1 throwing star

The deck for this game are cards labelled 1 to 100.  Shuffle the cards and hand out 1 card to each player.

The mind is a cooperative game, you are playing together to beat the levels and stay alive. The cooperative element works so well for this game. One wrong move and you’ve let everyone down, that drives the game. The game plays on your ability to read the people around you.  The goal is to place the cards down lowest to highest.   There can be no visible communication, no talking and no gesturing.  All players place there hands on the table when they are ready to begin.  There are no turns, you must place your cards down when you feel the time is right.  

If a card is put down in the wrong order, the round is over and you lose a life.  Then reshuffle the cards and start that round over.  If cards are successfully placed in order, your team wins that level.  You move on to the next level and also collect any rewards. Each time you level up, an additional card is dealt to all players.  For example by level 5 all players will start with 5 cards.  

To play the throwing star card, a player may raise his hand.  If all players agree to play the throwing star, you discard the throwing start card and all players discard the lowest card in their hand face up to one side.  Then continue playing the round.

To win you must make it through all the levels with a life still intact. If you lose all your lives, you’ve unfortunately all lost the game.  

I love everything about this game.  It’s small but packs a very big punch. The rules are simple and you are playing in minutes.  The silence adds a weird intensity to it, so there are a lot of highs and lows.  That’s where the game excels, it really plays off of the silence and those moments where no one is placing a card. The tension is from not only wanting to succeed but also not wanting to let your team down.    You will definitely feel the emotions come out at the end of the round. This game is a current favourite of mine and everyone I introduce it to. I absolutely love it.

If you like The Mind, try:

The Mind Extreme