The Mind is a co-operative game where players will work together to place cards in ascending order from their hands. The issue is that the players cannot speak to each other. You cannot say well I have the 80 card, you can wiggle your eyebrows and perhaps give cryptic clues such as, I believe that there is no chance I am the next card to go down, but ultimately it comes down to the art of mind reading. Sounds bizarre, but honestly you will be surprised by how much fun can be had with a few games of The Mind.

How Do You Play The Mind?

Setup of this game is simple, make a stack of throwing stars, extra life cards and the level cards. The amounts of these will be shown in the instruction manual, and changes based on player count. Then shuffle together all the number cards and deal out one to each player (for level 1). When you are ready, you look at your card and then the mind reading commences.

Without giving away information about your card number you must try to work out who has the lowest number and they should place this down, of course if you have a 3 then you are likely to be first, but perhaps someone else has the 2? If you have a 17, you could well be first, but you don’t want to seem too eager as there are 16 cards lower than yours that your fellow players could have been dealt. If you manage to get the cards all out in ascending order then you have completed the round, you receive the bonus on the level card and deal out the next round, for level 2, each player gets 2 cards and so on.

Who Will Enjoy The Mind?

We are always on the hunt for cool games that we can take with us traveling or to restaurants/bars/cafes to play. The Mind is a great one for this as the package is so small, and the amount of room needed to play is tiny. This can easily be played on even the smallest of pub tables.

This is a game that is suitable for people who have never picked up a game before, which also means you can teach anyone quickly regardless of the amount of attention they are paying (or the amount of beers they have imbibed in the sunshine of a beer garden that day). The game is also made up of a different number of rounds depending on the player count which means it will never go on too long. Even though the vast majority of the games that we have played have resulted in losing, we have always had a blast playing the game. There has never been a situation where we have felt like the game has dragged or that it has not been fun, in fact most times after a loss, we have been eager to give it another bash and try to do better.

If you are looking for a gift for a friend of something to take away on holiday with you then why not take a punt on the experience that is The Mind. You may find that you forge new connections with your fellow players as you read their mind.

This blog was written by Hannah Blacknell

Editors note: This post was originally published on 27th April 2023. Updated on 23rd May 2024 to improve the information available.