The Mind — play in order, without a word
Everyone holds numbered cards and the team must play them all onto one pile in rising order. There are no turns, and nobody may speak or signal. You play when you sense it is time.
From The Mind, a card game by Wolfgang Warsch.
What it shows a designer
With speech removed, the only channel left is timing. Players build a shared rhythm, which shows how a rule that takes something away can make a new kind of play.
Credits
- Made by
- Wolfgang Warsch, 2018
- This version
- Homemade cards; levels 1 to 4 only, without the published rewards and throwing stars
- Sources
- themind.gg/rules.pdf
What you need
- 100 paper cards numbered 1 to 100
- coins or paper bits for lives
How to play
- Set up. Shuffle the 100 cards. The team has as many lives as there are players.
- Deal a level. In level 1, deal one card to each player; in level 2, two cards each; and so on. Look at your own cards only.
- Play in silence. Anyone may play their lowest card onto the pile at any moment. No talking and no signals. The pile has to rise: every card higher than the one before.
- Mistakes. If someone plays a card while another player still holds a lower one, the team loses a life. Everyone shows and discards their cards lower than the one played, and the level goes on.
- End. Clear level 4 and the team wins. Lose the last life and the team loses.
After playing, talk about
- How did you decide when to play a 40?
- Did the group find a shared sense of time? When did it break?
- What happened when someone hesitated?
Its blocks
How its blocks were checked against BoardGameGeek
- The Mind: partly checkable, nothing against it. playing in silence: not checkable. shared objective: confirmed (Cooperative Game). fully cooperative: confirmed (Cooperative Game). attunement: not checkable. hidden hands: not checkable. no turns: not checkable.
In boardgameBuilder, Open game puts its blocks on the canvas. Changed, the same file can come back here from Propose a game.