One thing to note is how much the app emphasizes the synchronization phase. If you browse the physical game rulebook it will be called “concentration.” The curious thing here is that, after watching a handful of online reviews/rule explanations, none of them mentioned the concentration phase. The idea of putting your hand (physical or digital) on the table and pulling it away to provide some sort of meaning is clearly an important piece of the intended game experience, but it gets ignored by people playing the physical game?

The Mind is a downright bizarre choice to get a digital port. The physical game is all about nonverbal communication across the table. The app attempts to replicate this with the built-in emotions, but it’s not the same. The app is also interesting in that it has a handful of built-in AIs with their own defined tendencies.



I’ve never played the physical game, but I can easily see the comparison to Hanabi which I’ve played quite a bit of. I simply can’t see the fun of Hanabi porting well to digital form and The Mind’s digital implementation is interesting enough to get me to take a look at the physical game, but the app is almost certainly not going to stay in my rotation for long after this review gets published. Your results may vary, of course.