Mind Scanners Review
Release Date: May 20th, 2021
Developer: Brave At Night
Platforms: PC
Price: $16.99
For as long as artistic mediums have been around - from books to films and beyond - the sci-fi genre has been interpreted every which way with unique perspectives on the ups and downs of a futuristic society where technology reigns supreme. What we deem as classics now like 1984, Alien, Blade Runner, Metroid, and Battlestar Galactica all have touched on different ideas of the future, but if one things has been mostly consistent between all of these and many others, it's that the "cyberpunk" world is seen as more dystopian than utopian, and Mind Scanners is no different as your job is to go around as a contractor of the same name to fix those that have been flagged as "insane" and validate whether those claims have been made true or not, in which, if they are not, can be seen as "sane" and can freely continue to function in society, otherwise they would have to go through a series of tests after being asked some preliminary questions to help them function once more, but your job as Mind Scanner isn't without reason, and the structure of the society begins to unravel as you progress with a purpose.
Mind Scanners starts off with you beginning your new job in a heavily controller society where virtually everyone and everything is tracked and everything is connected, and is done so in a way to keep things "civilized" despite the long-term damage this causes from persistent brainwash and ultimately the robotic nature that tends to shape everyone in society. The narrative influence from titles like Total Recall and Ghost in the Shell are apparent with a slight Blade Runner flavoring that mimics the values and messaging of an always-connected society where corporations and government tend to attach strings like puppet masters to everyone that opts-in. While Mind Scanners from a detailed and narrative perspective may sound like it has an intricate nature of gameplay, but instead is a point-and-click experience that's set up in a stack of modules in which the player will not only talk and get instructions from The Structure - the conglomerate that runs and employs within the Mind Scanners Programme - but utilize the devices day by day to go from patient to patient, get paid, and uncover the truth you're looking for: Why you're unable to see and retrieve your daughter in the institute she's currently being held.
Upon launching and playing Mind Scanners, what you see is what you get right away as all the modules are placed in a block-like structure where everything will take place, from your fax messages to calls and treatment sessions to managing your devices. All of this is done on one screen that's easy to read and laid out almost like an application, which admittedly works really well for Mind Scanners and keeps the gameplay of it consistent and easy to follow, with little to worry in the way of item management or things of that nature where mechanics and a plethora of menus would hinder the gameplay. It's not to say Mind Scanners is simple, however, because once you've done your first few treatments after the first two or three days, the way you treat your patients and how you go about spending your allotted time throughout your work day can become rather intricate, figuring out the most optimal ways to treat those you're seeing that you deem to be insane after your initial assessment, which is portrayed through a Rorschach test in a Virtual Boy-esque headset and a sequence of dialogue exchanges where you're trying to get the best match to explain what the patient is trying to associate the image with. Once you've successfully matched three of the responses to their images the patients see, you can begin the actual treatment portion of Mind Scanners.
At a glance and after you've done a few trial runs with the first few patients, Mind Scanners seems like a fairly easy pick-me-up where you can go and do a few runs of patients and log off for the day (both in-game and out), but there's more than what you're lead to believe here, and while things can get a little extreme from time to time, it brings with it a welcome level of challenge and depth to a game that seemingly reveals itself right away. A big part of Mind Scanners gameplay will happen during its treatments, where after the initial assessment you'll see the patient in between two meters that will represent their stress and their personality, and while these are immensely important to pay attention to, it's the symbols under the patient that will need to be sort of "decoded" and removed via the devices that you'll acquire and craft the more you play, using a variety of resources such as the time given to you in a particular day, as well as other currencies and allotments of monetary value that will help construct the devices needed to most efficiently get rid of a patient's issues. These are used in almost a mini-game fashion as you drag and drop the desired device into the middle module and tweak, turn, slide, and uncover a multitude of knobs, images, and the sort to match them up to the next symbol looking to be removed, which can be done one-by-one or in groups depending on the chosen device for the treatment. These can be switched at any time and is done with relative ease, and most of the devices are fairly easy to understand, making Mind Scanners feel like a more intricate form of Operation that has you much more involved. It's a little hard to understand some of the devices at first, but through repetition and practice, you'll quickly get yourself acquainted with which devices work best under what circumstances, but also helping someone get better may end up being for nothing if their personality ends up being washed out completely, and you'll effectively have to prematurely terminate your session with a patient if their stress levels get way too high, causing for a huge loss of money and other resources, which sucks worse when there's typically a "maintenance fee" at the end of each work day that is taken, making it a little harder to come by the necessary funds to accomplish and concoct certain things. In an odd way, because of how the devices work, Mind Scanners can sometimes feel like an interesting take on the WarioWare formula, causing for an underlying addiction as you treat more and more patients.
In summation, Mind Scanners is undoubtedly a one-of-a-kind title by Brave At Night that has players point-and-click their way through a sequence of patients, minigames, and prompts to bring back society to a normalized state correcting the insane (whether legitimate or accused), with a unique interface that has the player clicking through modules. As someone who hasn't really played many types of these titles before, it undoubtedly stands out and remains an interesting and memorable experience while touching on the issues of medicine and science in a futuristic yet dystopian society that's abused to control the minds of its citizens. The pixel art and overall aesthetic is nice enough to keep things pleasurable to look at as the game is basically an interactive menu, but there's enough to keep players engaged with a sci-fi atmosphere and simple yet well-placed dialogue and writing to also keep it captivating and wanting to play more as you uncover your own story as well as the stories and problems of others, dismantling corruption in the interim. While I don't think Mind Scanners will be for everyone, there's still a lot here to be appreciated in terms of craftsmanship, and those that are open enough to always try new approaches to how we play and design games should find a lot here to love and enjoy.
PROS:
Point-and-click sci-fi goodness that will undoubtedly please those that enjoy Orwellian writing
The pixel art is well done and fitting of the overall creative direction
It can become addicting the more you get into it thanks to each devices' unique usage
CONS:
The different scanners and methods of cleansing can get convoluted from time to time, causing for frustration from patient to patient depending on their issues.
Depending on how you look at it, some may wish for a deeper interface or more to do, though I personally feel the simplicity complements Mind Scanner's general mechanics.
Our deepest gratitude to Brave At Night for providing us a copy of
Mind Scanners for the purposes of this review!