Mind MGMT

The Game

Mind MGMT is originally a comic book series. The box cover and artwork of the boardgame look unusual because they are all from the comic series. Certainly not your typical boardgame art. The story in the original comics is about spies with psychic powers. 

This is a cat and mouse game. One player is the recruiter who moves about the board hidden and recruits people. If he manages to recruit 12 new spies, he wins. Alternatively, if he manages to avoid capture until the end of 16 rounds, he also wins. The other players play four agents, and their job is to hunt down the recruiter. The recruiter has four assistants, called the immortals, and they can be used to interfere with the agents' investigations. The locations of the immortals are known. 

This is the game board. It looks messy and intimidating at first, but once you understand all the elements, it is not actually that scary. Well, maybe the art style is still a little scary, but that's being true to the source material. Before the game starts, players take turns to place some red walls. These edges become impassable throughout the game.

The recruiter starts the game by taking several moves. He has a head start and during this time he can already recruit some new spies. He decides where he starts too. When moving, the recruiter can only move one step orthogonally. No diagonal movement is allowed except when you use the bridges around the giant Buddhas (see screenshot above). One important restriction is the recruiter may never visit the same space twice. This presents quite a challenge to the recruiter, because you will have fewer and fewer options for moving as the game progresses. You have to be careful to keep your options open and to not box yourself in to a dead end. By keeping as many options open as possible, you make it harder for the agents to determine your position. You have a single use power which lets you move two spaces in a straight line. This can be very helpful in throwing the agents off your trail. 

Recruiting can only be done in spaces where some specific objects are present. Three types of objects are determined at the start of the game, and they are only known to the recruiter. The board looks very busy, but most of the items on it are actually these objects related to recruitment. In the photo above you can see parasols, coffee cups, billboards, buses, graffiti of a giant eye, swimming pools and so on. Whenever the recruiter recruits, He must specify how many have been recruited. This is recorded on the time track (see the blue track in the screenshot above), and this is one of the clues for the agents.

There are four agents on the board. As they move about, they can perform actions which help them hunt down the recruiter. One thing they can do is to investigate one particular object type. If the recruiter has been to a space with such an object type he must place a footprint token on one such space. A footprint only tells the agents that the recruiter has been here, but it doesn't say when. There is another type of action an agent can perform which forces the recruiter to tell when. This becomes a more precise piece of information for the agents.

The recruiter can use his team of immortals for recruitment, but it is a little bit more troublesome. You need to have two immortals on one particular object type to perform recruitment. Also the object type is known by the agents. Still, if the recruiter is near 12 new spies, then using the immortals is a strong threat. Even if they fail to recruit, the agents would have spent effort stopping the immortals, giving the recruiter a breather.

Every agent has his own unique ability. For example one of them can move an immortal. Another can detect whether the recruiter is within two steps orthogonally. The agent team also has a single use power. This is randomly determined at the start of every game.

The Play

I played Mind MGMT in asynchronous mode on BoardGameArena.com. The first thing I will say is that I think the game will work better as a physical game, or at least played when all players are online at the same time. The reason is this is a game in which you need to keep a lot of information in your head at the same time. If you need to come back the next day to get back into the game, you need to spend a lot of effort grasping the situation again. It is better to play the game in one sitting. This is a game that requires some mental gymnastics. Some people like brainless games, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to let your brain relax when playing games. Just don't ask them to play Mind MGMT with you. You are going to make them suffer. 

In the game I played against Han, I was the agents and he was the recruiter. In the early game it was hard to piece together the clues to determine where he was. There were too many possibilities. However as I gathered more information, I could feel my net contracting. At the same time, he continued to move and he stayed a step ahead. This is the kind of game where you always feel you are just one step behind. The perpetrator has just left the crime scene 5 minutes before your arrival. The tea is still warm. 

It must be exciting playing the recruiter. You never know when the agents will make a lucky guess and get a highly useful clue. You have to plan your route carefully to keep as many options open as possible. You want to have multiple escape routes so that even if the agents track you down to your previous location, there are still multiple branches they need to spread out to to find you. 

There is some psychology in the game. If the agents think the recruiter has probably gone north, because there are more possible paths there, the recruit might just have taken a risk and gone south instead. This is the kind of mind games you will play. 

This above was the end of our game. I managed to catch Han on turn 12 (of 16). At this point he had recruited seven new spies. 

The Thoughts

The hidden movement is a niche genre. Other well known games in the genre are Scotland Yard, Fury of Dracula, and Letters from Whitechapel. Scotland Yard is simpler and cleaner. The others are a little more complicated. Mind MGMT is on the complicated side as well. Both the agents and the recruiter have several special abilities at their disposal. This is a strategy game that uses quite some brain power. Whether you like this genre comes down to personal taste. If you have not tried this genre before, certainly give it a shot. There is much deduction and also some psychological play. Every move by your opponent might be a clue, or a red herring.