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I feel I need to talk about this game in a big way. You see many many years ago when I was young, there used to be this place near me which everyone affectionately called the 'Sell-It Centre'. It was a warren of a place filled to the brim with knick knacks, plates, bags of assorted happy meal toys, old sofas, boxes of mangled wires and more. A treasure trove of tat all housed in a collection of warehouses, temporary huts and shacks stuck together at random with no concern for logic or safety. It was a maze and within that maze I found all sorts of treasures that, for better or worse, have stuck with me for a lot of my life.
MindGym was very much one of those random pickups, found stuck at the back of a bunch of more boring discs, your AOL trial CDs, magazine coverdiscs filled with utility demos and the dreaded '101 Letter Templates' sort of disc. Yet for some reason this one stuck out to me and, given it was being sold for dirt cheap, I took a risk and picked it up with my pocket money. Was this a game really appropriate for such a small child? Maybe not.
But at the same time this isn't really a game as more of a weird experience. Filled with personality quizzes, sarcastic quips and puzzles that at first (and second and third) glance made no sense and existed just to mock the player. You messed around with cucumbers to solve world peace, took personality quizzes based around peer pressure and clothing choices and messed (or didn't) mess around with fire for fun.
This was an array of lunacy. bad puns and obstructive parody that seemed to push that dual notion of 'Be Yourself, even if it is weird, nerdy and completely socially awkward' and 'Don't let anyone else tell you who you should be'.
I have no idea if that was the intended message of the 'Game' or not but its one that's stuck with me throughout life. As a game there isn't much here outside of a few hours of general weirdness and social commentary along with a host who seems more interested in shouting stuff that probably was the height of comedy back in the early 90s (HELLO?) but I cant bring myself to hate it just because of how it unknowingly impacted a lot of my life.
I do wish this was available somewhere like steam because I really wish I could share this nonsense with friends. Its like that idea of 'Hey if somebody saw the nonsense I grew up with, maybe they'd get me more'. Then I remember I also grew up with Revenge of the Mutant Camels and go 'Oh'.
As for that Sell-it Centre, unfortunately a few years after buying this game, it burnt to the ground. We don't know if it was arson, insurance fraud or what but I do miss that place a bunch and I'm not sure I've found anything like it ever since.
MindGym was very much one of those random pickups, found stuck at the back of a bunch of more boring discs, your AOL trial CDs, magazine coverdiscs filled with utility demos and the dreaded '101 Letter Templates' sort of disc. Yet for some reason this one stuck out to me and, given it was being sold for dirt cheap, I took a risk and picked it up with my pocket money. Was this a game really appropriate for such a small child? Maybe not.
But at the same time this isn't really a game as more of a weird experience. Filled with personality quizzes, sarcastic quips and puzzles that at first (and second and third) glance made no sense and existed just to mock the player. You messed around with cucumbers to solve world peace, took personality quizzes based around peer pressure and clothing choices and messed (or didn't) mess around with fire for fun.
This was an array of lunacy. bad puns and obstructive parody that seemed to push that dual notion of 'Be Yourself, even if it is weird, nerdy and completely socially awkward' and 'Don't let anyone else tell you who you should be'.
I have no idea if that was the intended message of the 'Game' or not but its one that's stuck with me throughout life. As a game there isn't much here outside of a few hours of general weirdness and social commentary along with a host who seems more interested in shouting stuff that probably was the height of comedy back in the early 90s (HELLO?) but I cant bring myself to hate it just because of how it unknowingly impacted a lot of my life.
I do wish this was available somewhere like steam because I really wish I could share this nonsense with friends. Its like that idea of 'Hey if somebody saw the nonsense I grew up with, maybe they'd get me more'. Then I remember I also grew up with Revenge of the Mutant Camels and go 'Oh'.
As for that Sell-it Centre, unfortunately a few years after buying this game, it burnt to the ground. We don't know if it was arson, insurance fraud or what but I do miss that place a bunch and I'm not sure I've found anything like it ever since.