Price: 2 bucks
Although the story and the concept seemed fun, the gameplay is just too tedious. 18 types of insanity i need to remove? Doubt I'll ever play this again
Although the story and the concept seemed fun, the gameplay is just too tedious. 18 types of insanity i need to remove? Doubt I'll ever play this again
Not a fan of the minigames
cool as hell concept that kinda tickles the same part of my brain that gnog did -- I liked fiddling with incomprehensible (in the eldritch, fleshy kind of way) tech and figuring out how stuff worked
This is one game I didn’t finish. I liked the idea of Mind Scanners: it’s a game with a similar style and premise as the great Papers, Please, set in a dystopian future where you have to scan minds and declare if they’re sane or insane.
Your daughter is currently being “treated” by the structure, so you have to work for them as a Mind Scanner in order to see her again. They ask you to fix anyone you declare insane, and to watch out for people who could disrupt the structure.
Treating someone comes in two stages: first the person you’re investigating will say statements about themselves, which you have to categorise to diagnose their problems. Get three of these correct in a row and you can decide if they’re sane or insane.
This part of the game is great, in its own horrible way. The extremely black and white options of simply “sane” or “insane” make you want to not classify some people as insane, but it’s behaviour that the “structure” doesn’t want, so sometimes you decide to mark someone as insane as you feel you have to. The extremely blatant nature of it makes you think more about each person’s issues – and there are really some interesting characters. Every now and then there will be someone broken, giving you a bit of relief that you’re actually helping someone.
The second part is treatment. It has some nice ideas: fixing them with your Mind Scanner drains their personality (the “structure” has no issue with you fully draining it – they may actually prefer it), there are ways to save their personality, but it costs valuable time. It’s an interesting choice.
Unfortunately, how you do this is where the game fails: each item you can use to treat someone requires you to play a basic minigame that doesn’t tell you what to do, so you have to try and learn it. Some are really obscure and require sticks and multiple buttons to use. With all the difficult decision making you have to do, it’s just a massive downer when your choices are rendered meaningless because of extremely vague minigames. On top of that, they’re extremely, extremely repetitive.
The game certainly has some nice ideas, but the frustrating minigames really sours it
Your daughter is currently being “treated” by the structure, so you have to work for them as a Mind Scanner in order to see her again. They ask you to fix anyone you declare insane, and to watch out for people who could disrupt the structure.
Treating someone comes in two stages: first the person you’re investigating will say statements about themselves, which you have to categorise to diagnose their problems. Get three of these correct in a row and you can decide if they’re sane or insane.
This part of the game is great, in its own horrible way. The extremely black and white options of simply “sane” or “insane” make you want to not classify some people as insane, but it’s behaviour that the “structure” doesn’t want, so sometimes you decide to mark someone as insane as you feel you have to. The extremely blatant nature of it makes you think more about each person’s issues – and there are really some interesting characters. Every now and then there will be someone broken, giving you a bit of relief that you’re actually helping someone.
The second part is treatment. It has some nice ideas: fixing them with your Mind Scanner drains their personality (the “structure” has no issue with you fully draining it – they may actually prefer it), there are ways to save their personality, but it costs valuable time. It’s an interesting choice.
Unfortunately, how you do this is where the game fails: each item you can use to treat someone requires you to play a basic minigame that doesn’t tell you what to do, so you have to try and learn it. Some are really obscure and require sticks and multiple buttons to use. With all the difficult decision making you have to do, it’s just a massive downer when your choices are rendered meaningless because of extremely vague minigames. On top of that, they’re extremely, extremely repetitive.
The game certainly has some nice ideas, but the frustrating minigames really sours it
Criminally underrated game.
Good game in the line of Papers Please and so. But the difficuty progression just gets tedious in the end
Elephant in the room here is clearly the similarities to Papers, Please which, yeah games emulate games sometimes what matters is if they bring anything new to the genre, field, artistry, experience, etc. Anyways, in Mind Scanners you're a government appointed mental health "expert" sent around with an arsenal of unlockable devices that allow you to diagnose hyper-specific mental health struggles and extract them via a series of mini-games, varying from simon says to a cyberpunk variation of Neopets' Extreme Potato Counter.
Through these endeavors you help people who are struggling, but only if you manage to measure their treatments while maintaining their individualism and stress levels. Your treatment affects the lives of the individuals you visit, but only on the small scale, which is disappointing in a world where player choice and morality systems have become so much of the norm. But it does allow personal morality to shine through a little more as a result, due to the primary reward for helping people being that you helped people.
The game feels alien in some of its presentation and instruction, by which I mean the game holds your hand very little to allow the strangeness of what you're doing t shine through, and it's most glaring flaw is that it does overstay its welcome a little, especially for completionists (who will have to earn NINE endings by playing a total of around 270-300 in-game days), allowing the mechanics to become stale, or for mini-games you thought were clever at their introduction to become a bit of an annoyance. And odds slowly increase that you'll make an ending altering mistake in your rush to be done with activities (like spinning the voice mini-game wheel).
But overall if you like games like Her Story, Death and Taxes, or yes...Papers, Please, where data scrubbing, sorting, and classification is the backbone of gameplay, then you'll like this game most likely. But otherwise it'll likely sit on your tongue just a little longer than you'd like, even if the ending you obtain ends up being worthwhile overall.
Through these endeavors you help people who are struggling, but only if you manage to measure their treatments while maintaining their individualism and stress levels. Your treatment affects the lives of the individuals you visit, but only on the small scale, which is disappointing in a world where player choice and morality systems have become so much of the norm. But it does allow personal morality to shine through a little more as a result, due to the primary reward for helping people being that you helped people.
The game feels alien in some of its presentation and instruction, by which I mean the game holds your hand very little to allow the strangeness of what you're doing t shine through, and it's most glaring flaw is that it does overstay its welcome a little, especially for completionists (who will have to earn NINE endings by playing a total of around 270-300 in-game days), allowing the mechanics to become stale, or for mini-games you thought were clever at their introduction to become a bit of an annoyance. And odds slowly increase that you'll make an ending altering mistake in your rush to be done with activities (like spinning the voice mini-game wheel).
But overall if you like games like Her Story, Death and Taxes, or yes...Papers, Please, where data scrubbing, sorting, and classification is the backbone of gameplay, then you'll like this game most likely. But otherwise it'll likely sit on your tongue just a little longer than you'd like, even if the ending you obtain ends up being worthwhile overall.
I feel like this game wears its inspiration on its sleeve, in a way that treads that line between homage and copycat. There are some really neat ideas, but I don't think it properly explores anything with much depth. There's "sides" in the story, but it's not quite as ambiguous or morally grey as it would like to be. I find the gameplay somewhat frustrating, it doesn't feel like something you can really get "good" at, it comes across as busywork. I quite like the music and visual style.
Love the art, love the writing, love the minigames, I just wish the choices were better and the game had more to it overall.
Shit and not in spanish
Mind Scanners wants to be A Very Important Game about the moral ambiguities of treating psychological disorders but it fails to really say much beyond "treat the illness, not the personality", which might sound deep to somebody in a Psychology 101 class but I'm a psych grad looking for a master's right now and I thought it was just kind of toothless. It doesn't really help that the minigames are very abstract and don't remotely resemble any real psychiatric treatments; this game gets compared to "Papers Please" a lot but what worked there was that the dehumanizing procedures you were asked to perform felt realistic and that's what was so uncomfortable about them.
That said, there is a good representation of the unique relationship a social worker can have with their clients. You need to have the proper emotional distance from them to treat them properly, and yet you can't help but find some people endearing. Occasionally the game brushes up against the more interesting idea during this of "what if somebody's abnormal mental functioning is actually beneficial" but it isn't iterated on enough to feel pointed.
That said, there is a good representation of the unique relationship a social worker can have with their clients. You need to have the proper emotional distance from them to treat them properly, and yet you can't help but find some people endearing. Occasionally the game brushes up against the more interesting idea during this of "what if somebody's abnormal mental functioning is actually beneficial" but it isn't iterated on enough to feel pointed.
Uno dei quei pochi casi in cui sinceramente non so assolutamente come valutare.
Chiaramente ispirato a Papers, please in termini di istruzioni e concept. Differisce completamente sotto ogni altro aspetto.
Il game design è diametralmente opposto: sono presenti dei mini giochi da completare entro un certo limite temporale (come in Papers, please, dopotutto) ma il livello di difficoltà dipende anche dagli acquisti fatti dal giocatore. Se in PP la burocrazia diventa più complessa col passare dei giorni, in questo caso è il giocatore che, invece, può semplificarsi la vita spendendo una parte delle risorse guadagnate per acquistare macchinari più adatti per risolvere più rapidamente specifici casi. Inoltre, è possibile riavviare il gioco da un giorno qualsiasi di quelli fino a quel momento ultimati: ciò, da un lato, può ridurre il livello di sfida ma è anche e senza dubbio un ottimo modo per non costringere il giocatore a rivisitare l'interezza di una partita per effettuare scelte differenti, seguire condotte diverse e accedere a un altro dei finali (in tutto 9).
Visivamente è molto affascinante e, seppur l'interfaccia di gioco appaia colma di informazioni, è tutto perfettamente leggibile e navigabile.
Ottima la OST, anche se breve: dopo un po' rischia di divenire monotona.
Ottimamente scritti tutti i personaggi: se in PP c'erano 33 volti pre-confenzionati con caratteri fenotipici (naso, occhi, etc.) riassemblabili dal gioco in modo casuale, per Mind scanners sono stati realizzati più di 50 personaggi con una specifica identità, una specifica biografia e delle specifiche peculiarità. Difficilmente si potranno affrontare tutti nel corso di una singola partita.
Buona la gestione delle risorse (monetarie e temporali), richiedendo un minimo di capacità gestionale: non è facile trovarsi in grosse difficoltà, ma è anche vero che il gioco non permetterà quasi mai di accumulare una quantità di risorse troppo alta.
Ottima l'idea di implementare un sistema di stress e di personalità per ciascun personaggio, dando più senso alla possibilità di scegliere come agire: se curare in maniera coatta, se farlo preservando le caratteristiche personologiche dei pazienti o se dichiararli direttamente sani; lo stress complica il tutto, richiedendo al contempo un certo livello coinvolgimento in termini di precisione e di attenzione. Una nota negativa in questo caso è che qualora si dovesse scegliere di agire in modo negativo, e quindi di curare senza preservare i tratti personologici dei pazienti (quindi schierandosi dalla parte dei governanti della città) non ci saranno veri e propri malus a parte uno o due eventi incidentali: un maggior numero di cosneguenze in questo caso avrebbe giovato. Perseguire una condotta troppo bonaria (dichiarare sani troppi pazienti) o comunque positiva (preservare i caratteri personologici dei pazienti pur curandoli) permette invece di subire un maggior numero di conseguenze, sia positive (ringraziamenti e ricompense da parte dei pazienti stessi) che negative (es.: una persona dichiarata erroneamente sana più dar luogo a omicidi). Altra nota negativa è che difficilmente si sentirà la necessità di dichiarare sano un personaggio: soprattutto per mancata convenienza sul piano monetario (curare un paziente permette di ottenere 15 monete, dichiararlo sano 3; così facendo si possono evitare i rischi del processo di cura, e quindi di perdere tempo prezioso o di stressarlo eccessivamente, ma penso che queste siano eventualità abbastanza rare). Quantomeno, non sarà sempre facile capire chi può considerarsi effettivamente sano e chi no.
Chiaramente ispirato a Papers, please in termini di istruzioni e concept. Differisce completamente sotto ogni altro aspetto.
Il game design è diametralmente opposto: sono presenti dei mini giochi da completare entro un certo limite temporale (come in Papers, please, dopotutto) ma il livello di difficoltà dipende anche dagli acquisti fatti dal giocatore. Se in PP la burocrazia diventa più complessa col passare dei giorni, in questo caso è il giocatore che, invece, può semplificarsi la vita spendendo una parte delle risorse guadagnate per acquistare macchinari più adatti per risolvere più rapidamente specifici casi. Inoltre, è possibile riavviare il gioco da un giorno qualsiasi di quelli fino a quel momento ultimati: ciò, da un lato, può ridurre il livello di sfida ma è anche e senza dubbio un ottimo modo per non costringere il giocatore a rivisitare l'interezza di una partita per effettuare scelte differenti, seguire condotte diverse e accedere a un altro dei finali (in tutto 9).
Visivamente è molto affascinante e, seppur l'interfaccia di gioco appaia colma di informazioni, è tutto perfettamente leggibile e navigabile.
Ottima la OST, anche se breve: dopo un po' rischia di divenire monotona.
Ottimamente scritti tutti i personaggi: se in PP c'erano 33 volti pre-confenzionati con caratteri fenotipici (naso, occhi, etc.) riassemblabili dal gioco in modo casuale, per Mind scanners sono stati realizzati più di 50 personaggi con una specifica identità, una specifica biografia e delle specifiche peculiarità. Difficilmente si potranno affrontare tutti nel corso di una singola partita.
Buona la gestione delle risorse (monetarie e temporali), richiedendo un minimo di capacità gestionale: non è facile trovarsi in grosse difficoltà, ma è anche vero che il gioco non permetterà quasi mai di accumulare una quantità di risorse troppo alta.
Ottima l'idea di implementare un sistema di stress e di personalità per ciascun personaggio, dando più senso alla possibilità di scegliere come agire: se curare in maniera coatta, se farlo preservando le caratteristiche personologiche dei pazienti o se dichiararli direttamente sani; lo stress complica il tutto, richiedendo al contempo un certo livello coinvolgimento in termini di precisione e di attenzione. Una nota negativa in questo caso è che qualora si dovesse scegliere di agire in modo negativo, e quindi di curare senza preservare i tratti personologici dei pazienti (quindi schierandosi dalla parte dei governanti della città) non ci saranno veri e propri malus a parte uno o due eventi incidentali: un maggior numero di cosneguenze in questo caso avrebbe giovato. Perseguire una condotta troppo bonaria (dichiarare sani troppi pazienti) o comunque positiva (preservare i caratteri personologici dei pazienti pur curandoli) permette invece di subire un maggior numero di conseguenze, sia positive (ringraziamenti e ricompense da parte dei pazienti stessi) che negative (es.: una persona dichiarata erroneamente sana più dar luogo a omicidi). Altra nota negativa è che difficilmente si sentirà la necessità di dichiarare sano un personaggio: soprattutto per mancata convenienza sul piano monetario (curare un paziente permette di ottenere 15 monete, dichiararlo sano 3; così facendo si possono evitare i rischi del processo di cura, e quindi di perdere tempo prezioso o di stressarlo eccessivamente, ma penso che queste siano eventualità abbastanza rare). Quantomeno, non sarà sempre facile capire chi può considerarsi effettivamente sano e chi no.
Interesting trappings and wears the obvious influence of Papers Please on it's sleeve, but it fails to tutorialise the mechanics properly, making it more an exercise in frustration than anything else. A shame as clearly a lot of effort went into the trappings.
It's alright. The mini games got a bit repetitive at some point and the story didn't blow me away, but it was over fairly quickly, and some interactions with the insane amused me
at first I was enjoying it quite a bit, music, visuals were pretty good, and the concept was also intruiging. But of man is this just unpolished and tedious. When mind scanning people sometimes it's really hard to know which answer is the right one, when using the devices for the illnesses some are really unfair, and it's not that it's hard, just unfair. Also the game is waaaayyy too long, it got so fucking tedious towards the end, I just couldn't bother to treat people well. Story is pretty good too ig
Cool concept and it looks great! I just wish the minigames didnt get old so fast for me. I wish there were a greater variety of them I guess. I cant pinpoint exactly why "Papers Please" had more staying power for me, considering the great writing both of these games have and similar gameplay, but yeah. I think I got about 80% through the main plot of this game. It was good! But I cant get myself to play the rest
The mixed reviews are interesting here. I don't think the similarities between this and Papers Please are much of a problem! I enjoyed the ambiance and story, loved the artwork and limited color palette. The characters were compelling. I say, give us even more kinds of Papers Please if they're going to be interesting in their own ways!
This game is currently in the Humble Choice for August 2022, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before September 6nd, 2022, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
Papers Please but dealing with mental health.
Mind Scanners feels like a game from someone trying to imitate Lucas Pope’s hit Papers Please, but with their unique twist. Players will have to help the government to scan characters' minds, judge their mental capacity, and then fix insane patients when necessary using interesting devices . The overall goal is to understand what happened to your daughter and attempt to rescue her.
Though unlike Papers Please, Mind Scanner has players spend entirely too much time with most characters, creating a game that players might not be as excited to play through a second time. Where Papers please focus on stamping passports, Mind Scanners deal more with how players classify quirks.
Pick this up if you want to play a game like Papers Please or Not Tonight but with a focus on mental health. It’s a solid and unique idea and worth the first play-through. However, after beating the game on Xbox Game Pass I could never get up the energy to replay the whole experience to chase down other achievements or see other choices that players could make.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/86XgeDUfRGA
Papers Please but dealing with mental health.
Mind Scanners feels like a game from someone trying to imitate Lucas Pope’s hit Papers Please, but with their unique twist. Players will have to help the government to scan characters' minds, judge their mental capacity, and then fix insane patients when necessary using interesting devices . The overall goal is to understand what happened to your daughter and attempt to rescue her.
Though unlike Papers Please, Mind Scanner has players spend entirely too much time with most characters, creating a game that players might not be as excited to play through a second time. Where Papers please focus on stamping passports, Mind Scanners deal more with how players classify quirks.
Pick this up if you want to play a game like Papers Please or Not Tonight but with a focus on mental health. It’s a solid and unique idea and worth the first play-through. However, after beating the game on Xbox Game Pass I could never get up the energy to replay the whole experience to chase down other achievements or see other choices that players could make.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/86XgeDUfRGA
Well SOMEBODY played Papers, Please...
Somewhat interesting game hampered by frustrating mechanics and a choice system that has no allowance for nuance - if you screw up twice, you're locked out of the good ending and thus must be the megacorp bootlicker. Dumb.
Cyberpunk setting with the player being in a similar position to games like Orwell, Papers Please, etc. You work for a corrupt government as a mind scanner that used devices to cure patients of a variety of mental issues as you try to make enough money to pay your daily fee to live in the city and gain science to make new devices. You can declare people sane but that gives you much less money and a lot of time each day can be taken to travel to them in the first place (7 a day to live, 3 for sane, 15 for insane and curing), you are also penalized if you declare someone sane and they cause any trouble. You can also injure people preventing treatment from continuing or remove their personality, if you remove their personality you are still paid as long as you cure the illness.
Groups contact you to help overthrow the government and their plans involve the help of your captured daughter that you are trying to obtain a level 3 ranking in order to rescue, this all leads to a variety of endings. The artwork is great. There is a large variety of NPCs that you won't see all of in one playthrough, some of your conversations with them, diagnosis choices, and how many times you visit them can lead to different events.
While not the the most original game I would probably like it more than other games with a similar premise, except that for the most part I hate the actual gameplay. Every device you make to use on people has some either very simple, simple and annoying, somewhat confusing, or is basically a QTE. Using those same devices over and over as the game plays out over around 42 days gets extremely tedious and I wanted it to be over by the end as much as I liked the things in between your job. Maybe playing on easy would have helped with that and rushing to get the shocking device that can cure any of the types of illness and time slowing device would have helped as the game got more bearable with them.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1476198824649506817
Groups contact you to help overthrow the government and their plans involve the help of your captured daughter that you are trying to obtain a level 3 ranking in order to rescue, this all leads to a variety of endings. The artwork is great. There is a large variety of NPCs that you won't see all of in one playthrough, some of your conversations with them, diagnosis choices, and how many times you visit them can lead to different events.
While not the the most original game I would probably like it more than other games with a similar premise, except that for the most part I hate the actual gameplay. Every device you make to use on people has some either very simple, simple and annoying, somewhat confusing, or is basically a QTE. Using those same devices over and over as the game plays out over around 42 days gets extremely tedious and I wanted it to be over by the end as much as I liked the things in between your job. Maybe playing on easy would have helped with that and rushing to get the shocking device that can cure any of the types of illness and time slowing device would have helped as the game got more bearable with them.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1476198824649506817
In Papers Please, you're penalized when you make demonstrably incorrect decisions and/or overlook things that you were clearly instructed to look out for. And if you're ever unsure, there's even a rule book to check to make sure you understand how to succeed. In Mind Scanners, you're penalized when you misinterpret vague and innocuous responses to a futuristic Rorschach test.
Any game that touches on mental illness is going to be incredibly preachy, and this one is no exception. Mediocre gameplay loop. Get the good endings by doing the "right" thing and the bad endings by doing the "wrong" thing. Fun. Art is good, which is why it gets some points.