Mind MGMT

Inspired by the comic of the same name, Mind MGMT is a hidden-movement game where players move through the city of Zanzibar, one hoping not to be found, everyone else working together to find them.

The board shows the city, divided into a grid with each square of the grid containing two types of features – a cafe, a fountain, some dogs, etc. One player – the Recruiter – has a smaller version of the board hidden behind a screen, where they track their movement by writing the time on the squares as they pass through them: the Recruiter can never visit the same square twice, and there are randomly-assigned obstacles in the city they can’t pass through either. The game begins with the Recruiter deciding a random square to start in, and recording four such movements on their hidden board before the other players – the Rogue Agents – take a turn.

The Rogue Agents win by capturing the Recruiter. There are always four Rogue Agents and in each turn of the game, all of them can move and take another action: ASK means they can ask the Recruiter if he or she has passed through any square with one (and only one) of the features the ASKing agent is currently in – for instance, if my square contains a bus and a swimming pool, I can ask the Recruiter if they’ve been in any square with the bus in. If they have, they must admit as much by placing a footprint-shaped step token there (if they’ve been to more than one, they choose which one to reveal) . If I’m on a square that already has a step token, I can do the REVEAL action: now the Recruiter must admit the time they were there, by placing a green mental note token there with the time on it. So as the agents move around and sniff for clues using these actions, they are getting a clearer idea of where the Recruiter has been – and where they might be now. If you perform a CAPTURE action on a square and the Recruiter is actually there – the Rogue Agents win! On the other hand, the Recruiter has two ways to win…

One is simply to remain un-captured for the duration of the game, which lasts until “4pm” if the Recruiter hasn’t been caught. The other is related to the Recruiter’s role: they are recruiting! Also hidden from the Rogue Agents behind their screen are three feature cards. Every time they pass through a square with one of these features in, they’re considered to have successfully recruited a new agent – if they recruit all 12 before being caught, that’s another way to win.

The new recruits don’t do anything in the game other than count toward a Recruiter victory, but the Recruiter does have some tricks up their sleeve. Usually their movement is a single, orthogonally-adjacent square. But once or perhaps twice in the game they can do a special move to evade capture, and they also have four allies on the board in the shape of the Immortals: agents still loyal to the recruiter whose job is to both run interference for the Recruiter – Rogue Agents can’t ASK or CAPTURE in a square occupied by an Immortal – and potentially pick up recruits for them as well: we won’t dive into the rules here but they’re very easy to follow. However! The immortals can lead to a weakness for the Recruiter to, as they can be targeted by Rogue Agents for a SHAKEDOWN action, where – if they guess correctly – the agents can force the Recruiter to discard a feature card, and reduce their opportunities for recruitment…

Finally, should you play with the same players over multiple sessions, tucked in the box are the optional SHIFT cards, that bring additional elements to the game. The SHIFT system is very easy to follow: whichever side loses a game gets to open the next pack! Unlike some legacy games (eg Pandemic Legacy) it doesn’t require the writing on/ripping up of components.

There is a also a solo mode that requires a free app