Discussion: what games would be fertile ground for a "Mind"?

StrixLiterata

StrixLiterata

Well-known member
So far, Minds have only been done with Half Life games and Portal. What others might be used for this purpose?

I think a game requires all the following charateristics to be used for a Mind series:

  • Camera close to the main player character: I can see a Mind working with a 3rd person camera, if it's over the shoulder or just above, but not for an isometric or top-down game, because an important component of this kind of series is immersion.
  • Ability to remove the HUD: wether because the game is easily moddable or by having an appropriate option, the audience shouldn't see anything the player character doesn't.
  • An anchor in contemporary or modern reality: one of the things that makes a Mind work is that we can rely on the protagonist to react to their situation more or less as we would. In Freeman's Mind, this happens because Gordon is a college graduate from the modern USA. Even in the second season, which takes place in a future dystopia run by incomprehensible aliens, his reactions and thought are by and large sensible and understandable.
    To me, this says that any Mind series requires either a setting or a player character that are intimately familiar to the audience. Maybe the game can take place a little further in the past or future, or the protagonist can be a little stranger, but any difference between baseline normality and the situation portrayed by the game needs to be an exception, and not the rule.
  • Possibility to enforce realism: this ties in with the previous point. What makes a Mind work is the absence of overtly game-y elements that could take us out of the narrative. Ross does it by activating God Mode so that Gordon doesn't need to intercat with the extremely unrealistic health pickups, and other cheats to enable realistic solutions that are not normlly availeable in the base game. However, a game that is realistic in and of itself wouldn't need to be modded, so moddability isn't a strict requirement.
  • Inexpressive or very customizable silent protagonist: The whole point of a Mind is to guess the thoughts of a protagonist, so if they speak or have a definite personality that comes through even though the player has dialogue choices the premise doesn't work.
I also think the following characteristics are very important for a Mind, though the absence of any one of them isn't necessarily a dealbreaker:

  • Fast, but not breakneck pace: I suspect this is important for any kind of let's play. The protagonist needs events to react to regularly, but also time to think in between
  • No enforced emotional tone: if the game insists that the protagonist should feel a certain way, it's almost like the protagonist is expressing themselves. The voice actor can decide to ignore it, but in doing so is forced to hang a lampshade on the current situation, which can be overdone.


Given these criteria, I thought of 3 games that could make for good Mind material: Crysis, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and Dead Space

 
The quality of such series depends on the game on 1% and on the creator's talent on 99%. Ross could do a Mind series in a game which would break every single criterion you mentioned, and it still would be a treat to watch.

People tend to severely underestimate just how much effort went into creating Freeman's character. Here is the only half decent analysis that I know of:


Basically, the quality of a Mind series is determined by how rich, deep, multifaceted and multilayered the protagonist is, and for that you have to either have a huge natural talent or have a formal education in psychology. Ross has both and it shows.

 
I thought someone also started doing a mass effect mind, but it was too boring for me, so i never watched it

 
kerdios said:
I thought someone also started doing a mass effect mind, but it was too boring for me, so i never watched it
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Yeah, Mass Effect is a bad idea, because the main character already has a personality and voiced dialogue, it just doesn't work. I think the "Mind" playthroughs best work in a survival game, maybe even a survival horror game... of course the main character should be a silent one and there must be fewer or none interactions with NPC's.

 
ZardoZ said:
Yeah, Mass Effect is a bad idea, because the main character already has a personality and voiced dialogue, it just doesn't work. I think the "Mind" playthroughs best work in a survival game, maybe even a survival horror game... of course the main character should be a silent one and there must be fewer or none interactions with NPC's.
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I was thinking the same thing. Amnesia: The Dark Descent might be a good candidate (not the other games in the series though); you'd just have to either ignore the notes left by yourself or make it so that the protagonist's personality was completely altered after erasing their memory before the game starts.

 
Alyxx Thorne said:
Someone needs to make Courier's Mind.
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I'm sort of torn on this; one on hand, I feel like Fallout 3 / NV would fit perfectly from the game side of things, but Fallout 2 (which wouldn't), has the best style of writing (in my mind, I'm biased as hell) to suit a mind series. 

Although granted, especially with NV, mods get you a long way, so I suppose that is the best way to go about it, if you have to go with any fallout game.

 
Half-life mods such as Dark Interval/Raising the Bar Redux/Swelter

No More Room in Hell, this is one i'm going to give a try myself actually.

Possibly Left 4 Dead 1 or 2 with one survivor's lines edited to be silent. That'd be v fun if the events turned out just right and the other teammates responded in ways that'd make for good comedy.

Dark Souls possibly!

I want to try making a series of clips from various first person, silent protagonist games, since the oppertunity is everywhere.

 
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I was actually about to mention Dark Interval and Raising the Bar: Redux as being prime material for a Mind series, but it looks like someone beat me to the punch. But yeah, with how Freeman's-ish Mind existed ages ago, I could feasibly see someone doing a fan Mind series for either of the biggest HL2 beta mods, especially if this was back in the late 2000s/early 2010s when there were plenty of fan-made Mind series.

Since we're on the subject though,  god it would be awesome if Ross did some Freeman's Mind stuff with either of the beta mods, however unlikely I know that is. I've been particularly doing a replay of Dark Interval and there are so many cool things in it that make me think about what Freeman's reaction to that mod's events would be, most prominently where Faulkenbury and Eli's lab are concerned.

Freeman's reaction to Faulkenbury goes without saying: with how much the former fucking crashes out and screams bloody murder trying to vengefully kill him, I can easily see Gordon spitting just as much venom back at Faulkenbury while thinking his belief of the HECU being comprised of a bunch of 'ratfuck meatheads' is thoroughly vindicated.

Meanwhile, I can't help but be especially curious about how Gordon would react to the beta version of Eli and his lab with how it's in a considerably more secure location topped off by Eli not only clearly explaining to Gordon the state of the Earth via slideshow, but also giving him the opportunity to get an actual night's rest in on a legit bed! I could definitely see an episode ending and the credits rolling just as Gordon lethargically crashes into the bed.
 

I always did think it was a shame that They Hunger never got a Mind series of its own titled 'Author's Mind' or something along those lines. That game always felt like a prime opportunity for a fan-made Mind series.
 
lolrus555 said:
I always did think it was a shame that They Hunger never got a Mind series of its own titled 'Author's Mind' or something along those lines. That game always felt like a prime opportunity for a fan-made Mind series.
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Well, that just means you can be the one to make it!
 
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