Mind Scanners — Do It For Her, Not For You
So much of what gives video games their general appeal to players is the opportunity to make it yours. Your Dragonborn in Skyrim, made to look how you want, played how you want. Commander Shepard in Mass Effect, taking the actions, conversational and impulsive, that you want. Morgan Yu in Prey, Arthur and John in the Red Dead Redemption games, the Boss in the Saints Row series, all are defined by player action. For the most part, players are on for the ride as these characters’ stories pan out, providing flavor text to the story more than full-blown narrative heft. And make no mistake, I love all of those games, so much. They give us enough narrative freedom to make the story ours, to make it widely appealing. I make the character’s motivation my own. But it rarely feels as direct, as poignant, as it did with Mind Scanners by The Outer Zone.
Mind Scanners doesn’t open up with mechanics, or tutorials, or setting the worldbuilding stage. It opens with your character’s motivation, point blank. Your daughter is being held (for medical reasons) by the Institute, and you can’t see her as you are. You join the Mind Scanners, professionals who heal the mental ills of the city through methods, for the sole purpose of getting to see her again, through the position’s hierarchical clearance. And then, the game opens up, starts teaching you its strange and unsettling mechanics, the impact of stress, the balance of personality, the disposability of individuality.
I can only attest for myself, but from then on, I made my character’s actions for the sake of getting to their daughter. If I need to heal patients of whatever their mental illness is to gain that clearance, I would. If I needed to sacrifice a patient’s entire personality so I could get paid, so I could keep trying to reach my daughter, I would. If a terrorist group approached me in sympathy and offered me a chance to skirt around the governing body that took my daughter, I would absolutely align myself with them. If any option presented itself that would get me closer to my daughter, be it through or around the people holding her, I would take it.
But therein lies the balance, too. Could I (hopefully) look my daughter in the eye if I left so many people hollowed and empty in my wake? Would she look at me? So I had to walk a tightrope between “whatever it takes” and “but not at too great a cost.” Recognizing the need to be paid enough to continue living the city, but wanting, hoping, that I could afford the time to heal people, not just wipe them. Recognizing that healing people, keeping them emotionally stable, took more time than just erasing their illness (and their sense of self with it) was a constant gamble…and there’s only so much time in the day. Some points, I would go multiple days just trying to heal one patient, making enough to barely cover the loss of no income in the previous two days. But I held fast, hoping I was making the right call, hoping the long-term potential outweighed the short-term nerves and difficulty.
Mind Scanners does not let up throughout its run, even on an easier difficulty. Patients teeming with days’ worth of issues to address start to pile up, demanding the balance of progress with their rising stress, dwindling personality, and ticking clock, not to mention daily maintenance costs. And to more effectively treat people, players need to spend both money and time, precious commodities already, to do so, hitting more of the long-term versus short-term benefits.
But if players balance all of that, if I can balance all of that, then I can close the loop on my singular motivation. I can find my daughter, take her home, and feel like I didn’t compromise myself to do so. Because sometimes, that’s the happiest ending you can muster in a dystopia: not leaving a trail of destruction on your way towards a glimmer of hope.
All images captured in-game.
