As with just about every other first-person puzzler, your objective is to make it to the “exit”, but the game never explains anything. Each “level” consists of a defined area (a cave, a section of forest, a grass field, etc.). In many ways, this is as much an exploration game as it is a puzzle game. This comparison might scare a few people away, but while game is sometimes a victim of its own deliberate pace, once you get past the drawn-out prologue, there is a proper game with proper puzzles to be found. Otherwise, it’s a quiet game and the only thing you’ll hear most of the time is the wind or the water or the occasional birds chirping.Īltogether, the graphics and sound design give MIND a distinct dream-like, almost meditative quality, often evoking Dear Esther vibes in me. Music is used sparingly, limited to an occasional piano score or a dreamy / trippy tune that would probably sound at home in an indie film about a group of shiftless, twenty-somethings who take a cross-country road trip that turns into a voyage of self-discovery. Of course, it helps that the 3D graphics are fantastically rendered, and while they don’t exactly reach the AAA-level of spit-and-polish, they’re definitely a standout feature of the game.

Occasionally, the game goes for completely abstract settings (which aren’t all that interesting), but the majority of the game consists of relatively simple and otherwise pedestrian environments-beaches, forests, caves-mixed with just enough surreal detail to give them a familiar yet otherworldly feel, while resisting the temptation to veer off the rails into Dali territory. Your journey to the ethereal thalamus takes you through a series of appropriately surreal mental vistas.

To wit, when I started the game, I began taking notes on the narrative, and at the conclusion of the game, had produced a grand total of four lines, and I honestly don’t feel that I left out anything.īut despite being a bit of a drip, our unnamed protagonist thankfully has an otherwise fine imagination. The problem is ultimately that our protagonist’s personal demons aren’t all that complicated (or interesting) and he could likely be diagnosed in 15 minutes or less by anyone who’s had an introductory psych class at community college. You see, MIND is actually a rather competent and occasionally inspired first-person puzzler, but it seems to desperately want to be an introspective journey of self-realization and acceptance.Īs advertised in the title (either one), the game is ostensibly meant to represent the journey through the mind of a man in a coma as he grapples with his emotional baggage in a quest to return to reality. Somewhere along the development path, COMA: A Mind Adventure was renamed MIND: Path to Thalamus, and I suspect this is probably symbolic of the game’s main weakness-a bit of identity crisis tossed in with some misplaced ambition.

Mind path to thalamus walkthrough