Minds Beneath Us

The newly released indie game Minds Beneath Us has absolutely nothing to do with the multi-billion dollar project Cyberpunk 2077. It's not drenched in the same design style, it's not an open world action game with role-playing elements, and it's not developed by the team behind The Witcher. It's nothing. Absolutely nothing. Naza. Zero. Yet during my hours with this game, I haven't been able to stop thinking about how much of a miss the realisation of the science fiction concept in general and the cyberpunk vein in particular that CD Projekt Red's much-hyped blockbuster is and always will be. Because that game has pretty much nothing to say. Sure, some mannerisms here and there that all feel like consistently tired tropes, but on the whole - zero message and zero real, thoughtful social criticism, satire or input into a raging debate about the technologies of the future and how they will affect us all.

Minds Beneath Us is the exact opposite. This game and its creator have a lot to say, controversial and provocative as well as blatantly obvious. Subtle and thought-provoking, as well as upsetting and poignant. The picture of our future painted here is not only bleak, uncomfortable and at times disgusting - it is also written with a natural sense of human interaction, insightful and empathetic in a way that few games are, or ever have been. Minds Beneath Us is not a masterpiece of game mechanics, and its simple graphics and limited interactivity mean that it will be completely forgotten by the end of the year. Sadly. In a perfect world, though, we'd all be playing this if only for its great and clever storytelling.

The future is dark, so dark. Energy is no longer sufficient to power the hypercomputers of the future in the scenario depicted here. It takes the processing power of the human brain to make the server halls spin, whereupon humans are enslaved and put into semi-lifeless vegetable states to produce only enough thought power to collectively run this dystopia of computer parks. The developers of course make a point of how today's AI uses our thoughts, opinions, stories and our logic to train itself, using many of the concerns surrounding today's rapid development of artificial intelligence as a way of criticising, deepening, analysing and throwing me as a player into abysses deeper than I was prepared for at the time of installation. There is humanity here, in this story. Tons of it, which is why I stay and linger rather than shut down and uninstall. The people in this adventure feel real. Their behaviour feels natural to me and their emotions real. And for that, Bearbone Studio deserves a lot of credit.

Minds Beneath Us is organised as a point-and-click adventure, if you will, with slightly more freedom of movement. The environments are three-dimensional, ultra-beautiful and partly hand-drawn, while all the characters and people are hand-drawn sprites, two-dimensional. The contrast between them works in perfect symbiosis with the contrast between the various themes being explored conceptually and tonally, the mix between the faceless humans, the intrusive technology and the enslavement of humanity as opposed to the bubbling emotions is - Just plain awesome.

There is some interactivity missing here and sometimes the dialogue sequences get so long that it feels like the game is standing still but if you are prepared for this and if you are looking for a story-heavy, thematically brilliant text adventure that is dripping with social criticism and naturally written dialogue, it is undoubtedly the surprise of the summer - Minds Beneath Us, that you should check out.