And you? You’re the lucky sod who gets to fix ’em up when the warranty expires. Arriving early next year, Mind Scanners sees Brave At Night trade out feudal family feuding for a gorgeous, synth-ridden tale about rooting around in people’s brains to fix ’em up.
I’m immediately getting some strong Papers, Please vibes off Mind Scanners. Recruited by an oppressive state, you’re tasked with analysing citizens with all manner of obtuse, cyberpunk tools. Rather than working out who can and cannot cross the border, however, you’re instead looking to “diagnose and normalize” people the system deems “anomalous” - ensuring their conformity with society-at-large by invading their brain meat. Obviously, that’s a pretty gross job, and it’s very much clear you’ve been coerced into doing this grim work. Much of the game seems set on balancing keeping your state masters happy, keeping your captive daughter safe, and deciding how to handle a growing resistance movement who clearly aren’t too happy at this whole state of affairs. All of that, in between shifts of fiddling with people’s implanted metal mouths, brains and hearts through dozens of arcane mini-games. Not too far a leap from King Eryk’s royal responsibility-juggling, really. Sin (RPS in peace) seemed to enjoy Brave At Night’s previous game fine enough in her Yes, Your Grace review, though reckoned it could often be rather fiddly when it came to balancing all your decisions and resources and relatives and peons and oh gosh it’s all so much. Hopefully, that’s made more manageable by plugging yourself into a beautifully rust-tinted neon mindscape. Mind Scanners is set to root its way onto Steam sometime in early 2021.
