Mind Morph (mental agility)

It's a gamified exercise in not getting caught in mental patterns. A different kind of brain training, aimed at building mindfulness of habits.



An AI learns your free-form, abstract drawing patterns; score high by continually changing them. There is no "correct" pattern; improvise your own way to play. The opponent isn't the AI however, but the habits of your mind.



Scores range from 0-200, with 100 being "par with random" (i.e. as unpredictable as random movement). A repeated shape scores 0, and perfect variation scores 200.



Is this a Game of Skill?



In concept, the basis of this game can appear 'easy'. Obstacles are minimal, and exist just to prevent fixed play. The goal is only to change your mind - and you control that, right?



Yet, playing it, you may experience frustration after scoring lower than random (100) despite effort; or experience games where it felt easy to keep changing, you scored high, yet you can't often reproduce this. Why?*



The skill in this game involves focusing on a goal (change), while also retaining mental looseness and spaciousness. It's challenging to bridge these two opposite mindsets.



Unfocused "random" scribbling is usually predictable, scoring under 100. Humans aren't able to be truly random, and mindless movement tends to exhibit strong patterns.



Yet playing very analytically, focusing on beating the game's mechanics, also tends to fair surprisingly poorly. It gets stuck in an overly controlled, rigid mindset.



A middle way is where the magic seems to happen.



There is an element of mental letting-go involved, which creates the space needed for the mind to shift.



Here, this could mean scoring low in one game, despite trying hard to change curves; then the next game going in with less effort, yet realizing you aren't making your typical patterns (e.g. groups of 3, traversing the screen in a general square, making consistently sized loops, etc.)





*You might (rightfully) wonder about accuracy of scores. Try experimenting with various patterns, changing out of them, and watch the scoring. (Note the scoring 'ramps up' until the bottom visual scrolls.)