Minds of Nations

This is a work of high art in the making, and a startling exception to the lowest common denominator expectation for mobile games. The creative passion and historical/cultural education behind the game reminds me of Herman Jesse’s The Glass Bead Game. As a cultural scholar, mystic, and artist, I am quite hooked. Yes there are UI issues, but that is to be expected for a beta and an indie work of love. The game remains quite playable and extremely fun for true lovers of deep simulation… hoping the creator never simplifies the depth for those who lack the patience to immerse. I would offer a couple of notes of loving feedback. One, I would suggest that the author’s monotheistic and gnostic biases do show in both the range of options given and their effects. While I appreciate the Eastern-facing scholarship that also suffuses the choices, I would suggest that indigenous and shamanic life ways and beliefs receive short thrift, and polytheistic traditions are downright punished. If the author wishes to make an attempt at a more universalist and open sandbox, I believe this should be corrected before the final draft. It may be necessary to bring in a friend with a depth of study in shamanic, ecological, indigenous, and polytheistic mysticism to properly complement the author’s own expertise. Second issue, in order to play viably in the sandbox, a degree of expansionism and aggression is necessary. Given the nature and soil of the game, it would be nice if a more local and cultural style of play — that is to say, not empire building — was able to be just as valid and “competitive” if in a very different way. This might bear a certain connection to my first point of feedback… A recognition that maybe there are other modes available besides that of the expansionist and generally monotheist state that we—in this era, on this plane—currently take for granted as the modus operandus of statehood.

It has potential but god the UI is terrible and is super confusing but I can’t wait for single player

This game seems really cool, but unfortunately on mobile it’s very glitchy. Once, I tried to zoom in on the map, but instead the screen became white. Like another review states, if you can make this game mobile compatible, it would be great.

Fun I guess if you can play it. Kept getting an error message.

Would be a great game if it didn’t crash every couple seconds, as well as while sure the tutorial teaches basic things the player doesn’t understand all the choices at first, but those don’t get explained so they have to play for a while before actually understanding how to play, I’m honestly just sick and tired of it crashing over and over again.

I discovered this game on iPad a few weeks ago and am honestly obsessed with it, I can’t wait for next month when I can start from day 1! However it is all but unplayable on the iPad. Fortunately I have a laptop and the MMO online works fabulously, so I have taken up the game there in serious. The biggest and most obvious problem that I would have thought would have been fixed in one of these updates is the fact that the game relies heavily on cursor hover-over information but that is not possible on an iPad. I mean, right? I am literally unable to see how long my colonists have left before they’re finished. I cannot see the great person bonuses, I’ve been picking one at random. And I cannot see idea bonuses or consequences before choosing them! I was literally poking in the dark the first week of playing the game before I went online and found that you could SEE THE CONSEQUENCES BEFORE CHOOSING THEM! It obviously changed the game dramatically. I found before writing this review that this iPad app just opens a browser window to the online MMO. But to work with finger taps it needs to be more than that... it’s basically unplayable without a mouse, as is. I’d prefer it as an iPad app, so here’s to hoping one day... 🤞🤞 EDIT: after submitting my review I read a few other reviews and can concur that “long tapping” does NOT work on my iPad (Pro 13”)! It would fix a lot of of the problems if it did...

The game has a lot to learn and started well. It’s pretty cool. Then you learn that it has too many bugs. Like long tapping seems to never work. There aren’t enough details on how to do things and the limitations despite the clear effort they put into this. Then it comes to war, I star fighting, log off for an hour and all of a sudden I lose 3 provinces, which is fine, but I can’t fight back. I can’t fight back because while offline I receive a peace treaty and the game auto accepted it for me while I was offline? Maybe they messed up this game for a tablet? I mean this is a device I purchased new last month. The game was 3 stars, but not being able to experience part of the gameplay without staying logged in really does it for me.

This game is like seriously extremely fun. The problem is that it is so difficult to play because of the insane amount of bugs and horrible UI. Sometimes I tap something by accident and now I can’t see the rest of my provinces like why? Remove the bugs and this game is a 5 star easily

The game itself is quite good, but for a mobile only player you would miss out on some small unique things, like actually seeing movement/colonization progress, or being able to chain commands. While on their own they arent that bad, together they form a decent gap between mobile and PC players, where the latter is able to play far more efficiently with way more ease. not to mention mobile is far more glitchy, even just now i had to redownload the game due to a glitch. So for anyone looking to play, do it on the computer. Despite all of this, very fun indepth beta, cant wait to buy it at release!

So I finished my first simulation a couple days ago and it was pretty good. The interface on mobile is slower than usual, and on ios the interface doesn’t fit the screen unless you rotate the entire phone. Other than that, I’m excited for the newer modes like single player and blitz. Good work.