mind games

If I were designing a game with mind control, I'd pit players against their own gut reactions.

In a normal video game, the player can imagine multiple moves before choosing one to activate with their hands on the controller. But if the game could discern what, generally, is going on in the players' minds, then it could test their instincts by removing that ability to consider before activation.

It would be kind of like removing the super-ego. In fact, it might be more fun if the game had something like the sanity meter of Eternal Darkness in which the player gradually succumbs to the danger of losing the super-ego's intervention. If the player's character becomes too sad or too angry, then the game temporarily shuts off the filter between the player's mind and character's actions, thereby simulating a fit of hysteria.

If you tell someone "Don't look!", he's probably going to look, right? Likewise, if you place a player in a situation in which his character would probably want to do terrible things (exact revenge, for example), effectively tell him "Don't do it!", and then turn off that mind-control filter... :)

It would be a hard game to design, but potentially a fresh sort of fun and storytelling. I hope the technology advances quickly.