An ESP based game? Yes, you heard me right, this is not a Labyrinth - this is Atari's first (and only) game based on the unproven (but still popular) theory of ESP (extrasensory perception). It looks like Atari was trying to develop some sort of "mind-reading" game for the new Mindlink controller. So can the 2600 really read your mind? Read on to find out...
The Mind Labyrinth played somewhat like those old mind-reading experiences where the scientist would take a card and ask someone to tell him what was on the other side. Depending on the game chosen, two to four cards appear on the screen each round. The player must then try to guess the "correct" card by highlighting it (using the joystick) and pressing the fire button. Unfortunately, this is where the game starts to fall apart. As you've probably guessed by now, the RSP theory is pretty far-fetched, and the chances that a player can consistently guess the right cards are slim. So the player should just sit and randomly select cards until he randomly selects the correct one. As expected, it gets boring very quickly...
After selecting a card, all card pictures will disappear, and the computer will then highlight the "correct" cards on the screen. If the player is playing with the "race" option, the game will show a solid blue screen and wait for the player to press a button before moving on to the next round. This blue screen (to be careful on the final release) was probably there to allow other players to prepare for his move. However, since there is no two player option in this version, this does not serve any purpose. The player can also "pass" to the current set of cards by pressing the button without selecting a card. This will cause a new set of cards to appear, but it will still be the players' turn. There doesn't seem to be a limit on the number of times you can play through, but the game won't progress until the player chooses a map.
The current account is displayed at the bottom of the screen. The left number seems to be the score of the players, while the right number counts the number of rounds played. When the player reaches 20 points, they win the game and return to the main screen. By setting the correct switching difficulty to B, the player can activate the "cheat" mode. When the cheat mode is activated, selecting any card will score points (which makes the game completely pointless). When the switch is returned to the position the score returns to normal (as normal as the scoring gets anyway in this game). The cheat mode was probably put in by the programmer to help the ESP challenged game debugging.
Unlike more advanced games such as Motorodeo, the player cannot directly change game options. Instead, the player must have the choice of game number up to the combination of rules that he wants to find. Since there are four different variants (one of three variants), there are as many as 24 different variations of playing this prototype (3*2*2*2). Not too shabby to play from 1984.
If you haven't already noticed from the screenshots, the graphics in Mind Labyrinth are absolutely gorgeous. Each painting is large and well detailed (a rarity at 2600). The graphics are also a very cool 'fade' effect, which adds a bit of eye candy to an otherwise gray looking game. Great graphics are in the game, so early in the development cycle are rare, as the programmer usually put in a 'placeholder' graphics blend before the game was finished. One has to wonder what other little surprises the programmer has in store for us.
Although the Mind Labyrinth is constantly included in the Mindlink game, this prototype is not used or requires a strange controller. However, according to the programmers, Mind Labyrinth was surely meant to be a Mindlink game. Presumably the headband was to read players' alpha and beta waves in an attempt to help predict their actions. However, with Mindlink, it was just a sensor for detecting the movement of the forehead muscles of the players, which is complete nonsense. The whole mind reading idea was just a different angle came up with Atari's marketing department.
While the theory behind the Labyrinth was quite far from here, it only shows how far Atari was willing to go in developing games for the new Mindlink controller. Um Labyrinth was finally dismissed due to the limited appeal of the "game" (or perhaps the marketing department finally stopped smoking those fun cigarettes). However Mind Labyrinth won't be the last game to dabble in the Paranormal, a few years later, a mind-reading game called "Taboo: The Sixth Sense" was released for the NES. Unfortunately, this game was pretty much laughed off the shelves and faded into obscurity. Looks like Atari made the right decision, after all.