Articles
Resource Review
Welcome to My Brain
Nicholas Hansen, MHERC librarian, reviews Welcome to My Brain, a fun and interactive card game for all ages that sparks great conversations about neurodiversity.
A youth soars in an endless blue sky. A figure stands alone atop a barren mountain peak. A statue smiles enigmatically under a blanket of moss.
The game consists of 38 “Image” cards, ten “Situation” Cards, and two “Scenario” cards. The image cards depict a diverse variety of pictures, which seem to be a combination of stock photos and AI generated art. Participants play by drawing cards that they feel best represent the inner workings of their mind, using them as a jumping off point to talk more about the unique way their mind works, comparing and contrasting to other players. The situation cards are labeled with things like “Support” and “Work Pace”, with the players selecting the cards they think most affect the state of their brain. They help focus the exercise by helping the players to better express the “why” and not just the “what” of neurodiversity.
Depending on the scenario card, the players are meant to show how it feels to be “In the Zone”, or “Under Strain” which allows players to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their minds. When we played, we specified that we were playing in the context of work, as opposed to the nebulous “In the Zone”, “Under Strain” scenarios, which helped us better express ourselves.
The game is easy to learn and play, only requiring a few minutes to set up, but using the cards to express our feelings took some getting used to. Unlike in most card games, there are no “winners”, instead players are instructed to treat the game as more of an exercise in empathy and mutual understanding. As we started, one thing that became apparent was that it was easier for the players, once they understood the aim of the game, to improvise their own style of play rather than play strictly by the rules; following the rules in the latter half of the game especially felt like I was subduing the rapport the players had created. This isn’t uncommon for games, as anyone who plays board games as a hobby can tell you, and the rules can be easily changed as suited to the people playing.
One bit of feedback was that the image cards were mostly negative or had negative aspects, with fewer positives or wholly positive cards. However, as a neurodivergent person myself, it was not unreasonable to me that even positive states of mind could be difficult to handle in their intensity. Nonetheless, we did find the “Under Strain” part of the game notably easier, perhaps because it’s easier to point to a flaw than articulate when things are going well.
In spite of these issues, which we got over by the second phase of the game, the game played very well, and was legitimately insightful into both my mind and the minds of my fellow players.It was interesting how easy it was to compare deeply personal ways of being that we had to each other with the cards as our guide. It was that rare kind of introspection that was prosocial, rather than solitary, and for that, as well as the novelty of the idea and the handsomeness of the art, I must credit it.
This resource is available at the MHERC library. You can reserve it here.