Electroshock therapy is still used as a treatment today — and water therapy is still used as well in alternative medicine.'

'What is normal? When is the mind sick? Who gets to decide?'

Being British, I'm going to have to stop playing games featuring fascistic governments at some point, but for now this is simply ace.

I'm trying, man.

Where did these stellar Papers Please-like successors suddenly start coming from? Silicon Dreams, Booth, and Mind Scanners all riff wonderfully on the formula established years ago, whilst taking the concept in radically different directions. Those core components of an authoritarian state/corp, moral decisions, and systemising work are all here, but it's amazing to see the creativity on show.

That's what Mind Scanners gets oh so right. The work it systemises is not only more fun than a lot of its contemporaries on the novel face of it, but in the feel of it. Scanning and 'treating' state-determined 'degenerate' mental illnesses is a suitably horrifying power fantasy. Instead of only a handful of cases being moral decisions every single case is put into question (much like Silicon Dreams). Most of all, though, it's mechanically superb. The questions presented as you scan people really makes you feel you understand each imaginatively crafted case and the whole range of treatment devices are pitch-perfectly designed minigames. Mind Scanners makes work fun without sacrificing its message. That's what sets it aside most.

If you're particularly malevolently-inclined, you can purge games of politics forever.

Mind Scanners's presentation is really interesting. It's majority red and grey colour palette gives it an almost monochromatic look straight from a surreal and absurd alternate universe. Characters have these odd muppet-esque appearances. You could say in a game wherein you dehumanise patients for a living with machines that wipe their brains or destroy their quirks, these aesthetic choices are the cherry on the inhuman cake. It's great.

Unlike its original gritty direction as House of Lunacy, Mind Scanners wisely uses its presentation and humour-spiced writing to keep things light despite its themes and content. With this fun veneer, it almost requires you to think more about the more fundamental ethics of your actions. When you wipe the mind of a smug muppet assured of his intellectual superiority over all mankind it's much too easy to justify.

Exploring the moral greyness of such an interesting area as psychiatry might be the very best thing about Scanners. It's hard not to reach the conclusion that when deciding where to draw the line between normal and not, asking the question is itself the problem. You should fundamentally not be in this position to decide. The same could be said of borders it could be argued.

And the music by Malte Burup - the game director himself! Listen to the Locations track in particular for some synth ambience goodness. It's really so darn excellent that the music singlehandedly manages to carry a lot of the unique atmosphere throughout.

Debating whether this is a Benedict Cumberbatch joke...

I wasn't so sold on Mind Scanners's version of Papers Please's money-time economy tension which tests your morality. That was until I realised that the truly moral path isn't just not to employ the sledgehammer machines which wipe a patient's brain in the process, but to often not treat a patient at all. You even get letters from their family and friends supporting as much. In this light, Mind Scanners achieves an almost perfect balance in raising its difficulty with taking a more moral route. And god can the game be difficult! Thankfully, the game very generously allows you to play from any past day. A very good addition.

Conversely, the binary divide between aiding rebels or the state is getting slightly stale at this point, myriad endings being available or not. Whilst it plays it fairly straight, there are some really neat elements in the mix. I love the personal stakes. I like the little scenarios that require decisions and some strategy. I like how central the borders/walls are essential to the fascistic politics of The Structure.

Mind Scanners is undeniably excellent. In a space of other excellent games in the esoteric 'work' genre, it really does come down to personal preference and those small moments and distinctions in approach. This is why Booth and the sheer dread it engenders remains my favourite. Regardless, Mind Scanners is definitely the most mechanically enjoyable, the best sounding, the most interesting looking, and one of the most thematically interesting.

If I do my PHD, I'm definitely going to throw 'acquiring science' onto my CV.

Would I have preferred its earlier direction in House of Lunacy? It's hard to say. What I can say is that I simply cannot wait for Burup's next game, as well as another Tale From The Outer Zone.

And let's all collectively stop using electroshock and water therapy, eh?