Mindbug

Mindbug is a two-player dueling card game designed by Richard Garfield, Skaff Elias, and Marvin Hegen and published by Nerdlab Games. It was first released in 2022 after a Kickstarter campaign. The game’s central rule supplies its name: each player begins with two Mindbug cards. When an opponent plays a creature, a player may spend one Mindbug to take control of that creature instead. The opponent does not get it back automatically; the stolen creature now attacks and uses its abilities for its new controller. Because each side has only two such interventions, deciding when not to use a Mindbug is as important as using one. A standard game uses a shared deck of 48 oversized creature cards. Players each start at 10 life, draw five cards, and take turns playing a creature from hand or attacking with one already in play. There is no resource system, mana curve, or deck construction requirement in the base game: players draw from the same deck and may play any card in hand. An unblocked attacker deals one damage to the opposing player. When a player reaches zero life, that player loses. Creatures use a combat-value system in which the player who attacks chooses a creature and the defender can block with one of theirs. The lower combat power is destroyed; when values are equal, both creatures are destroyed. Card effects add many exceptions and tactical consequences to that clean resolution. Keywords in the original game include Poisonous, Hunter, Sneaky, Armored, Tough, Berserker, and Frenzy, alongside named abilities printed directly on particular cards. A creature’s effect can trigger when it enters play, attacks, survives combat, or is destroyed, and some effects alter power, create tokens, or manipulate cards. The original creature roster is organized around four illustrated factions: the beasts of the Wild, the undead of the Deathlings, the constructed and magical Mages, and the alien-like Octonite. Its art direction deliberately mixes cute and grotesque imagery, so a small animal, a skeleton, and a strange cosmic organism can occupy the same battlefield. Garfield is also the designer of Magic: The Gathering and co-designer of King of Tokyo; Elias was one of the original Wizards of the Coast employees and co-designed Magic: The Gathering; Hegen previously designed games including Dungeon Fighter. Mindbug has subsequently received expansion sets, including Mindbug: First Contact, Mindbug: Beyond Eternity, Mindbug: Battlefruit Kingdom, and Mindbug: Battlefruit Galaxy. These products add cards and mechanics while retaining the original Mindbug-stealing system.