Brain Please Don't

I felt I had very few options to choose from. I played more but this isn't a walking simulator. I bought it gave it a go. In short a no here.

An innovative way to look through the eyes of a teenager. The game deals with some heavy issues but does so responsibly. The choices mostly feel realistic. Some of the best choices are well beyond what a regular teen might say but it is still cool. I like this a lot. https://youtu.be/u2TOBer_W5c

Interesting concept, quite poor execution. Critique Gaming is better than this

This is a short game, a very interesting concept that lets you experience the daily challenges of a troubled teenager. First of all, I very much enjoyed the fact that I can chose at start what are the weaknesses Cameron is facing. Based on my choices, the game may get more or less difficult. This difficulty is reflected in her initial stats, and the cards that can be played to boost these. By growing her attributes, you gain access to more options about how to answer to the events she faces. If the numbers are too low, the available answers are more aligned to her issues. The final goal is to grow her stats over one week, to leave her "less broken". The main loop of the game is that an event is displayed, like someone talking to you, and you get a list of answers. Some of them may not be available at once because of low stats, but you can play cards from a selection of 3, to boost these. Sometimes you can play a card, even if it lowers an attribute, in hope to draw another card that will boost a particular stat, required by a specific answer you want to chose. Sometimes answers boost stats too. The default answer usually lower stats. The game is not difficult, if you understand this mechanic. Even with most of the issues selected at start, I was able to finish the game in quite a good state. I have to say it may not feel like an role playing game if you focus too much on choosing the best cards to grow the stats. The fact that you clearly see the numbers on the cards and on the answers, encourages you to play by the numbers. Would've been interesting if those numbers were not present on the answers, so you have to read carefully and weight your choice more. And more variation, like some answers lower some stats in order to grow others (some cards do that). It would be nice if you could influence the events or their resolution, based on your answers. Now, the events are just presented in order and the only motivation to chose something in particular is to boost your stats. It sometimes feels like a game of numbers. But, you may want to chase a particular ending, or a conclusion to a particular conflict, even though it means to sacrifice some of the stats you worked on. Like if she has a drinking problem, but she likes Taylor, maybe the player should face the choice to get drunk with Taylor and build up their relation, leading to a specific ending, even if it means not to improve the initial drinking issue. I think these are the real life aspects that sometimes draw us back from growing or changing who we are, and it would be cool if the game would simulate this. The ability to change the plot should be the thing that opposes to growing my stats, not the randomness of the cards. It was a bit strange that after the credits, the game was stuck on a black screen. Why not give a quick option to try again. Like "I wish I haven't said that. If only I could go back..." and try again with the same profile. Or "I wish I'd be someone else..." and start with a different character. Thanks!

[h1]Brain, NO![/h1] This game is... well, it's hardly a game by definition. It's so minimal that there's not much I can talk about this game. The game is so short, you can simply refund this game after [i]4[/i] playthroughs. The length of this game feels like my game projects that I make for college assignments, heh. [spoiler]Note to self: I should make them better.[/spoiler] There's no main menu, no saves, no pause screen, no options, no nothing. Credits cannot be skipped, but that's it, the game simply does nothing after the credits. It doesn't even close itself! All that's there in the game is simply the "game" itself. So, [i]how's[/i] the gameplay? ...I guess the video in their store page already explains all there the game turns out. You pick at least 2 of 10 issues, and pick up to 10 ways how you cope with it, no more than the amount of issues you picked. That gives you the starting deck. The game doesn't enforce these rules, you can pick no issues at all and all the coping techniques. Then, you make decisions. Yes, these Visual Novel-style decisions. And that's it, just decisions. But, on the right of your screen, you have 3 cards. Click on the cards to change the stats (there are no temporary stats, all changes are permanent). As far as I know, there are no limits to how many times you can pick cards! So, pick out the cards that will benefit you the most. Each of these encounters will require you to pick a decision. In every encounter, you will always have 1 normal decision and the rest have "stat checks". Normal decisions are bad, Stat checked decisions are good. Go for higher stats to pick better decisions! Some of these "encounters" in the game seems to be randomized, but some are fixed. The game goes on each day from February 3rd to February 9th. At the end of the game, you're supposed to receive different endings.... In my first playthrough, I managed to max out all the stats! In the end, I get to see the selected ending and... well, let's just say that the ending I get is simply getting your week get slightly better. Roll credit. Game done in half an hour. End of my gameplay experience. So, why did I pick this "game"? Because why not?! I simply stumbled this game upon the "New releases". Normally. I avoid games that costs less than a dollar like this one. But this time, I decided to break my own rule and buy it, with the reason of that there's no reason I shouldn't buy. Overall, this game is fine. I enjoy playing this game, and maxing out the build in one playthrough feels so satisfying. However, the game is [i]too[/i] short. Even with the less-than-a-dollar price tag, it still feels like nothing. To be honest, I can't really decide whether to give this game a recommendation or not, due to the length of the game. I'll simply leave a thumbs up here, in the great hopes that the developer might get better in the future. [i]"Developers Please Improve"[/i] [h1]This game, explained in terms of other games[/h1] A slice-of-life simulator.

nice game couldve been better. shame that you have to gamble numbers to unlock a choise. wish you couldve choose and let the story play out.

一回合大概20min，总体挺有趣的，尤其是开头的选项挺能体现teen（我，不是）面对的一些问题的

[i] My Experience [/i] Brain Please Don't is excellent. Although developer Critique Gaming clearly states that they are not mental health professionals, they still touch on many important themes related to mental health and wellness. You begin with a deck that is composed of cards determined by both the difficulties your teen is facing and the coping skills he/she uses to manage their emotions. Certain cards raise stats, certain cards lower them, and some do both. The game then takes you through a set of scenarios, each of which can be responded to in multiple ways. However, certain responses are only available to you if you possess certain stats (for instance, a high degree of openness or confidence). You have a hand of three cards, and a new card is drawn after each play. However, due to how many cards are strictly negative, playing a ton of cards during each scenario may not be advisable. As a general rule, I liked the scenarios and writing. At the same time, some of the scenarios felt a little "off." For instance, the game seems to encourage you to jaywalk at one point, and I would be surprised if certain responses to the school bully in the game wouldn't also earn you a punch in the face in real life. Also odd is the way that your character talks about the woman they are interested in. "Sexy little fishy?" Really? The thing that really won me over here is the way that the mechanics intersect with achieving a degree of mental health. There is a feedback loop within the game - making healthy choices adds cards that can raise your stats, which then makes the next scenario easier to respond to positively. Making antisocial and self-pitying choices does the opposite. Much like in real life, creating positive feedback loops through healthy and prosocial decision-making is paramount. I also appreciated the focus on re-framing. At some points in the game, you're not choosing how you respond to another character, but instead how you make sense of a situation. More charitable interpretations again yield cards that can more easily raise your stats, bringing cognitive therapy to mind. While I was playing, I said to myself: "You know, from time to time, I think I'll revisit this game, just to remind myself how small positive choices can end up making such a large difference in how we feel about ourselves and about those around us." Time will tell if I'll end up booting up Brain Please Don't again - but regardless, this is a special game.

I only have enough money for chicken nugget 😥

tl;dr: It's a short visual novel, but worth the price. There really isn't any strategy to it or replay value, but I did get a dollar's worth of enjoyment out of it. I'd recommend it if you generally like visual novels. I also think the combo of deckbuidling in an interactive visual novel framework is relatively new and unique, so worth playing if you're interested in seeing a proof of concept of those mechanics combined. ---- Like the other reviews say, this is a VERY short game. BUT I don't that's a bad thing. I would love to see some of the developers that made this make a longer sequel with a rouge-lite/rouge legacy feel to it given such a short game loop. And like come on, this game cost less than a dollar. You should expect games that cost less than a dollar to be short. It's the price of a candy bar. I definitely got a candy bar's worth of enjoyment for none of the calories. It's a meditation on the small traumas of one's teenage years and the coping mechanisms that develop from those moments. You customize a character at the beginning of the game with a few issues and a few coping strategies. It's a really basic way to populate your deck with specialized cards. You then play through a few days of the characters life, with about 1-3 "scenes" per day. In each scene you'll have dialog options,some of which give new cards, and 3 cards in your had. The dialog options will have exactly one that's free to choose, the other options will require one or two of your stats to be above a certain value. Those stats can be effected by playing the cards in your hand, and you always draw back up to 3. Playing cards represents the thoughts, emotions, and coping mechanisms that are influencing your character's mental state. I really enjoyed my first play through. I made a self-insert character and it was interesting seeing patterns I remember from those teenage years. It was especially fun to see how some of the restrictions on my character really restricted how I played. For instance, I gave my initial character an "Attention Deficit" trait, which gave me a card that had some positive effects but caused Focus (one of the stats) to decrease. The character didn't have any cards (i.e. coping mechanisms) that could make up for the lack of Focus, other than one card that added 1 to a random stat. So for any of the dialog options that required Focus, I was almost always unable to choose it unless I lucked out. It was so funny watching the thoughts running through my character's head as I played card after card trying to get that random +1. I could so vividly imagine this character staring unblinking into space, just like I used to while the other person got more and more annoyed. I wish there had been a mechanism where the more cards you play the more some negative effect occurs or something like that. Unfortunately there is only one story, so there's really not much replay value, which is a disappointment given that you can do character customization at the beginning. On my second play through I discovered that nothing your character did actually changes the story. It's always the same characters, scenes, and dialog. More disappointingly, there just isn't much strategy to it. You can just keep playing cards infinitely, so it's relatively easy to max out one or two stats if you don't care about the other stats being low. All you have to do is play a bunch of cards until at least one stat is high enough to unlock a dialog option that gives you a purely positive card, then repeat for the other stats. The characters stats do decay each day, but there's only 7 days so you barely have to do anything to keep them maxed out. And even worse is that often the dialog options don't actually matter, so there's a breakdown in the core gameplay. As I said before, they don't affect the story at all. Most of the time several options give no rewards, so they are mechanically indistinguishable. At least until you chose and then your stats change, but you didn't know how they would change before you chose, so there is no strategic game play possible. It's really unfortunate that there wasn't at least some branching dialog or unique scenes for the different character traits you can pick. Also, minor thing, but the credits were VERY annoying. I'm fine with having credits, but I couldn't exit out of them to get to the main menu. I wanted to retry with different starting options, but to do so you have to shut down the whole game and restart it. Did not like that, but it's a relatively small gripe. With all that criticism, I would still recommend the game. It's short, sweet, and made me smile.