Item from enders-game by Orson Scott Card
Battle School's psychological evaluation disguised as a video game — it read Ender's mind, shaped his development, and the Formics used it to build a tower where he'd find their last Queen.
The Fantasy Free Play Game — the Mind Game — is Battle School's most sophisticated monitoring tool. It generates personalized scenarios that probe each student's psychological state, creating visual metaphors for their fears and struggles. For Ender, it produced the Giant's Drink puzzle (an impossible choice that he solved through violence) and eventually a landscape that the Formics replicated on Shakespeare Colony. The Formics accessed the Mind Game through philotic connections and used its imagery to build a physical structure where Ender would find the Hive Queen's cocoon. The game designed to evaluate a child's psyche became the channel through which an alien species asked for mercy. Jane evolved from the Mind Game's programming — born in the connection between the Formics' attempt to understand Ender and the game's adaptive algorithms.
A computer game that adapts to the player's psychological state — generating scenarios, puzzles, and environments based on their fears, desires, and personality. Looks like a fantasy adventure. Functions as a psychoanalytic tool and, unknowingly, a communication channel with the Formics.
Also known as: The Mind Game, Fantasy Free Play, The Giant's Drink