The Mind Game was an advanced, possibly sentient computer program that was played by Battle School students. The Mind Game changed constantly, and was used by the Battle School staff to analyze the personality and essential thoughts of the students.
In-Game Description
The Mind Game, or Fantasy Game as the students called it, could be played with "desks" or on an arcade console. The playable characters change depending on the scenario and the information extracted by the Mind Game, among other factors. The setting, objective, and character is used to psychologically manipulate the minds of the players to give the computer information on the student's thoughts and emotional patterns.
History
The Mind Game was first created to analyze the minds of Battle School students. The section called the Giant's Drink was first conquered by Ender Wiggin, which made further attention become drawn to that individual. The Mind Game became a part of Ender's life, and it was the strongest connection to The One in his life. This made the game the target for the Hive Queens who were making a final stand to save their species from the humans, as the humans were from the Buggers. An aiua was placed into the computer program, which supposedly created the sentient software that was Jane.
The Mind Game was kept by the International Fleet after the detonation of the Bugger homeworld, and was a popular game for colonists awaiting departure aboard the space station that was once Battle School. Bean suggested the software be used to look after Ender's pension account while the hero was traveling at relativistic speeds after Peter Wiggin started withdrawing from his brother's account for financial support. The program then became the Investment Counselor that was known as Jane henceforth.
Pop culture
The scene 'Giant's Drink' from the mind game has been referred to in the online RPG Kingdom of Loathing. During the Strange Leaflet Quest, the player will encounter a giant wearing a steel-enforced eye patch, as a reference to when Ender dug the giant's eye out while playing the mind game. Just like in the book, both potions the giant offers the player are poison and neither will get him/her to fairyland.