How MindLounge Works

A plain description of what MindLounge offers today, what you can do without an account, and what is still being built.

What MindLounge is

MindLounge is a quiet place for people who like to think. It has five parts — Today, Journal, Learn, Play and Community — and you can use any of them on its own.

Today

Today offers three small steps for the day: something to read, a chess puzzle to solve and a calm game to play. It is meant to take a few minutes. There are no streaks to protect and nothing is lost if you skip a day.

Journal

The Journal is a collection of short reads from four desks: Games & Strategy, Society & Humanity, Science, Technology & Future, and Mind & Everyday Life. Each piece is checked by a person before it is published.

How articles are written and checked is described in the Editorial Policy. Discussion under an article is optional: you can read without ever commenting.

Learn and puzzles

The Journal is for ideas; Learn is for game skills. Here you will find practical guides for chess, checkers and Go, and chess puzzles you can solve at your own pace, including a daily puzzle.

Play

Play offers chess, checkers and Go on a 9×9 board. Chess and checkers can be played against a bot at three difficulty levels, or online against another person. Go is currently played against a bot only.

Games against strangers have no free-text chat: players can send only a few polite preset phrases, such as "good game".

Community

Community is a small, low-noise place for discussion and short notes. It is optional: the discussions can be read by anyone, and you take part only if and when you want to.

Accounts and guest access

Without an account you can read the Journal, the guides and the forum, solve puzzles, play Go against the bot, and play up to three chess or checkers games per day against the bot.

With an account you can play online against other people, comment in the Journal, start and join forum discussions, write notes and follow other members. You can sign in right after registering; a confirmed email address is needed to comment, start forum topics, follow members and play online against other people. Your first two forum topics are reviewed by the editor before they appear.

Privacy and quiet design

MindLounge is designed to stay out of your way: no notification pressure, no endless feed, and a Zen mode that hides side panels and promotional blocks. What is collected and why is described in the Privacy Policy.

What is still evolving

MindLounge is an independent, early-stage project and it keeps changing. Features that are not ready are not presented as available, and we would rather add things slowly than add noise.