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The Brainframe is a giant machine housing thousands of brains that were donated for study upon death. It was built by Otto Mentallis and resides inside his lab.

Description[]

The Brainframe is a machine that sits at the back wall of Otto's laboratory in the Quarry near the Motherlobe. It holds a large amount of jarred brains, all of which move through the enormous, brain-shaped enclosure of the machine on a set of twisting conveyors, which themselves resemble the undulating folds of a brain. All of the brains inside the machine are neatly organized and recorded into a database accessible through the terminal on its front. In addition to the main "Hall of Brains" folder, which contains the brains processed through the proper methods and currently active in experiments, there is also a much smaller database of "unprocessed minds", which contains several brains that are kept in the machine, but have not been processed for experimentation.

Otto claims that the brains all once belonged to deceased individuals, but that they were all legally donated upon death—presumably mostly by deceased former agents, as the active brains all have an associated code name and psychic specialty. Apparently, the paperwork required to join the Psychonauts contains a clause that requires staff to donate their brain to the machine after death. After the death of the body, Otto explains that brains are no longer capable of thought. Even so, they are kept active to some extent for scientific study and experimentation, for the sake of learning more about the mysteries of the mind.

Story[]

Background[]

Otto built the Brainframe as a tool for sustaining deceased brains and making use of the processing capability of the human mind when networked in a massively-parallel network. He made sure to get the proper legal forms and releases before adding them to the network, though there were some that he acquired under dubious circumstances, making sure not to link them up with the rest.

Some unspecified amount of time after the the Battle of Grulovia, Otto discovered an abandoned brain while on a random visit to the Heptadome. Dubbing the unknown donor "Heptadome Harry", he placed it into the Brainframe for safekeeping.

Psychonauts 2[]

Raz discovers the Brainframe upon finding his way to Otto's workshop. As he needs a spare brain to implant into Nick Johnsmith, he selects "Heptadome Harry", which is the only brain that is not entered into active experimentation as well as being authorized for release, and finds that it still has a consciousness inside of it, meaning it is still alive. He goes ahead with the plan to place the brain inside Nick's head, helping its owner to process sensory information again and recall their past in the level PSI King's Sensorium.

Brains[]

Hall of Brains[]

The Hall of Brains contains a very large amount of brains, many of which are named by Fig backers who supported Psychonauts 2 in its early development stages. According to an official DoubleFine tweet, there are more than 30 thousand individual backer names. In addition, some of the brains have the names of (ex-) Double Fine staff members, such as programmers Kee Chi and Devin Kelly-Sneed, animator Raymond Crook, and designer James Marion.

Unprocessed Minds[]

The second category of brains accessible through the terminal. This is a small group of brains apparently considered exceptions and not entered into the active group for various reasons. At the time of Psychonauts 2, all of these except "Heptadome Harry" were unauthorized for release.

Name Cause of Death: Note: Psychic Specialty:
John Doe Lobe Rash Warning: Contagious ???
Brain ZMW1-64H Mice Needs Cleaning ???
Composite Brain Various Assembled from parts ???
Jane Doe Brain Tumbler Malfunction All that was left after the accident ???
Abbie Normal Movie references Warning: do not re-implant ???
(formerly) Heptadome Harry Abandonment? Found in the Heptadome ???

Trivia[]

  • The Brainframe is the backdrop of the title screen and main menu of Psychonauts 2. The main menu options - "New Game", "Continue", "Settings", etc. - are projected onto brain jars as they roll by on the conveyor.
  • The brain named "Abbie Normal, cause of death movie references" is itself a movie reference, speficially to Young Frankenstein(1974), in which Dr. Frederick Frankenstein's assistant Igor mistakenly brings the doctor a brain labeled "abnormal" to implant into his creature, and when asked about it mistakes "Abby Normal" for the name of the brain's owner.
  • In Green Needle Gulch, Raz can find an old lab near Bob's greenhouse where an explosion seems to have occurred at one point, with a Brain Tumbler at its center. This may be where the accident that killed the "Jane Doe" in unprocessed minds took place.
  • The machine has been described as "creepy" by Helmut Fullbear.
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