Mime Boxing is a quick and chaotic playground game for crowds that can be played anywhere that aggressive miming is called for. Build invisible walls with your hands like a mime, and use those walls to imprison other mimes. Mime Boxing is easy to learn and play, but requires good hands, quick feet, and eyes in the back of your head. Will you be the last mime standing?
Want to know more about Mime Boxing? Contact lava@floor.is.
(Photo credits: Jordan Arnesen, Karsty, Bruce Nye)
How To Play
Five or more players stand in a circle (the more, the better). Each player forms an invisible “wall” by putting up their hands, palms forward. The wall extends on a plane from floor to ceiling between the player’s hands. Other players cannot walk through a wall, but they can (and should) walk around it.
When a player forms a wall, they must stand still. The wall must come down while the player is moving.
During play, mimes move around the play area, putting up walls to block each other’s movement. If a player is surrounded by three or more players’ walls and can’t go anywhere, they are OUT. Play continues until no more mimes can be taken out.
Players do not talk while boxing, but do emote wildly. You’re mimes, after all.
Variants
Making up your own rules as you go is half the fun! Here are some variants that players have come up with:
Mime Max Beyond Thunderdome
As players go out, they reform the original circle and put up permanent walls. As the number of surviving players dwindles, the outer walls form a ring that they can’t escape.
Frozen Mimes
If a player is surrounded, they do not go out, but instead freeze in place, forming a permanent wall. Active players must still step around permanent walls or be blocked.
More Info
Designed by Floor Is Lava.
Featured at Come Out & Play San Francisco, 2013.
