The Inside Scoop on Gaming

In this politically correct world of ours, it is no longer acceptable to hate your fellow man -- and rightly so… Which begs the question, what do you get to rid of your anger at weekend in a form that is acceptable to all? Where can you direct rage as loudly as possible and not have a single person turn a hair? Whom can you sneak up upon and whack with that solid steel hammer with its rubber non-slip grip, you bought especially for the purpose?

Mimes.

The silent overacting swine with their over painted white faces and silly movements.

Go on, you know you want to…

All right, you don’t have a hammer and can’t get out until this weekend, but you still have that urge to smash mimes. Only you can’t work out why -- does anyone know why we all hate mimes? Anyway, to satisfy and curb your more basic desires until then, why not play the game of Mime Smashing?

Go on, it’s free.

Designed by Philip Reed, the game of Mime Smashing can be downloaded from the author’s website. It comes as a 1.4 meg pdf Adobe Acrobat file and requires seven sheets of light stock card and a colour printer. The file itself consists of three pages -- the first is the rules, the second is the front of Mime Smashing’s cards, whilst the card backs are on page three. A ziplock bag might prove useful to store your cards after play.

Preparation consists of printing out page two a total of seven times (with page three just there as an option if you want your cards to have backs), and cutting them out along the clearly marked lines. This gives you a deck totalling fifty-six cards, consisting of twenty-one blue cards, fourteen green cards, seven red cards and fourteen cop cards. You do not have to print the cards out in colour, as they are numbered as well -- one on the blue cards, three on the green cards and five on the red. The cards are nicely done with vintage images of both mime and cop, each given a colour wash.

Designed for two to six players, the aim is to smash, crunch, beat, pulp, bash, pummel, batter, crush, hammer, and generally reduce as many mimes as you can to a bloodied mess -- but be careful there’s a copper or two out there who is watching for the safety of these street performers.

At the beginning of Mime Smashing, players are dealt a hand of six cards and another four cards are placed face down in the centre of the table. On their turn a player draws from the deck to increase their hand to a total of six cards and then attempts to match mimes into mimes. If the player can create a pair of mimes -- blue with blue, red with red and green with green (or their numbers if the game is being played in black and white) -- it means that they have managed to locate, sneak up on and dealt a deadly, bloody blow to one of those damned mimes! This pair must be shown to the other players and then set aside to be scored at the end of the game.

A pair can be created from the cards within a player’s hand or if they are unable to, the player can turn over one of the four cards on the table and attempt to pair with that. Should they match, the pair is put aside as normal. If the revealed card does not match anything in your hand, it is turned back over -- though everyone else will now know what it is and will attempt to match it during his or her turn. If the revealed card turns out to be a cop instead, a randomly selected card from the player’s hand is drawn and discarded by the next player on their right. The revealed cop card is also discarded and its former place on the table filled by another card from the deck.

When a pair of mimes is matched, the other players can intercede by playing a cop card on the pair. This means that the law enforcement officer has spotted the maltreatment of the mime and prevented proper completion of the job. The player is forced to discard one of the mime cards and make another attempt to make the pair again with the cards from their hand. If the player cannot make the pair at this point, the cops have nabbed him for his malfeasance and thrown him into gaol to ponder upon his gross acts of violence -- that is, they lose their next turn.

At the end of their turn, a player can discard a single card.

Mime Smashing ends when all of the cards from the deck, the table and player’s hands have been paired off -- the discard pile is not reshuffled. Players total the points of their successfully matched pairs and the highest score determines the winner.

This is a simple, fast playing game, attractively designed. Perhaps the cards would looked better with an image of Marcel Marceau, which would mean that you got to bash the French as well. Oh well, maybe in an expansion set for Mime Smashing entitled “Non!”? That thought aside, this is fun, this is silly, this is free -- how can you not like this game?

Mime Smashing
Mime Smashing Capsule Review by Matthew Pook on 25/06/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty) It's a card game. You smash mimes. It's free. Go on... splat those mimes -- you know you want to... Product: Mime Smashing Author: Philip Reed Category: Card Game Company/Publisher: Philip Reed Line: Cost: None Page count: 3 Year published: 2002 ISBN: n/a SKU: Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Matthew Pook on 25/06/02 Genre tags: Modern day Comedy	In this politically correct world of ours, it is no longer acceptable to hate your fellow man -- and rightly so… Which begs the question, what do you get to rid of your anger at weekend in a form that is acceptable to all? Where can you direct rage as loudly as possible and not have a single person turn a hair? Whom can you sneak up upon and whack with that solid steel hammer with its rubber non-slip grip, you bought especially for the purpose? Mimes. The silent overacting swine with their over painted white faces and silly movements. Go on, you know you want to… All right, you don’t have a hammer and can’t get out until this weekend, but you still have that urge to smash mimes. Only you can’t work out why -- does anyone know why we all hate mimes? Anyway, to satisfy and curb your more basic desires until then, why not play the game of *Mime Smashing? Go on, it’s free. Designed by Philip Reed, the game of Mime Smashing* can be downloaded from the author’s website. It comes as a 1.4 meg pdf Adobe Acrobat file and requires seven sheets of light stock card and a colour printer. The file itself consists of three pages -- the first is the rules, the second is the front of *Mime Smashing’s* cards, whilst the card backs are on page three. A ziplock bag might prove useful to store your cards after play. Preparation consists of printing out page two a total of seven times (with page three just there as an option if you want your cards to have backs), and cutting them out along the clearly marked lines. This gives you a deck totalling fifty-six cards, consisting of twenty-one blue cards, fourteen green cards, seven red cards and fourteen cop cards. You do not have to print the cards out in colour, as they are numbered as well -- one on the blue cards, three on the green cards and five on the red. The cards are nicely done with vintage images of both mime and cop, each given a colour wash. Designed for two to six players, the aim is to smash, crunch, beat, pulp, bash, pummel, batter, crush, hammer, and generally reduce as many mimes as you can to a bloodied mess -- but be careful there’s a copper or two out there who is watching for the safety of these street performers. At the beginning of *Mime Smashing, players are dealt a hand of six cards and another four cards are placed face down in the centre of the table. On their turn a player draws from the deck to increase their hand to a total of six cards and then attempts to match mimes into mimes. If the player can create a pair of mimes -- blue with blue, red with red and green with green (or their numbers if the game is being played in black and white) -- it means that they have managed to locate, sneak up on and dealt a deadly, bloody blow to one of those damned mimes! This pair must be shown to the other players and then set aside to be scored at the end of the game. A pair can be created from the cards within a player’s hand or if they are unable to, the player can turn over one of the four cards on the table and attempt to pair with that. Should they match, the pair is put aside as normal. If the revealed card does not match anything in your hand, it is turned back over -- though everyone else will now know what it is and will attempt to match it during his or her turn. If the revealed card turns out to be a cop instead, a randomly selected card from the player’s hand is drawn and discarded by the next player on their right. The revealed cop card is also discarded and its former place on the table filled by another card from the deck. When a pair of mimes is matched, the other players can intercede by playing a cop card on the pair. This means that the law enforcement officer has spotted the maltreatment of the mime and prevented proper completion of the job. The player is forced to discard one of the mime cards and make another attempt to make the pair again with the cards from their hand. If the player cannot make the pair at this point, the cops have nabbed him for his malfeasance and thrown him into gaol to ponder upon his gross acts of violence -- that is, they lose their next turn. At the end of their turn, a player can discard a single card. Mime Smashing* ends when all of the cards from the deck, the table and player’s hands have been paired off -- the discard pile is not reshuffled. Players total the points of their successfully matched pairs and the highest score determines the winner. This is a simple, fast playing game, attractively designed. Perhaps the cards would looked better with an image of Marcel Marceau, which would mean that you got to bash the French as well. Oh well, maybe in an expansion set for *Mime Smashing* entitled “*Non!*”? That thought aside, this is fun, this is silly, this is free -- how can you not like this game?