Dumb Charades is one of the most played games in any parties, social gatherings, team outings, or family picnics. It can be played amongst all age groups and also acts as a good ice-breaking activity. You’re bound to have a lot of fun playing this game.

What is Dumb Charades?

For those of you who have still not come across this exciting game, Dumb Charades is a guessing game where the person telling the movie, song, TV show, or a personality’s name is not allowed to speak. They have to act out the name through gestures, facial expressions, or body language. 

How to Play?

1. Form 2 or more teams with atleast 2 members in each team. The more members, the better. 
2. Choose a theme like Bollywood or Hollywood movie names or movie songs. Generally, for the first round, one can choose movie names as there are a variety of ways one can enact them.
3. Decide on the time in which the members should act and guess the name. Ideally, 60 seconds is a good enough time for guessing the correct answer.
4. The 1st team, let’s say Team A, decides the name of the movie that should be enacted by one of the 2nd team’s, say Team B, player. Team B’s player is secretly told the name of the movie by any one member of Team A.
5. Now Team B’s player has to act the movie’s name to their team members through hand gestures or facial expressions. They’re not supposed to speak or make any lip movements.
6. The other members of Team B have to guess the name in the predecided time. If they correctly guess the name, they win certain points.
7. It is also advisable to assign an umpire for keeping track of the time, scores, and to ensure that the rules of the game are being followed.

Gestures Used for Playing

1. ‘Thumb Up’ for English and ‘Thumb down’ for Hindi. ‘Horizontal Thumb’ for other languages.
2. Point thumbs or wave hands over your shoulder to signify an old movie. For newer genres, point your finger in front multiple times. For intermediate, shake your hands horizontally.
3. To signify the number of words in the movie name, pull out the respective number of fingers. For example, for ‘English Medium’, show 2 fingers.
4. You can break the movie names into parts to make it easier for enacting and guessing. Place your right palm vertically over your left palm in a cutting motion to show the break. Then show which part you are going to act through your finger. For example, if you’re going to act the 1st part, show 1 finger, and so on.
5. If you feel that it’ll be easier to guess by an actor or actress, you can act their names. To signify a male actor show a mustache and for female actors, tap the side of the nose to signify a nose ring.
6. For rhyming or similar sounding words, touch your earlobe.
7. The prepositions and articles such as  ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘and’, ‘an’, ‘or’ cannot be acted out. Generally, there is no need for the player to act for such words, but if you really want to mention it, you can touch the tip of your thumb with your forefinger to show that the word is insignificant. 
8. If one of your team members is going in the right direction, point towards them and nod in affirmation. 

Scoring

The teams can decide what will be the scoring system. However, awarding 10 points for a correct guess and no point or negative points for a wrong guess is the ideal way to go.

You can also award the score through a bidding process.

• Bidding starts at 60 seconds
• The team starts bidding and whoever bids the lowest gets to perform.
• If the team is able to guess within the bid time, they gain the points and vice versa. For example, if you have bid for 30 seconds, you must act the name and your team must guess it within 30 seconds. If your does guess correctly, they’ll be awarded 50 points, if not, then you get -20.

List of Movies That You Can Enact

Hindi

• Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety
• Kaalakaandi 
• Omerta 
• Khajoor Pe Atke
• Karwaan 
• Manmarziyaan 
• Thugs of Hindostan
• The Accidental Prime Minister
• Why Cheat India
• Romeo Akbar Walter

English

• Fight Club
• The Dark Knight Rises
• The Bourne Supremacy
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Chef
• Insidious
• The Matrix Reloaded
• No Country For Old Men
• Memento 
• Shutter Island

I hope you’ll play this game at your next party or picnic. It’s a really fun game with loads of prompting and fun banter. We @VenueMonk hope you have a great time organizing and playing a fun game of Dumb Charades with your friends & family.