Outside The Box is a “game engine for your imagination” – designed to inspire you to create and play your own games on your own or with others, indoors or outside. It’s made up of 27 cubes, 3 layers of 9 cubes, each layer being a distinct game : Animal Match, Mission Improbable and StoryMaker. Check out the OTB collection of cubes and books on bookleteer.

Having playtested the cubes in the studio and with some children on a YMCA play scheme, our next move is to manufacture an initial run and get them into people’s hands to find out what they do with them. We’re running a kickstarter campaign to raise funds – support the project to get your own set in time for Christmas or choose other rewards.

View the Play Guide book on bookleteer

Outside The Box has no rules, nothing to win or lose, they simply provide a framework for you to imagine and make up your own games.

Animal Match starts out as a puzzle – match up the animal halves to complete the pattern. From there you can make it much more fun : mix the cubes up to invent strange creatures; what would you call them? What would they sound like? How might they move?

Mission Improbable is for role-playing. There are 6 characters: Adventurer, Detective, Scientist, Spy, Storyteller and Superhero, each with 9 tasks. Use them to invent your own games, record your successes in the mission log books or take it to another level by designing your own costumes and props.

StoryMaker incites the telling of fantastical tales : Roll the 3 control cubes to decide how to tell your story, what kind it should be and where to set it. Then use the word cubes as your cue to invent a story on the spot.

Outside The Box began as a side project when illustrator Mandy Tang joined Proboscis. Inspired by the Love Outdoor Play campaign to get more children playing outside, we came up with the idea of using our StoryCube format and our bookleteer self-publishing platform to make a set of cubes that would inspire playfulness.