The Lava Game is a free form game probably universally played by children, with much variation in the rules and conditions. I don't know if it has any particular name in different areas, and "The Lava Game" is I think my own invention. The object of the game is to not touch the ground, and it can be played inside or outside.

I use the name "The Lava Game" because the idea is that the carpet or floor or grass is covered with burning hot lava that can not be touched. Instead, the player must stay aloft on any convenient object that is not the ground. Sometimes there is a specific goal to be reached, or even a race to be run, but these are merely variations upon the theme. As with many children's activities, adding too much structure can ruin the point. This also goes for what is or is not allowed to protect your feet from the burning lava: clothing and papers left on the floor may or may not provide such protection. While these rules may be mutable, like the fiery, imagined molten rock itself, some rules are not: such as "don't break anything, including yourself". Please don't use the baby grand piano as a prop for this game. Please be careful with your head, and wait half an hour after eating to go into the water.

There are also other many variations upon the concept, many of them perhaps safer for people and objects. The game could be played vertically, in a wood, with people only allowed to move forward as long as they were somehow touching a tree. It could be played vertically inside, color coded so that someone has to touch something red at all times.

I have probably already described too much already, since, as described, this game is supposed to be spontaneous. The only other thing I have to add is that neither myself or the Everything Development Company are responsible for any damn fool thing you do to yourself.

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