Nat Marco had a few ideas for things to run at Bit of Alright, and one of them was a game jam, conducted using jam. So technically, not just jam games, but jam jam games. On the day, we got quite lucky with the weather, so could run things on deck in the sunshine. Massive thanks to Nat Marco and Jonathan Whiting for running such energetic workshops up there.

Here’s a write up from Nat of the games people came up with, with photos by Jessica Bernard.

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Licktionary

The tasty drawing guessing game!

You will need:

A jar of jam
A funnel
A wooden spoon
Some paper cut into squares
A pen
Minimum 2 players
Create your image deck — Use the pen to write names of simple shapes or pictures on some of the paper squares e.g. smiley face, star, triangle etc.

How to play:

Form teams of 2 or more players. Each team takes turns to draw/guess. The player who most recently ate jam draws first. The guessing player keeps their eyes shut during the drawing and guessing process. Points are awarded for correct guesses.

How to draw:

Take a piece of paper from the image deck to find out what to draw. Fill the funnel with jam and use the wooden spoon to push the jam out of the end (a bit like a piping bag). Draw the image on the paper using this funnel technique.

How to guess:

Places the drawing in the guessing players hand. The guessing player needs to lick the drawing to try to figure out what the picture is with their tongue. If they guess it correctly they win a point.
**Remember — guessing players must keep their eyes closed!

Orange, Lemon, Lime

Catch with a confusing citrus twist!

You will need:
1 lemon
1 lime
1 Orange
Forfeits — Half a lemon spread with marmalade, half an orange spread with lemon curd.
2 players
** Playing with forfeits is optional.

How to play:

One player holds the lemon in one hand and the orange in the other. The other player holds the lime. The player with the orange and lemon throws a fruit first — the other player has to catch it. Before catching a fruit the player must shout out the following:
Before catching an orange the player must shout — lemon.
Before catching a lemon the player must shout — orange.
Before catching a lime the player must shout — lime.
Players take it in turns to throw a fruit to each other. If someone forgets to shout out a fruit or shouts out the wrong fruit they lose a life. Lose three lives and you must eat one of the forfeits! If you’re playing without forfeits the first person to lose all three lives is the loser…

Jammin’

The musical memory game!

You will need:
4 empty jam jars (with lids)
4 wooden spoons
4 players

How to play:
Each player takes a jam jar and a spoon. Form teams of two and sit diagonally from your team mate around a table. Each player should be sitting next to and opposite someone from the other team. The aim of the game is for each team to build up a tune by tapping their jar. Each time a member of the team plays a tune, it must be the last one played plus an new note at the end. Players must try not to get distracted by the other teams tune!

The player who last ate jam starts by playing a simple 3 note tune on their jam jar. The player sitting next to them (clockwise) then plays their simple 3 note tune on their jar. The next player must play their team mates tune (the first one played) plus an extra note at the end. The player next to them plays their team mates 3 note tune plus an extra note at the end. It’s now the first players turn again, they must play the tune their team mate played, plus an extra note. This continues until someone gets it wrong.

It’s probably sensible to have an additional player who sits out of the memory game so someone can verify if players are playing the correct tunes.

Players cannot play the same note more than 3 times in a row.

FruitJamHockeyTowerDefence

The game of sweet sugary victory!

This game seemed rather complicated so I don’t know the exact rules. We’ll need to ask Oscar! The general idea seemed to be to flick jam jar lids through an obstacle course in order to destroy all your opponents sugar cube towers. There were wooden spoon boundaries for the course. If you flicked your lid outside the boundaries it’s position is reset. There are fruit and funnel bumpers to avoid and sugar cube turn markers. I’m afraid I don’t know much more!

You will need:
2 funnels
6 jam jar lids (3 in each colour)
sugar cubes
wooden spoons
1 orange
1 lemon
1 lime

The winner is the one to destroy all their opponents towers first!

Jam Drop

Messy jam dropping fun!

You will need:
1 wooden spoon
3 empty jars
1 jar of strawberry jam
1 dollop of strawberry jam
1 dollop of mixed berry jam
1 dollop of lemon curd
A staircase
How to play:
Put 1 dollop of jam into the empty jars (1 with strawberry, 1 with mixed berry and 1 with curd). Line these up next to each other on the floor by the stair case. The lemon curd jar should be in the middle. Players take turns to pick a stair and drop a blob of strawberry jam, using a wooden spoon, down into the jars below. The higher up the stair, the bigger the score multiplier but the harder it is to aim. There is a no leaning rule — players must release their blob of jam from a fully upright position. Players get to drop 3 blobs of jam each turn.

Point are awarded in the following ways:
+ 10 for getting strawberry jam in the strawberry jam jar.
+ 5 for getting jam in the mixed berry jam jar.
– 10 for getting jam in the lemon curd jar.

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Our thanks again to Nat!