Jumble Jam
Jumble Jam Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Component List
- 20 Wooden jam jar shaped tokens: 4 per player (5 different colors).
- 1 Proactive Grandchild card.
- 1 Efficient Grandchild card.
- 20 Order cards.
- 60 Pastry cards: 10 doughnut cards, 10 pie cards, 10 pancake cards, 10 croissant cards, 10 cookie cards, 10 jam cards.
- 5 Kitty cards.
- 1 Custom 6-sided die.
- 21 extra coins.
Game Objective
Jumble Jam is a competitive game for 2 to 5 players in which the winner will be the player who gets to be Grandma's favorite.
To achieve that, each player will try to get as many orders complete as possible to collect as many coins as possible.
But, be careful! If any pastries are wasted on orders, you will get fewer coins in return and that will risk not becoming Grandma's favorite.
The player who has the most coins from all their completed orders will win the game.
Game Setup
Each player picks a color and takes the 4 jam jars for that color. Take 1 Kitty card for each player (return the rest to the box) and shuffle them with the Pastry cards. Then, place these cards face down creating a Pastries deck for the different batches each turn. Also shuffle the Orders cards and place them face down near the Pastries deck creating the Orders deck.
Determining the first player is easy: the last one that ate a pastry starts! The starting player will get the Proactive Grandchild card, and the player seated to their right will get the Efficient Grandchild card. The Efficient Grandchild card shows who will be the first player to try to fill orders out in phase Getting orders ready.
Game Layout
Players play as the grandchildren from the family's bakery who will have to complete orders with the pastries coming off the oven (Game box with decks). These pastries always come off the top side of the oven and go over the columns from left to right to fill any empty slots. The number of players determines the number of Pastry cards available:
- 2 players: 3 columns with 3 rows each
- 3 players: 3 columns with 4 rows each
- 4 players: 3 columns with 5 rows each
- 5 players: 4 columns with 4 rows each
How to Play
Each game round is divided into 4 phases:
- New batch
- Grandma
- Get to work!
- Getting orders ready
1. New batch
Pastry cards are drawn from the Pastries deck until the table is filled with the card layout corresponding to the number of players (check Game Layout).
If there are Pastry cards from a previous turn, these cards will slide down to the last row of the column they are in, that is, being as far as possible from the oven. Then, any empty slots are filled with new cards from the Pastries deck (from left to right) until the card layout is completed.
This represents the movement of the trays out of the oven down to the end of the table.
If the Pastries deck is empty, make a new one by shuffling the discard pile.
Finally, draw as many cards from the Orders deck as the number of players plus one. If there are Order cards from previous turns, draw cards until there are as many as permitted by the number of players.
| Players | Orders |
|---|---|
| 2 players | 3 cards |
| 3 players | 4 cards |
| 4 players | 5 cards |
| 5 players | 6 cards |
2. Grandma
Once the batch has been placed on the table, it is time to roll Grandma's die. This die has one side per pastry type and an additional side showing Grandma's figure.
If the die roll shows a pastry type, it means that during this round every order completed that contains that pastry type will give an extra coin. If the die roll shows Grandma's figure, you may only complete exact orders (see Getting orders ready): Grandma will be watching!
3. Get to work!
Starting with the player with the Proactive Grandchild card, they place one of their jam jars between 2 adjacent Pastry cards (at either side as well as above and below). Then, the player to their left will do the same until all the players have placed their tokens one at a time. After 4 turns every player will have placed all their jam jars on the table, one at a time.
Next, check which player has more jam jars around each card to determine who gets each card. If there is a tie, no one gets the Pastry card.
Placement rules:
- You must place your 4 jam jars.
- You can't place your jam jars in card corners.
- You can't place a jam jar where there's already one jar.
- You can't cover more than two cards.
- You can't place jam jars on card sides that are not adjacent to other cards (external borders of the card layout).
Example: Here the blue player secures the 3-cookie card and challenges the red player over the 2-pie card. The red player could secure the 2-pie card on their turn. The green player had already placed their jam jar between the 2-pancakes and 1-doughnut cards and will be able to place another on their turn.
Note: It is easy to see that cards placed on the sides of the layout are easier to control than those in the center. Take advantage of this if you are the first player.
Once all the players have finished placing their jam jars, check which player has more jam jars around each card, determining its owner. When all players have taken their cards, it is time to recover all the jam jars. Any acquired cards go to players' hand, and from now on they will be kept secret from the rest of the players. However, the number of cards in each players' hand is public information.
The maximum hand size (including any Kitty cards) is 7. If any player has more than 7 cards after picking up Pastry cards, they must discard any cards of their choice until they have 7.
4. Getting orders ready
To get orders ready players need to put together Pastry cards sets matching the pastry types that customers ask for and with the amount shown on the Order cards (it can be a card with the exact amount or more cards that add up to the amount needed).
This phase is played in reverse turn order: starting with the last player (the one with the Efficient Grandchild card) and in counter-clockwise order, each player will try to complete a single order. Once the order is completed (or not) it will be the next player's turn. This process goes on until no player can or wants to complete more orders. Each player may complete more than one order, but they will have to wait for their turn to come back around.
There are 2 ways to complete orders:
- If the order is completed with the exact amount of pastries, it means that the job has been completed flawlessly and the reward is greater. The player will get the completed Order card and place it in front of them vertically, so the higher score on the card is visible. Grandma will notice that, no doubt!
- An order can also be completed wasting pastries. If an order has been completed but with more pastries than needed, the player will receive a lower reward. This waste makes Grandma frown, and she will take this out of your paycheck. In this case, the player will get the completed Order card and place it in front of them horizontally, so the lower score on the card is visible.
An order can't be completed in any case if you don't have the minimum number of pastries shown in the Order card.
After an order is completed, the used Pastry cards go to the discard pile (a discard pile is created face up next to the Pastries deck).
If no player can complete any more orders but there are still orders on the table, these will remain there for the next round.
Jam cards
These cards can replace one pastry type on one order. They are really valuable cards that work as wilds, so don't let other players get them!
Example: In a 3 cookies, 2 croissants and 2 pies order, the red player has everything but 2 pies, but this turn they got a 2-jam card, with which he could replace the 2 pies that he is missing and complete the exact order.
Note: Each jam card can only be used for a single pastry type on each Order card. A 3-jam card cannot replace 2 doughnuts and 1 cookie, but a 1-jam and a 2-jam cards can replace 3 doughnuts.
Kitty cards
These represent the Grandma's sweet-toothed cats. She has always been in love with cats but mixing a bakery with cats is not always a good idea.
Kitty cards are used during each player's turn during the Getting Orders Ready phase. To use these cards, discard one and choose a player; that player will have to give a card at random to the player that used the Kitty card. Anything to be the Grandma's favorite! Using a Kitty does not prevent the player from being able to complete an order afterwards as usual.
At the end of this phase, the Proactive Grandchild card will go to the player seated to its owner's left. This will be the first player during the next round. The Efficient Grandchild card will also pass to the player seated to its owner's left so that in the next round, the player that was first player in the previous round will be the first one to try to complete orders.
Special Kickstarter Rules
Kickstarter Exclusive Rules
When the game start (before the Pastries cards and Order cards are placed on the table) every Player should choose a Pastry type and take all extra tokens of this pastry. These tokens are equal to a one unit of pastry.
These extra pastries can be used in the same way than Pastry cards in the "Getting orders ready" phase, with the difference that these pastries tokens can't be stolen by the cats.
Kitty Tokens & New rule
New Rule: When the game start (before the pastries cards and order cards are placed on the table) every Player should take a Kitty token. These tokens can be used in the same way than Kitty cards.