After playing Jabuka, a clever twistable letter word game, I’ll never look at a coffee bean the same way again! The inventor, inspired while sitting in a coffee shop, wrote the first letter of his name, “M” on a coffee bean and proceeded to twist it to an “E” and then “W,” Thus began this fast paced, free form word building and stealing game of fun. Dump out the beans, leaving some face down and start the play by forming words with the twistable alphabet beans with one or two letters on them. A “b” becomes a “g” or “nd” becomes “pu.” Twistable letters and combinations are yellow while non-twistable letters are white for quick identification. With very few rules and no turn taking, Jabuka takes off with players spilling the letter beans on the table, leaving them face up and down as they landed. Players race to be the first to call out a word and then form it with the face up beans. This continues until a player shouts out a word that involves stealing your creation if they can twist, add or rearrange your letters, using all your letters for their new word. t(oy) twisted became (ho)t and grape became disparage by adding letters. During play, participants must agree to say “Flip,” and turn over 2 face down beans at the same time. Jabuka is a great game to encourage reading, and build vocabulary, problem solving and visual memory. Besides what sets Jabuka apart from traditional word games–twists and turns–players are honing their visual memory skills as they have to form the word visually before actually moving the beans. So many options generates so much fun!
Available at Jabuka Games
