Dig Around Your Drawers for the Right Objects in Junk Jumble

Where did you put those scissors? Was it in the top drawer? The bottom? Try to remember and find them before your opponent discovers where he placed his flashlight and batteries.

Published by Blue Orange Games and designed for 2-5 players, Junk Jumble is a memory game with light push-your-luck elements and a colorful set of drawers!

Gameplay

The game’s main component is a miniature dresser of four drawers. The 40 object tokens are evenly distributed between the four drawers and the drawers are then slid shut. Next, the deck of checklist cards is shuffled. Each card corresponds to one of the objects in the drawers.

At the start of the game each player picks a number between 2 to 5 and is dealt that many checklist cards. You are trying to find these objects in the drawers.

On your turn you can either look through a drawer or make a guess. When you look through a drawer, you take out one drawer and place it on top of the dresser. You may use exactly one finger to move the object tokens around inside it. The other players are allowed to look at the tokens too, but cannot touch them. Once you are done, you slide the drawer back into the dresser.

When you make a guess, you reveal all your checklist cards and say which drawer you believe each object to be in. You then check each drawer one at a time. If any guess is incorrect, you immediately stop checking and discard all your checklist cards. If you were correct on all items, you take a pin token that shows a number of points equal to the number of items you found. You then discard all your checklist cards.

When you discard your checklist cards, you again choose between 2-5 and draw that many new cards into your hand. Once a player has won four pin tokens and everyone has had an equal number of turns, the game ends. The player with the most points on their pin tokens then wins the game.

Review

Junk Jumble is a simple concept with a great table presence. The set of drawers is without a doubt an appealing component to play with, and the game is a fun combination of memory and push-your-luck. As the game progresses, players are more likely to remember, or think they remember, where certain tokens are, so they are also likely to take a risk and draw more cards. This leads to an enjoyable escalation as the game proceeds.

Components are bright and colorful and well made. It’s a game that instantly catches your eye when it’s on the table. The drawers slide out nicely, while also being quite sturdy. It also is pretty small when all packed up, which makes it good for travel. You do have to be careful when repacking the game, however. Due to the holes in the drawers that serve as a handle, the pin tokens can spill out if you’re not careful to place the rules on top of them.

Gameplay does slow down a bit when players are checking a guess, particularly if you are checking all four drawers. But even that is not entirely downtime, as you can still continue to look inside the drawers for your own items when another player is checking his guess.

Junk Jumble is a very simple, family-friendly memory game. When playing with an adult group, we found the challenge was more in trying to remember during the later rounds what you’ve already discovered during the early rounds, to score as quickly as possible. It does feel like a game that would be imbalanced for a group with a wide age range, but can be enjoyed by younger and older groups, just not necessarily at the same time.

Pros: Unique components, simple rules, slight push-your-luck elements mix nicely with memory gameplay

Cons: Older players would have an advantage over younger players, if not packed correctly components can spill out

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.