Jam and Candy reunites the original Boxerjam team

jam-and-candy

One of my post popular posts on the blog so far is about the demise of Boxerjam, an early leading gaming platform site that created interactive online “game shows” that people could play with friends and other online users, gameplay which remains somewhat unique and elusive more than a decade later. A notable fact was it was founded by Julann Griffin, who, while wife to Merv Griffin, was credited with co-creating Jeopardy! She’s long been credited with asking Merv why he didn’t flip the standard Q&A and give the answers, and have people provide the questions?

It’s been a decade now since Boxerjam was sold to then-newspaper chain Media General, and in the intervening years the JAM in Boxerjam, Griffin and her sister, Maureen Roberts (Julann and Maureen: JAM), partnered with Candisse Reynolds (the Candy, I’m starting to catch on) and Jam and Candy was born.

Right now, there’s two games, one online and one as a mobile app. The online game, “Piki Paka,” is pretty straight forward – select from three buttons (featuring numeric ranges) five times, with the goal of finishing in a winning range of numbers to score points and advance to the next round. In a round of playing, I stopped playing before I actually lost, as the selection of number ranges got repetitive very quickly. That said, it’s likely to be attractive to a younger crowd who may find the math and range calculations to be a fun challenge.

move-your-vowels

The second game, “Move Your Vowels,” is an iOS and Android game (I played on iPad) that comes with 50 games to start and feels much more in the spirit of the classic Boxerjam. In this, vowels are removed from words and phrases in a series of successive rounds.  Speed and accuracy allow you to score higher. The first round starts off easy; by the third and final round you’re filling in all the vowels out of a lengthy phrase. There are eight puzzles to complete in each game, so the pacing is brisk.

The game has the vibe of one of the Boxerjam classics, Out of Order, although I do miss the race against the other players.

I did encounter a few teething issues during my playing of the app. Once you’ve played through the 50 games, additional games can be bought in packs of 50 for 99 cents each; in my tests, I had trouble getting the additional packs to load, but iTunes does show an in-app item available. The loading screen also has no x, so I had to force-quit the app and reopen to resume playing the included games.

I also found the letter placing a bit weird feeling; many times, I’d touch the tile to select a letter and drag, but the letter appeared much higher on the screen, meaning I’d have to drag my finger past the blank to drop it into the right place. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’s not too challenging to control, and I never once mistakenly grabbed the wrong letter or placed it in the wrong place, so the controls, from that standpoint, are intuitive enough.

It’s a promising start from pioneers in the online gaming space. I hope they bring back their classic multi-player format at some point, however; as Ludia’s suite of games such as Millionaire and Press Your Luck, and the recent You Don’t Know Jack Facebook game, show, there’s still a clamoring for good multi-player online options, and we know this team can do it, so I hope that’s in the cards (especially with new formats; most of what exists today are reboots or adaptations of previous formats). That said, I’m particularly excited about “Move Your Vowels,” and look forward to more from the Jam and Candy team.

42 thoughts on “Jam and Candy reunites the original Boxerjam team

  1. To this day I don’t understand why the owners of Boxerjam, strike a match, know it all and the rest did not take a poll to see how many players were wiling too pay a minimal monthly fee to have access to all their games. these fun games were a great form of entertainment for many of my older retired friends.Though I have never met them personally but only through the games we played on line, we had a great comaradie when competing in the games. It is a shame that this happened not only to fun loving people but also to the dedicated employees that lost their jobs. Hopefully with good management the games will return in the future and be better than before.

    • Boy do I miss BJ. For about 10 yrs I had the same routine every morning – get up play Boxerjam games, shower dress go to work. Going to go check out Jam and Candy. Yahoos games are just not doing it for me. I still play the daily jigsaw at Playtonium. What is really miss is the ability to compete against my own time or other’s. It’s more of a challenge than just playing a game to play.

  2. I sure hope some Boxerjam type games make it to the internet via desktop/laptop. I realize the world is now on the go but some of us are still stationary!

  3. I agree that many players hooked on the entertaining boxerjam games like out of order, strike a match, einsten etc etc would have signed up and paid for the games if only they had been offered the opportunity. To bad that mangement jumped the gun and never sought any input from the players. Doing this the company could still be on line.

  4. I have never received my money for playing the games on Boxerjam, I would love to have it back, keep the payment, just find another way too get it on microsoft, & soon. Ginny D.

  5. After all this time that Strike a match has been gone, I have not bothered to try to find anything better than my beloved SAM. Nothing else is even close to SAM. Sure wish that someone could get the game back online. sighhhhhh

  6. I went to play Strike-a-Match and just found out that Boxerjam is gone! I’m so upset, what a great game it was and I do hope someone else picks it up! My husband and I would play against each other in different rooms. Miss it so much!

  7. I love Boxerjam! I’m not interested in playing the all the online games friends forward to me to play. I want my Boxerjam – Strike A Match! Please bring it back!! Thanks.

    • I totally agree!!!! I am not interested in other games I’ve tried once SAM went down. I ONLY want Boxerjam’s Strike A Match. NOTHING else even comes close for me. I can’t believe that Someone can’t pick it up. Come on!!!!

  8. I agree, Please bring back Boxerjam games: Strike a Match and Out of Order!!!!
    I played them when I had aol.com and looked forward each morning to playing them both. We even had family night around the computer all joining in!

    • I miss Boxerjam also!!! I am totally surprised that someone hasn’t picked up the rights to it or at least closely copied it so that we, the faithful players, could have our games back. I have looked elsewhere and haven’t found anything even close to my favorite games. sigh, . . . . Please, please, please – someone get our games back!!!!

  9. I would love to see all the games come back! I sure miss playing it was my favorite thing to do when I had free time (and even when I didn’t lol)

  10. EVERYONE PRAY for the return of Strike a Match! or its successor. The more people pray the more God listens. I miss all my morning coffee friends! I used to say that SAM got my brain going in the morning. I learned a lot as well. It Took a longgggg time to figure out what to do with myself when it was gone. I’m sick to death of solitaire! Thank you Joshua for your blog. and to be fair, lets pray for the return of many other beloved Boxerjam games.
    I miss all my friends, hello to all, and I hope to see you soon!
    TLWLady also occasionally theWoman1

    • Candisse, the Kissin Kuzzins is a weak substitute for Strike a Match. While it’s fun, the programming and levels are so limited, and many people, myself included, would rather be subjected to advertising than pay for an app. If you still own the rights to the Strike a Match game, consider hiring someone to reprogram it for mobile platforms. I think you’re grossly underestimating it’s popularity and potential advertising revenue stream. Thanks for your consideration.

  11. Out of Order were our favorites too!!
    Is there a website or any way to download or pay for a way to get back on it to play!

  12. I miss all of the Boxerjam games, especially Strike A Match, Out of Order, Know It All and Mindstein. These games kept my brain alert, and my kids would perch beside me and race me to the answers! I also cannot believe that these games disappeared in that way. Clearly they had a following. I randomly check “Boxerjam” from time to time hoping they will magically reappear as suddenly as they vanished.

  13. I am so disappointed! After twenty years I can no longer play out of order, strike a match nor anything from puzzlezone. 🙁 Please turn these games into apps! I’d love to see them and play them on my phone! That’d be amazing. I miss playing them. Been playing them for about twenty years, or at least 10. lol.

  14. I still miss playing Napoleon on Boxerjam. I play Yahtzee with Friends but it’s not the same. I made so many friends through Napoleon which I started playing in the late 1990’s. It helped get me through the early months of my “empty house” when my youngest daughter went away to college.
    Wish there was some way that Napoleon could return.

  15. We used to play Out of Order as a family- all of us yelling at whomever was typing not to mess up. I would love for it to come back so I could do it now that I’m a parent!

  16. I am sooo totally surprised after all this time of Strike a Match being gone, that some one hasn’t been able to revive it. It was Very popular and sooo many have really missed it, like me. I haven’t found ANYTHING that I like better than SAM. My hubby and I could play it for hours.

Leave a Reply to candisse Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *