Jelly Jumble

What is it

Jelly Jumble is a StoryToys app aimed at 5-8 year olds encouraging matching skills and with an engaging underlying story written and narrated by BAFTA winning writer Myles McLeod and beautifully designed by illustrator Evgenia Golubeva. The app has no in-app purchases too so parents do not have to worry about extra costs.

Join Soran and Oliver on an amazing matching adventure through their enchanted world. Poor Oliver has been sent to stay with his rather dreadful Aunt Pru. Luckily for him, he meets Soran – A big, blue, cuddly Monster that likes to make magical jams and jelly!

The aim is for young players to help Soran and Oliver match the items to make the jams. There are over 14 chapters with easy and harder levels to keep children engaged and 24 bonus levels to unlock.

Tested on an iPad

What our experts think

Such a lovely game! The children really enjoyed Jelly Jumble during testing and it was sufficiently challenging for 6-8 year olds that it helped them to develop cognitive skills. The child needed to understand what was required at each level from clear, written instructions (like collect 5 cupcakes) and could either play purely with this aim in mind or more strategically (such as to get a higher score or intentionally matching other items to lead to bigger chains of the item they were trying to collect).
The game also became progressively more difficult. This meant that it continued to appeal to older children whilst being achievable (with a little help at first) and fun for children as young as 5 and 6 year olds.
We were delighted to see Oliver’s story continuing and breaking up the game play. This provides context and additional interest as well as helping children to see they are progressing. It also offers natural times to stop playing which we always like to see!
In addition, we were pleased to see the hand and voiceover provide a few helpful hints

It would be even better if...

We would love to see a few more hints and tips for younger users such as reading out what is required (e.g. collect 5 cupcakes) if there is a pause even once they have started and providing the instructions again (e.g. showing the hand collecting 3 items) if they pause for a reasonable length of time.