About

The idea for Jibber Jabble was born out of a family vacation to Broken Bow, Oklahoma in May of 2020. The COVID pandemic had cancelled plans for a big trip to Europe, so the Sikes family was spending the weekend sequestered in the woods playing games. Around the campfire one afternoon, Cassie Sikes had the idea to play a “guess the secret word” game, but with an added twist inspired by an improv game she used to play as a kid. One family member would need to guess a secret word based on clue words provided by the rest of the family. Those clues would be spelled out one letter at a time without any communication as to what words were intended. 

One notable round included the secret word of “Cinderella”. One brother started a clue with the letter “S”, and Cassie immediately rattled off the letter “H”, overly-confident that they were going for the word “SHOE”. You know – because Cinderella lost her glass shoe? The rest of the family sat dumbfounded, and rather annoyed, because everyone else wanted to spell the word “SLIPPER”. It took a good 3 minutes before the next family member realized what she was going for and gave a disgruntled “O”. Cassie now admits that SLIPPER was a slightly better clue for Cinderella, but at the time she stubbornly argued that SHOE was pretty much the same thing. The yelling and pointing of fingers was quickly overshadowed by the laughter and it became clear that this game was a big hit. 

Over the next few months, Cassie would introduce the concept to a small handful of friends and family members. It was during a meal at Nashbird with friends from church that the name Jibber Jabble started to take shape. One friend, in trying to describe the game, later said something along the lines of “I loved that jibbling jabbling thing we played the other day!” (Thanks Kelly!) For the next year, the game was called Jibble Jabble – a slight variation from it’s current moniker. 

In September of 2020, Cassie and her brother Devin went to visit family in Houston. They spent time on the lake, enjoyed delicious food, and of course, played their new game. It was in the airport on the way home that Cassie decided she would try to make a rough design of the game and have a couple custom-copies printed. It wouldn’t be until 2022 that she decided to start selling the game to others. 

On November 14th, 2022 a shipment of 100 copies of Jibber Jabble arrived on Cassie’s doorstep. Her plan was to give some away to friends, and hopefully sell enough to break even. She didn’t necessarily care about making money (though admittedly that would be nice), she was just focused on sharing her game with others. Without a website or social media presence, the sales were mostly via word of mouth and started to slow down in early 2023. Eventually the first run sold out and another order of 250 was placed with a new design. But as it usually goes, life got busy and Jibber Jabble was put on the back-burner to collect dust in her closet. Still, the game had been a big hit with those who played, and she hoped she would one day have the time to pick it back up. 

Nearly two years after receiving that first shipment, Cassie decided it was time to really give it the ol’ college try. On the heels of a presidential election that was sure to drive people to social media, Cassie took to Facebook with a quickly put together ad for her game – officially launching the Jibber Jabble website. Her hopes of selling 30-50 copies by the end of the year were quickly outpaced as the orders started to pile in. She reached her goal in less than 24 hours. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and she had nearly sold out by the end of the year.  It was official, Jibber Jabble was going places. 

Fast forward to 2025. A new design for the game is in the works and Cassie is aiming to take Jibber Jabble to board game conventions, retail, and beyond. The mission is to share Jibber Jabble with the world – one deck, one customer, one letter at a time.