Who will win our Camp Overboard Kan Jam tournament?

It’s a beautiful day at Camp Overboard, so let’s do something completely different. Yes, Overboard is normally Polygon’s board (and digital board) game show, but today we’re going outside and playing a game using our entire body. Welcome to the first official Camp Overboard Kan Jam tournament!

For those who’ve never experienced the quintessential modern lawn game Kan Jam, think of it as frisbee golf with a generous seasoning of volleyball. The game consists of a frisbee and two plastic “kans” (which is essentially a moderately sized garbage can without a top or bottom). All you need to play is four people and an open space about the size of a tennis court.

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Teams of two compete to throw and smack frisbees into the titular kans. The players stand about 50 feet apart with a kan directly in front of them. During a turn, one player, the thrower, tosses the frisbee at the other player’s kan and is awarded points depending on how they hit the kan. The other player, known as the deflector, can assist the thrower by deflecting the frisbee into the kan. Here’s how the points are awarded:

• Dinger: 1 point is awarded when the deflector redirects a thrown frisbee into any side of the kan.
• Deuce: 2 points are awarded when the thrower hits the side of the kan without any assistance from the deflector.
• Bucket: 3 points are awarded when the deflector redirects the frisbee inside the kan.
• Instant win: A team wins immediately if the thrower lands the frisbee inside the kan without any assistance from the deflector. The other team does not get a final turn.

After throwing the frisbee and calculating any points, the roles are switched and the new thrower tosses the frisbee at the other player’s kan. Once both members of a team have thrown the frisbee, the opposing team swaps in, each taking a turn at throwing and deflecting.

Besides winning instantly with a killer frisbee throw, the game ends once a team reaches exactly 21 points. If a team goes over 21, the points awarded are deducted from their score instead. For example, if a team has 19 points and accidentally gets a bucket, their score is reduced to 16 points.

Though Kan Jam requires a little more athleticism than your average lawn game, it still has lots of built-in breaks and isn’t too hard to play while holding a cool drink in one hand (the mark of any serious lawn game). That’s not to say it’s a boring game: Kan Jam encourages stupendous saves, epic dunks, and surprise comebacks. Thanks to the possibility of an instant win, you’re never truly out of chances to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

We have four teams for you to root for in our tournament: the Amber Aye Aye’s, the Fuschia Fennec Foxes, the Pewter Pangolins, and the Cerulean Sables. You can find out who wins in the video above! If you enjoyed this episode of Camp Overboard, be sure to check out crafty RPG, and all the rest of our videos on our YouTube channel.