Lemons, Trawlers and a Bit of Alright

Up and down the United Kingdom, wherever game developers gather together in one place, people play a game called Lemon Joust. Its origins are shrouded in mystery; nobody knows who invented it or where it originally came from, but the rules are simple.

Each player gets one lemon and one wooden spoon, and must balance the former on the latter. They use their spoons to try and knock others’ lemons to the floor – but must do so without disturbing their own. Variants include having an extra spoon (the attack spoon), and having two spoons with two lemons. If you leave a pile of fruit and wooden spoons lying around at a game design conference, someone will know what to do.

Without warning and too fast for me to stop – yet somehow slowly enough to be comical – my lemon wobbles off my spoon and hits the floor. I’m at Bit of Alright, the unconventional London game design conference where physical games like this get an airing alongside their digital siblings.