Blocks around the clock (Jenga)

Member Name: davidbuttery

Product:	Jenga
Date:	14/07/02 (238 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very simple to pick up, Makes lots of noise, Quick to play

Disadvantages: Flimsy plastic stacking guide

Ah, now here's a game that won't break the bank... but the table might not be so lucky! Jenga, like all the best party games, is very simple in concept but a great deal more difficult to play really well. You can pick it up for well under a tenner, so in terms of fun per pound it's difficult to beat. Okay, that's enough from cliché corner - for now anyway - so let's get on to discussing the game itself.

Jenga consists of 54 long thin pieces of wood (oh yes folks, I counted them), each about the size and shape of a chocolate bar (not so tasty, though). As they're wooden and not plastic, their shapes are not, quite, identical, and it is this that makes the game, as the order of placing the blocks becomes central to a player's chances of success. That, except for a highly flimsy clear plastic thingummy to help (or more usually hinder) you in building the tower, is that. Tower? Oh yes, knew I'd forgotten something. The object of the game, then. This is to build the tallest tower possible, or more accurately to get the person who goes after you to knock it down...

At the start of play, the pieces are piled up in 18 layers of three blocks, the layers being placed alternately lengthwise and at 90 degrees. This should give you a solid tower, although the average coffee table being what it is (at least in my house, ie covered in heaps of books), you might have a job stopping the thing collapsing before you start... make sure there's at least *some* stability there, though, because the stacker is the person who makes the first move - collapsing the tower on turn one is a very good way to become the target of amazingly "humorous" remarks for some considerable time to come...

So, to the play itself. The stacker (let's call him Jim) has the job of selecting a brick from the lower part of the tower and placing it on the top. You can take it from anywhere - a side brick or a centre one - and you c
an place it anywhere on the top so long as it is perpendicular to the previous layer. Laughably easy, you might well think. Ah, but there's a catch. Several catches, in fact. And here they are:

1) You are only allowed to use one hand to remove the brick. That means no holding up the tower with one hand while you yank out a recalcitrant block with t'other, and no pushing with one hand and pulling with the other to keep things steady.
2) The brick must be placed on the top layer at a 90-degree angle to the current top layer (if you follow me). If the tower would be steadier at a different angle or sticking out a bit, well that's just tough.
3) Once you've started pulling out a brick, you can't change your mind and try another one. It's do or die now, matey, and there ain't go going back here.

There are also a couple of "house rules" that I tend to add:

4) (I find this rule works very well): you are not allowed to touch the table during play. If it's a wobbly coffee-table, and you're likely to collapse the tower otherwise, then - again - tough.
5) (This is one I don't like so much, but it does seem to add to the tension): once you touch a piece, you cannot take your hand off it. This makes things really difficult, as it means you can't stop to see the tower's wobblings to help you decide whether to push or pull.

Okay, so let's assume that Jim Stacker has - somehow - achieved his goal of getting a block on the top without knocking the tower down. After the ironic cheering has dwindled away, play now passes to the next person on his left, whom I shall call Gary. Gary Player has to try to do the same thing as Jim - but Jim's extra brick on the top layer might well lead him with problems. What should he do? Go for the simple and straightforward, and just get his move out of the way as quickly as he can; or play aggressively by placing a brick in such a
way that the next player (let's call him George - because he's third...) is likely to knock the tower down? Such are the tactics of Jenga.

And so it goes on - all friends together, round and round we go - until the tower falls - upside down or side by side, it's on with the show. Whoever is responsible for the collapse is usually required to rebuild the tower for the next round. This is actually something of a chore, so it gives a nice incentive not to lose (quite apart from the possibility in some games of having to pay a "humorous" (quotes again, I see...) forfeit. On the other hand, they also get to make the first move next time around - which can often influence the course of the game quite a bit.

To be perfectly honest, though, this sort of deep contemplation and deep-thinking strategy is likely to be beyond a lot of Jenga enthusiasts. This is because it has acquired, especially in its rather more recent "giant" form, most commonly seen in pubs - it's out of reach of most individuals anyway at over £300 - a reputation as a game to enjoy after a drink... or seven. Of course, the alcohol will tend to make players play more aggressively, going for seemingly impossible balances - which generally turn out indeed to be just that. Perhaps the day will come when Jenga will have its own World Cup, and the police will have to deal with Jenga hooligan gangs - or perhaps anyone seen leaving Woolworths with a long thin box will be asked to "blow into this bag, please, sir"....

Bad points? Well, not many, though as I said earlier the plastic building guide is not at all sturdy. Having said that, the events of 11/9 have inevitably added a certain edge to the atmosphere of a game whose object is to force a tall tower to crash to the ground - anyone who claims never to have thought about this aspect of Jenga at all is probably deluding themselves. I certainly don't think that this makes the playing o
f Jenga in bad taste; merely that it's a point to ponder on occasionally.

To sum up: Jenga is a game which has caught on very widely, and deservedly so. It's suitable for anyone old enough to reach the top of a 30-storey tower - and pretty much everyone enjoys the moment when the whole edifice comes crashing down with an enormous racket - and it's so quick to play (ten or fifteen minutes is quite adequate unless there's a *lot* of kibitzing going on) that it can be brought out to liven up more or less any event when there's a lull in proceedings. And at the price, there really isn't any excuse not to add this fine, fun and above all *loud* game to your collection.

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