Game with wooden blocks. Board game leaning tower

Board game Jenga Boom (Tower)

Hello, dear friends! Today I want to tell you about an extremely exciting and at the same time very simple game with wooden blocks.

It's called Jenga and has many varieties. The popularity of this board game all over the world is due not only simple rules games, but also many other advantages.

But more about this below.

My review of the board game Jenga

What is Jenga?

Jenga is a board game of skill and ingenuity. The standard set consists of 54 wooden blocks, not varnished or painted in any colors. Also included with each game set is a sleeve for building a tower and a booklet describing the rules of the game and various options for complicating or simplifying the gameplay. We had the version with 45 parts, but the game was no less fun!

Rules of the game "Jenga"

At the beginning of the game, participants build a tower using all the blocks in the set. This can be done independently or using a special sleeve, which allows you to make the structure as even and stable as possible. There are three bars on one level of the tower, and the parts of the next floor should lie perpendicular to the previous ones (crosswise)

After the tower is ready, players take turns removing blocks from any part of it and moving them to the top. The main requirement is that when the part is removed and installed at the very top, the building does not collapse. Also, in most versions of Jenga, it is necessary to remove the bars with one hand, no matter whether it is right or left. The goal of the game is to make the tower as tall as possible.

The participant whose actions caused the tower to collapse is considered the loser. The winnings are calculated based on the number of successful moves for each player: whoever has the most successfully moved bars wins.

Why is Jenga so popular and why do we like it?

Despite the simplest, if not primitive, rules of the game, Jenga can drag on for several hours. Reading the description, it seems that it’s easy to play, but as soon as you sit down at the table, your opinion changes dramatically.

Firstly, choosing the right block, the removal of which will not damage the tower, is not so easy, especially after other participants have already made more than one move.

Secondly, it is very difficult to carefully remove the part from the building - one wrong move, and the tower collapses.

Playing with wooden blocks develops qualities and skills such as:

fine motor skills (this is why it is useful to play Jenga with preschool children);
agility. You train this quality by trying to pull the block out of the structure as carefully as possible;
attentiveness;
spatial thinking;
ingenuity and logic. These skills are needed to correctly calculate which block can be removed from the tower without the threat of its collapse.

I would also note the following advantages of this board game:

fascination. It is very difficult to tear yourself away from an unfinished batch. And even after the tower collapsed because of some player, you want to immediately build it again and resume the game;
universality for all ages. This game will be interesting for both children from five to six years old, and adults up to retirement age;
no restrictions on the number of people. If most other board games can be played by no more than 6-8 participants, then in Jenga the number of players can exceed this number. Moreover, the more players take part, the more interesting the process becomes;
durability. Wooden blocks do not break, do not wrinkle or wear out, and therefore one set of games can serve the family for many years;
compact packaging sizes. Thanks to this, Jenga can be taken with you on trips or to visit.

True, you can’t play it on the road, since a wooden tower requires a stationary surface, such as a table or floor, to be stable.

Today, the rights to publish the game belong to various global companies, including Russian manufacturers. This will allow you to choose the right option for your family in terms of price and completeness.

Who created Jenga?

Do you know how this fascinating board game was born, and who became its creator? Even before 1983, no one knew about such a simple but brilliant game. But everything changed thanks to a woman from Britain named Leslie Scott.

As a board game designer in those years, Leslie decided to temporarily move away from the canons of complex role-playing and turn-based board games that were so popular in America and Britain. Wanting to create something as simple as possible, but at the same time very exciting, she remembered her childhood. Then her whole family enjoyed playing with simple wooden cubes, building towers and other structures from them. Leslie remembered how much she enjoyed this activity and decided that this process could be varied by extracting parts from the structure.

Initially, cubes were considered as parts for Jenga. But for variety and greater variability in the gameplay, it was decided to use rectangular blocks. Having released her creation to the market, Leslie did not even expect that it would be so popular. In the very first year, the entire circulation of the board game was sold out, and then companies who wanted to purchase the rights to publish the game reached out to its creator. Today it still continues to sell out in thousands of copies, and a new generation of preschoolers is developing fine motor skills for such an exciting activity as building a tower.

How to diversify the gameplay in Jenga

Despite all its fun, over time the standard version of the game Jenga can become a little boring for a friendly group. In this case, you can diversify your pastime by slightly changing or supplementing the rules. For example:

Playing Jenga with forfeits. Write different tasks on pieces of paper, for example, “Close your eyes” or “Tell a rhyme.” The player who has to get the block from the tower draws a forfeit, and during his turn completes the task.
Game until the last block. Here, players will not place the bars removed from the tower on the upper level of the structure, but will simply begin to pull parts out of it and put them next to them. Whoever managed to remove the most bars before the building completely collapsed won;
Jenga with numbers. The side edges of the bars can be marked with numbers from first to tenth or from first to twelfth. Now all you have to do is take the dice and roll them before your turn. Whichever number is dropped, under that number we remove the part from the tower. There are no bars available with the required number? It's sad, but you'll have to skip a turn.
You can also discuss it in the company additional options complications, for example, each move alternate the right and left hand for removing bars, and so on, as your imagination tells you.

As for the quality of this game, there are no complaints about the manufacturer. The bars are dense, smooth, and pleasant to hold in your hands. Plus they are very well polished, which means there is no risk of getting a splinter in your finger while playing.

Jenga is a fun, interesting and exciting game of dexterity, attentiveness and ingenuity. It will allow you to spend pleasant and useful time with your family, colleagues or a group of friends who appreciate such entertainment.

You can buy the Jenga board game using the button below in an excellent store without cheating or overpaying. You can engrave the box and write any name, for example, if the game is purchased as a gift.

Since time immemorial, man has had a passion for flying and other entertainment associated with being away from the earth's surface. Prudent nature did not provide for higher organism» wings, air bubbles, jet engines and other devices that allow one to overcome the force of gravity. In order to somehow realize our dream, we have to invent various devices that will bring us closer to the sky. One of them is towers. Today on the Pink Sofa is the tower-destroying board game “Tower with Forfeits”.

Having created soaring buildings that touch the clouds with their domes, inspired homo sapiens climbs onto the roof and looks triumphantly at the surroundings. Some representatives of the human race use these useless buildings for experiments, dropping cannonballs on the heads of passing comrades and deducing wise formulas. Unfortunately for architects, towers have a tendency to fall, but they do so gracefully and slowly to the admiring glances of those around them. In a word, towers have become an integral part of our lives, so everyone should be able to build them. This is what we will do today.

It is not known for certain who was the first to come up with the idea of cutting the trunk of a century-old oak tree into small pieces and building a tower from them. From time immemorial, children have been building houses from cubes, pebbles and blocks, but the practical Leslie Scott decided to patent this method construction, added simple rules to it and invited Hasbro to publish a game called “Jenga”. Everything ingenious is simple, and millions of players around the world have been building towers from wooden blocks for more than 30 years.

And the blocks in my box turned out to be great - polished, smelling like real wood, without knots or potholes. 54 pieces, one to one. Beauty! Lighting a stove is a nice thing, a compact cubic meter of wood for a compact fireplace ( oh, what am I talking about...)

Some rectangles have inscriptions that instruct you to perform some action. Since the version is for children, then... adults can easily cope with the tasks. “Depict a mouse looking for cheese” - no problem! I have three of these mice, and everyone is looking for cheese at night, as well as other goodies in the kitchen...

Let the fires fly!

Cool woodpile... For the game, all the tiles are mixed and placed in tiers, criss-crossing 3x3 blocks. It is better to build this structure on a horizontal (if you find it in our houses) surface, but I managed to build the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” even on my sofa - the structure is quite stable.

Try to ensure that the bars lie flat. The fact is that they will have to be pulled out and placed on top of the assembled base. It looks something like this...

Opponents take turns pushing one block from any floor with one hand and placing it on top of the structure (holding the structure is prohibited). This maneuver must be performed very carefully, as the building gradually turns into a termite mound eaten away by tunnels.

This cannot go on forever; the tower leans dangerously, rivaling its famous Italian brother, and falls with a roar to the joyful cries of those around. Actually, whoever is the “hero of the occasion” collects a mountain of blocks and packs them in a box. If you think this is easy to do, then... then you know the super secret of Jenga packaging! Otherwise, give your friends a lot of positive emotions.

It remains to be mentioned that the one who pulls out the block with the “magic order” is obliged to fulfill it. If you refuse, shame on you forever and ever...

Why are you standing there swinging, Jenga from China...

As a child I great benefit spent part of the summer with his grandmother, gaining invaluable life experience: climbing through neighbors' orchards for apples, gorging himself on someone's raspberries, running from an evil collective farm watchman and jumping on the roofs of garages (nowadays this is called the fashionable word parkour). And my friends and I had a game called “Izbushka” (I don’t know what it’s called in the original). Take a box of matches and use them to assemble a kind of well with overlapping 4x4 sticks. Then we carefully pulled out the matches and placed them on top of the “house”.

Whoever brought down the hut ran to the orchard for apples. Who would have thought that we were playing the family game of the respected Leslie Scott. And if you remember the towers made of plastic cubes, which I made when I was 3-4 years old in a similar way (there were few cubes, so I made the base, and then rearranged the blocks from bottom to top), then I full right I can say that I, too, have a similar “family game passed down from generation to generation”...

But seriously, the game is excellent, and at the same time simple to the point of absurdity: a handful of blocks, basic rules and funny tasks. There are no age restrictions for this game; if you have overcome the age of “what I see is what I eat,” then feel free to pick up the blocks and build your own tower. You will need dexterity and a lot of luck - sometimes the bars line up in such an intricate pyramid that, looking at the construction, you involuntarily question the fundamental laws of physics.

When purchasing, pay attention to the quality of the bars - they must be perfectly polished, since the slightest knot will “pull” the entire building along with it. There is nothing to complain about in my copy - Neskuchnye Igry has a production of wooden parts high level... I was pleasantly surprised by the “bonus” in the form of tasks burned on the blocks - it’s definitely more fun to play. People of royal blood, of course, can ignore the inscriptions and simply rearrange the bars meaningfully - but according to their status, they are not supposed to have fun...

The game was provided for review by the online store " ABC Science", a wide range of which will allow you to choose an interesting model for both children and adults.

Board game Jenga (Tower) and its variations

History of appearance

The familiar “Jenga” was invented by British board game designer Leslie Scott three decades ago. According to the author, it was created in the image and likeness of the game at which the entire Scott couple spent their evenings in the distant seventies. Only then, instead of elongated wooden blocks, elements of the Takoradi children's construction set, brought from Ghana, were used. Based on the same African fun, another game was created called “Ta-Ka-Radi”, very similar to “Jenga”. It appeared on the American market several years earlier, but did not achieve such deafening popularity as Jenga.

The game has a rather exotic name. "Jenga" is a Swahili dictionary word meaning "to build." The game's author, Leslie Scott, is of British descent, but she was born in Tanzania and spent her entire childhood in Africa. Therefore, Leslie decided to pay tribute to her second native language by christening her new brainchild with a name so unusual for Europeans.

Kit Contents

The original Jenga consists of 54 oblong wooden blocks. The surface of each block is carefully sanded, but not covered with varnish or paint. This increases friction between structural elements and prevents the tower from falling apart. The dimensions of the block of the classic version of the game are 1.5x2.5x7.5 cm.

With the growing popularity of Jenga, many of its “remakes” have appeared on the market, the dimensions of the elements of which may differ from the ancestor, but the aspect ratio of the blocks is mostly preserved.

"Ta-Ka-Radi" vs. "Jenga"

The two games are very similar, but have some significant differences. Ta-Ka-Radi uses only 51 rectangular blocks. As a result, the original tower is one floor lower than in Jenga, but the height of the structure is greater. The most important difference is how the bars should be placed. In “Ta-Ka-Radi” the blocks are installed on the short side of the section with significant gaps between the elements of the same row. At the same time, in Jenga, the bars lie close to each other on the long side of the section.

If “Jenga” comes in paper packaging, then “Ta-Ka-Radi” is sold in a fabric bag made of natural cloth with a print. The manufacturer also offers a choice of several types of fabrics from which the bag can be made, all colors in the spirit of Africa.

Preparing for the game

Before the start of the round, the starting tower must be level. You can level it using the box from the game itself. Some Jenga sets come with a special plastic corner that acts as a kind of level. Initially, our building has 18 “floors” of 3 blocks each. The bars are laid on the long side. All elements must fit tightly to each other. In this case, the bars of each subsequent row are located perpendicular to the blocks of the previous one.

Rules and gameplay

Jenga is designed for two or more players. The principles of the game are very simple: each participant takes out one block from an already standing structure and places it perpendicular to the previous row. At the same time, the “penthouse” tier, preceding the unfinished one, remains untouchable. Also, you cannot start laying blocks in new level, leaving the top "floor" unfinished.

You can only pull the block out of the tower with one hand. You are first allowed to touch the elements and tap the ends of the bars, checking which of them is the most pliable. If something moves out of place, the player must return all affected blocks to their original position before the end of his turn.

All participants take turns taking turns. The turn ends when the next player touches the tower or ten seconds after placing the pulled out block.

Nature of the game

The game trains motor skills and analytical skills well. At the same time, it does not require participants to develop strategy and mental stress, so the gameplay is a relaxed, fun pastime.

Varieties of the game

On modern market There are a great variety of Jenga board games: from small portable versions with tiny bars to huge copies that serve more of an advertising role than serve their direct purpose. Such a “tower boom” among board game manufacturers was undoubtedly due to the popularity that the game found among fans of such games. According to the creator of the classic version of Jenga, about 50 million copies have been sold worldwide original game.

"Jenga: Throw and Go" (Throw "n Go Jenga)- a game resulting from the fusion of good old Jenga and gaming dice. The elements of the classic set are colored in three various colors. The dice are marked with colors and words that indicate where exactly the block should be pulled from (middle, top, bottom of the tower), as well as exactly how many blocks need to be pulled in one move. For example, after the first roll, you get the words “any two” on the top face of the die. This means that you will have to “fight” with two bars, and not with one.

Throw the die again, and the top one turns out to be a crimson side with the word “beginning”, which means that the first element is crimson, and it is located at the base of the structure. Next, you roll the dice and get the word “middle” on a black background - you pull out a black block from the middle of the tower.

Jenga Truth or Dare. The set consists of the usual number of blocks, two-thirds of which are painted orange and purple (colors may vary in different editions of the game). Orange bars are desires, purple bars are questions. In this case, one third of the game elements remain uncolored. It is on these pristine bars that players are invited to write own desires or questions. Then the game acquires individual characteristics and becomes one of a kind. Overall, this variation is quite fun and aims to get participants talking, and the gameplay is generously filled with fiction and eccentricity. Due to its nature, it is intended for players over 12 years of age. Nevertheless, many rightfully note that this variety of Jenga is not suitable for children. The desires and questions proposed by the creators cannot be called crystal innocent. On the one hand, you may only be required to sing a song or describe one of the participants and games (why not?). There are also more amusing statements, such as “sensual dance with a mop” and other similar inventions. The questions are tricky ones with a touch of the now popular “American humor.”

More suitable for children Jenga Girl Talk Edition- a much more harmless edition of the game. The blocks are painted pink and crimson and, just like in the previous version, are covered with questions. This kind of thing could once be seen in children’s notebooks and questionnaires, which were then filled out by friends and classmates. Here you will find traditional questions: “What is your deepest desire?” or the more modern “Name your favorite website.”

Jenga Extreme. The game elements are not a rectangular parallelepiped, but a parallelogram. This adds gameplay a certain extreme and makes it possible to build tilted towers of absolutely bizarre shapes.

"Jenga: Las Vegas Casino" (Las Vegas Casino Jenga)- a completely unexpected combination of two completely different games: Jenga and roulette! As the tower is built, players place bets. The set consists of 54 numbered blocks in red and black, playing field for bets and 75 chips. Recommended for players 18 years and older.

"Jenga" XXL- an enlarged version of the classic Jenga (although there are also much larger copies of the game). The size of each block is approximately 45x22.5x7.5 cm. The set includes 50 elements (48 directly for the game and 2 “in reserve”). All blocks are made not of sanded wood, but of painted plywood, so that when they fall, the structure will not kill players. The original tower is 120 cm high and can theoretically grow to three and a half meters during the game! This version of Jenga is especially good for playing on fresh air, it goes with a bang as a fun accompaniment to a barbecue.

We briefly talked about only some of the varieties of this simple board game. There are also special editions of it. Special attention deserves Jenga Nigthmare before Christmas- a game designed in the spirit of a popular cartoon that appeared on screens more than twenty years ago. The blocks are colored black, purple and orange colors. Each of them bears images of ghosts, funny, sad, cunning faces of Jack Skelington and, of course, the name of the cartoon with its signature “Halloween” font.

In addition, there are many board games created based on Jenga. Some retain the rules of the original game, but the elements themselves are significantly modified. In particular, the snow-white set looks very interesting Jenga Stack The Bones with blocks in the form of bones and a skull crowning the tower. Such a set can become not only your favorite game, but also an original interior decoration, which will also serve as a wonderful gift for lovers of various strange things. There are also similar sets with more peaceful themes: with cats, bunnies, carrots, and so on.

As you can see, the good old Jenga does not stand still, but develops in accordance with the desires of modern users. The market is full of various options long-loved board game, among which you will definitely find the best “Tower” for yourself.

Oh no! I dropped the tower again!

You strong nerves? No? Pass by. Are your hands shaking? Also past, next one! But if you have a steady hand and nerves of steel, this seemingly simple game is for you.

Jenga, also known by the names Town(Russia), Leaning Tower of Pisa(Europe), Earthquake(Brazil), Brick house(Denmark stood out among other European countries with its original name).

Rules are simple, one might say there are almost none.

First, a flat, beautiful tower of 18 floors is built. During the game it can more than double. Do you have high enough ceilings? Each floor consists of three blocks placed closely and parallel to each other. The blocks of each next floor are placed perpendicular to the blocks of the previous floor

Jenga. Your little Leaning Tower of Pisa

Jenga. Your little Leaning Tower of Pisa

According to traditional rules, you can touch the tower with only one hand at any time.

The game continues until the tower falls. I think this will happen quite quickly in the first games.

Now everything is also simple - the one who dropped the tower lost, the one who made the previous move won.

That's it, let's build the tower again so that it can be beautifully destroyed again!

Do you think there is little dynamics in the game? Play others non-classical Jenga variants:

- Jenga with cubes: More dice will be needed, and the blocks will need to be numbered. Before each block, we roll the dice and take out only the block with the corresponding number.

- Jenga forfeits: on the blocks we are already writing various tasks that correspond to your company and party, from “sing a song” and “tell a rhyme”, to romantic evening ones - “kiss on the lips” (here you can safely turn to Captain Obviousness and Fanta-flirting for ideas. Shkolota, shoo out of the post!). You are limited only by your imagination.

- colorful jenga: we paint the blocks in different colors and play the same way with cubes or any other rules you come up with for pulling out blocks

Jenga can always be with you, and you don't need all those 54 pretty wooden blocks, the game is available for mobile phones- java game, game for iPhone. I just haven’t found one for Android yet, I’ll be grateful for help in finding it.

Here are the hero games of our review today. Let's start playing by seniority in The Mikado and Jenga.

But closer to the point...

How to play Jenga?

The meaning of the game

Our task is to build a tower out of blocks, and then carefully pull one block at a time from the base and move it to the top. The game continues until the tower collapses. The one who caused the fall of the tower is given a punishment. For example, let him build a tower for the next round. If your building blocks are of different colors (this happens, they can be different in texture or color), then the game can develop according to several scenarios.

Scenario #1

This is a lightweight version of the game to “shoot” and get acquainted with Jenga. We are building a tower of 16 floors, as shown in the figure above. Consider that the game has already begun, since building a high-rise building is like putting together a construction set. Then, one by one, we pull any block we like and place it on the top of the tower. We continue until complete collapse.

Scenario #2

Events develop in the same way as in Scenarios No. 2. This is where the dice comes into play. We've built a tower, then we roll the dice. Whichever pattern appears is the one you drag. Each time the tower becomes more and more unstable, it is not even an hour, and it will crumble like a house of cards.

Scenario #3

Let's complicate the game. Let's say we have 2 players. Distribute the cubes between them. One player is allowed to drag blocks only with a panda and a giraffe, and the second - with a cheetah and a zebra. Blocks without a pattern remain spare. They can be pulled out by both players, but only in hopeless situations. Here you will have to think carefully))

Scenario #4 - Domino effect

We arrange the blocks vertically in a row at a distance of several centimeters. Then, with one movement of the finger, we push the last block, and the entire row falls together one after another. It makes the kids a lot of fun))

Scenario No. 4 - Large construction site

Building incredible structures from Jenga blocks is almost an art. Our customers are so carried away that they purchase a second set of parts. Take a look...

And this building seems like a light cobweb. Blow and it will fall down, but no, it’s worth it....

From Jenga, of course, it’s hard to tear yourself away))) But he’s already languishing in the queue Mikado, no less interesting game. So let's move on.

Japanese tranquility with Mikado

Mikado- antique Japanese game, somewhat similar to our spillikins. Does not tolerate fuss and sudden movements. You need to play thoughtfully, slowly, smoothly pulling sticks from the general pile. Such finger movements are excellent for developing fine motor skills in people of any age.

How to play Mikado?

The essence of the game

Place a handful of sticks freely on the table or floor. Then you try to pull out the stick without hitting the neighboring ones. If you hit it, the turn goes to another player. If the “operation” was successful, the move is yours. The whole trick is that the sticks have different values, and the player who gets larger number points.

Chopstick cost table
Spirals (“Mikado”) 1 *20 points 20 points
2 blue rings + 3 red rings (“Mandarin”) 5 *10 points 50 points
1 red ring + 2 blue rings 5 *5 points 25 points
1 red ring + 1 blue ring + 1 yellow ring 15 *3 points 45 points
1 red ring + 1 blue ring 15 *2 points 30 points

If you pulled out the Mandarin or Mikado sticks, you can use those to pull out the rest.

Options for playing Mikado

1. Righty-Lefty- make the game more difficult for yourself. If you are right-handed, try pulling out the sticks with your left hand, and if you are left-handed, try pulling out the sticks with your right

2. Counting sticks- use Mikado sticks as counting material

3. Mikado in the ring- you will need a ring that will fit tightly around the sticks. This could be a ring from a pyramid, a not too tight hair tie, etc. Fold the sticks into a tube, then turn them, as if you were wringing out laundry.

Place the sticks in the ring and place them on a flat, smooth surface. Now this hut needs to be dismantled. Take the sticks out of the structure one by one. Whoever destroys the hut is the loser.

Mikado is so popular that a “garden” version of it has even been invented for playing outside. You need to play with giant sticks 90 cm long (!) Try to pull out such a stick)))

These are the “thinking” games of skill. Not only your fingers, but also your brain cells become dexterous. Enjoy playing!
Olga Polovinkina