Leaning tower game. Board game Jenga Boom (Tower)

The Leaning Tower, or Jenga as it is also called, is a popular and interesting board game for a group. It's not like the usual games. There are no chips or cards in it, but there are blocks of natural unpainted wood (birch).

Build a flat tower from the bars using a special corner included in the game set. Each row should have three bars, each subsequent row is folded in a direction transverse to the previous one. You will get 18 such rows! Turn the corner over and remove it. On the table there will be a tall, eighteen-story impregnable tower. Now players can go on an attack.

There can be as many participants in the battle as there are friends in your company. Each player chooses any level to attack and pulls out one of the bars with one hand! This block, which ends up in the player’s hands, is placed on the new, top floor of the structure. All actions are performed by the participant so that the tower of bars does not collapse! The culprit of the disaster is considered the loser! Sanctions can be applied to it, which the players consider fair; with this rule, the game will be more intense and longer. If you play without it, the game will be more dynamic. Choose the option that suits you. And if your company brings together dexterous, attentive and intelligent participants, the height of your tower can double!

In the end, if you get tired of playing, the blocks can be used as a set of cubes for a little builder, since they do not contain varnishes, dyes or stains, but are made from environmentally friendly Vyatka birch.

Equipment:

54 bars;
rules of the game.

Reviews for the board game The Leaning Tower

Alexander

Poor quality. Chips on the sides since opening the package (((

Answer: You may have received a defective game or it was damaged during transportation. We will definitely help resolve the issue.

The word "jenga" is the imperative form of "kujenga", which means "to build" in Swahili. What are they building in this game? Tower! Until she falls...

It would seem, what kind of game could there be with wooden blocks? Well, build something using it as a constructor, that’s probably all. However, the game developer, Leslie Scott, approached the issue of construction from a completely different angle. You will have to build wisely in Jenga. The idea of the game itself originated in the Leslie family in the early 1970s, and initially it used ordinary children's wooden blocks. Special play blocks were then made: each block was three times as long as it was wide and about half as tall as it was wide.

To reveal the intrigue of the tower, you need to familiarize yourself with the rules of the game. So, the game involves 54 wooden blocks. To start the game you need to build a tower 18 floors high. 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.

Once the tower is built, the game begins. Players have the right to move. The one who built the tower goes first. A move in Jenga consists of pulling one block from any level (except the one directly below the unfinished top one) of the tower. The pulled out block must be placed at the top of the tower so that it can be completed (you cannot build floors under an unfinished upper level). Only one hand is allowed to remove the block; the second hand can also be used, but you can only touch the tower with one hand at a time. The blocks can be pushed to find the one that fits loosest. Any moved block can be left in place and not continue to be removed if this will lead to the fall of the tower. The game has a lot of dynamics: the turn ends when the next player touches the tower, or when 10 seconds have passed, depending on which event happens first.

Using the tower from this game, experiments are carried out in physics lessons in US schools.

The end of the game is marked by the fall of the tower, that is, the fall of any block other than the one that the player is trying to place at the top of the tower in a given turn. The loser is the one whose move caused the tower to collapse. However, if only a few blocks have fallen, players can continue playing if they wish. Rest assured, your tower will fall very quickly the first time.

The rules seem simple, but it’s not without reason that the game has spread throughout the world over more than 30 years of its existence and won thousands of fans. Because Jenga is a game of manual dexterity, ingenuity and balance. Children can also build a tower. This game is especially useful for them, as motor skills are involved, the ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships is developed, and perseverance and accuracy are instilled. You can also play in teams, which will help merge an unfamiliar company.

Experienced players have developed more than one system: which bars to pull out in what order to win. But the general pattern is the same: it is better to pull out the blocks along the entire height of the tower, without concentrating on one of the parts.

Despite her British citizenship, Leslie Scott was born in East Africa and speaks both English and Swahili. That's why she gave her game such a catchy, unusual name for the ear.

In addition to the classic version, players have come up with many additional “chips” to diversify and complicate the game. Those who have achieved enchanting heights in tower construction write numbers on the side faces, take a die and move only the block whose number appears on the die. Others, for the sake of fun, depict tasks on the edges (such as playing forfeits), for example, “Tell a joke,” “Imagine a sad rabbit.” The player, moving any block, is obliged to complete the task inscribed on it.

Of course, the manufacturers, seeing such a passion, did not bypass the game with various “replicas” and variations. So, Jenga appeared with multi-colored blocks, a game with an increased number of blocks, a game in which the blocks are increased many times (the tower reaches one and a half meters!), and, of course, application games for all kinds of mobile devices: where blocks are pulled out one at a time finger movement.

The article was prepared based on materials

Jenga is an extremely popular, meditative and at the same time gambling game. During the process, players act with bated breath, and the loss is marked by the roar of a collapsed building.

Review

The board game Jenga, also known as Tower, is quite simple.

You need to build a tower from wooden blocks, and then pull the sticks out of the tower and put them on the top floor. The structure will become increasingly unstable until it collapses from careless movement or a blow of wind.

In its basic principle, it is a bit like playing spillikins (with miniature utensils) or Mikado (using wooden skewers). The game takes on average 5-10 minutes.

Who created

The game Jenga was invented by Tanzanian-born Englishwoman Leslie Scott in the early 1970s. Its ancestor was the game of blocks that Leslie played as a child. The word "jenga" comes from the Swahili verb "to build". The game is produced by one of the subsidiaries of the Hasbro company; replicas from the Igrotime company are popular in Russia.

From what age

You can play Jenga from the moment your fine motor skills have developed sufficiently. You can build a tower for the first time at the age of five, although it’s unlikely that an adult should compete with an impatient child.

What is in the box

In the package you will find:

54 wooden blocks, easy to remove. Their size is about 8 centimeters in length, the length and width have a ratio of 3:1. The original uses bamboo, while Russian replicas often use birch;

cardboard sleeve for building a level tower, also known as instructions.

Rules

In Jenga, the rules are clear to both a preschooler and a grandmother. It is necessary to build a tower from blocks with the inscription “jenga”, laying three bricks in a row, on them - three bricks perpendicularly. There are 18 floors in total.

Next, you need to pull out one block at a time from the body and arrange it at the very top so that the skyscraper stands. You can touch the tower, try it on, touch the bricks you are going to pull out, but only with one hand. The main thing is not to drop it. Dropped - lost. After each move you need to wait 10 seconds, and only then pass the move on.

Sometimes Jenga is played using a grid of 4 by 4 bars rather than 3 by 3. Then the process may result in a marvelously intricate design, the fall of which will be simply epoch-making.

There are other options for how to play the tower. For example, buy a set with numbers on the dice and take out not random blocks, but the one whose number appears on the dice.

Game mechanics

In Jenga, players have to demonstrate miracles of dexterity, precision of movements and fine motor skills. Knowledge of physics and the ability to see an object in volume and calculate balance will also be useful.

Tricks and secrets

The rules of the game describe only the general principle of action, but experienced players know that there are some subtleties:

There's no need to rush. The main thing is accuracy, so try on as much as you think is necessary;

Test how firmly the bricks sit. Some can be pulled out easily, some cannot. If the block doesn’t want to move, don’t pull it, otherwise you’ll almost certainly collapse everything;

Try to build the tower not higher, but more stable. This will make the game last longer. Or, on the contrary, make a shaky top, hoping that your opponent will not be able to repeat your trick;

If you push out the central blocks rather than the side ones, the chance of collapse is reduced.

The game is unpredictable because a mistake of a millimeter can cost you a victory. The original Jenga even keeps the exact dimensions of the wooden blocks a secret. Allegedly, each brick is slightly different from the other, so that there is no exact balance and it is impossible to choose a uniquely winning strategy. However, a banal production error gives the same effect.

The most intense moment

The most interesting thing begins when the tower is already quite skewed, and every movement can bring it down. Will this happen from the removed block, which, as it turned out, held everything on itself. Or the building will collapse when the player has already pulled out the brick, put it on the roof and exhaled with relief.

How to diversify the gameplay

When you get bored with having fun according to the basic rules, bring in fresh ideas. It will become more fun and difficult if:

Write numbers on the ends of the pieces of wood, throw the dice and pull the one that lands;
Write tasks on pieces of paper and take them before each move. For example, doing everything with your left hand or singing a song while doing it;
Tasks or questions can be written directly onto the bars;
Not to build on, but to dismantle the tower from below until there are so many holes in it that it collapses.

How to increase interest

Simply rearranging wooden blocks quickly becomes boring. The solution is to come up with a prize. For example, desire. Something big - like having to wash all the dishes after a party. Participants will fight with passion until the last brick!

How else to use

With young children, you can use Jenga as a construction set and build turret houses together, and then, optionally, remove the bricks as usual. The kids will be happy to work on the new building material (more than environmentally friendly).

Who lost

Ay-ya-ya-ay, the leaning tower has fallen! Who is guilty? Who wasn't careful enough? On whose turn did a fly fly past and the air vibrations cause a catastrophe? So he lost.

Additional materials

Playing the game Jenga is more than just stacking blocks on top of each other. This is a fun activity with a strong competitive element. In addition, it can always be diversified.

The secret of popularity

There are several secrets to the popularity of Jenga:

Very simple and clear rules, anyone can play it;
It does not require a special place other than a flat, hard surface - for example, the floor;
Despite the transience of each game, it drags on for hours;
Consists of environmentally friendly materials, the details are pleasant to the touch;
You can upgrade the set rather than buy a new one;
The best players are both the smartest and the luckiest.

The benefits of regular games of Tower

The construction tower is a great shared activity for both adults and children. And for a party too.

Parsing the block structure is good for concentration and fine motor skills. The player has to show everything he is capable of.

Building a tower helps develop spatial thinking. We learn to imagine what exactly we get if we remove a part from one position and move it to another.

Other advantages

Jenga is a very fun game. It’s simply impossible to tear yourself away - well, another five minutes, well, another game.

Everyone, young and old, can play Jenga. Which makes the desire to build a tower out of wooden blocks a universal family pastime.

The number of participants is not limited - although if there are many of them, it is not a fact that the move will reach everyone. But the one who gets the chance will certainly try to concentrate with the top piece in his hands and not succumb to the “encouraging” cries around like “Ruin it!”

The set is durable. Even if you have already played dozens of games, the appearance of the wooden parts will not change at all, they will not wrinkle or rub like cards.

The height of all the bars is slightly different. This is not a bug - it's a feature to make the game even more unpredictable and interesting.

There is a whole line of games for fans. For example, the one called “Django chairs”.

Be the last player to place a block without knocking down the tower.

Progress of the game

Using a piece of cardboard, build a tower by placing rows of 3 wooden blocks at right angles to each other.

Carefully place the cardboard corner vertically, then remove it so that the tower can stand on its own.

Start the game with the name of the participant who built the tower. Take turns removing one block at a time from anywhere in the tower but below the top floor, and placing them on top of the tower at right angles to the blocks directly below them. You can only use one hand.

Continue the game clockwise, removing one block each time. Always complete a full 3-block floor before starting the next one.

Winner

The last player who manages to remove a block from the tower structure without knocking it down wins. The player who knocks down the tower builds it for the next game!

54 wooden blocks

1 cardboard corner

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 to the simple rules of the game, 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 through 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 additional options for complication in the company, for example, alternating each move with your right and left hand to remove the 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.