Jenga, the game that was born out of a family tradition 

There’s hardly anyone who doesn’t like playing Jenga. This simple game of stacking blocks, which tests your physical and mental abilities, gives you a unique experience. But have you ever thought who came up with this amusing game? It was Leslie Scott, who took a cue from a family game she played growing up.  

Origin of Jenga  
Jenga was invented and launched by British board game designer and author Leslie Scott in 1983. But how did she think of such a game? The game evolved within her family in the early 1970s when they used to play with wooden building blocks purchased from a sawmill in  Ghana. After several years of playing with the family, Scott decided to modify, name, and manufacture this highly-addictive party game. But why did she choose the name Jenga? Jenga has been derived from a Swahili word, kujenga that means 'to build'. Scott spent her childhood years in  Tanzania, where she was raised speaking English and Swahili, before moving to live in Ghana, West Africa. 

A year after, in 1984, Robert Grebler, an entrepreneur from California and the brother of a close friend of Scott, showed his interest in importing and distributing Jenga in Canada. The following year in 1985, he first acquired the exclusive rights to Jenga for US and Canada, followed by worldwide rights, which he in turn assigned to Pokonobe Associates, his company that he formed with two of his cousins. Pokonobe became the master licensee worldwide apart from the US where Hasbro took over the rights launching Jenga in 1987. Eventually, Hasbro also became a licensee for most countries around the world. 

Rules of the game  
You may very well know already, how the game is played but let us just put it down here for the nonplayers.  

The game consists of 54 wooden blocks. Each block is about 1.5 cm by 2.5 cm by 7.5 cm. The blocks are first stacked into a tower of 18 layers with each layer of three blocks. The blocks in each layer are all placed in the same direction, with their long sides touching each other. However, the blocks in one layer above are perpendicular to the ones in the layer immediately below.  

The game is started by the player who built the tower. Players take turns removing one block at a time from any level below the highest level, placing it horizontally on the topmost level of the tower. The player is allowed to use only one hand to move or place the block at any given time. He can also touch or feel the block to assess if it is movable but in case he doesn’t decide to move it further he has to bring it back to its original position.  

The game is over as soon as any portion of the tower collapses after the removal of a block or its new placement and the last player to successfully place the block in new position before the collapse is declared the winner. 

Jenga variations  
Of course, what fun a game is without any variations. Over the years, the game has seen many official variants. The variants include Throw n Go Jenga, Jenga Truth and Dare and Jenga Xtreme with some having different coloured blocks, some coming with rolling dice and some using parallelogram-shaped blocks that create some interesting leaning towers. 

Many licensed variations of the game also include Hello Kitty Jenga, Transformers Jenga, Tarzan Jenga, Super Mario Jenga, Fortnite Jenga, Harry Potter Jenga etc. to attract children of various age groups. The giant Jenga games Jenga XXL and Jenga Giant are also in distribution which can reach 5 feet or higher in play, with very similar rules.