Watch: We met the creator of Jenga
And we played Jenga with her!
Chris Bratt and I played a game of Jenga in the office the other day. Have you played it recently? It's amazing. The tension, the social aspects, even the spectator side of things is brilliant. As we played, everybody walking past stopped to watch, to cause trouble, to offer Jenga advice.
Jenga's an interesting game. A while back, for example, I read a memoir by the game's author, Leslie Scott, in which she reveals that each Jenga block is a slightly different size, which means that Jenga is procedural, in its own quiet way, and that each time you rebuild the tower, you're essentially shuffling the deck.
After reading her book, Chris and I travelled up to Oxford to meet Scott. We spent a lovely morning at her converted farmhouse learning the backstory of the game and even picking up a few tricks. The outcome of our day is the two videos below. Please enjoy!
(Also, yes, the beard is getting a bit out of control. I'd never seen it from that angle before.)
If you'd like to know more about Scott and her games, this episode of The Allusionist podcast is a brilliant place to start.
