‘Max’ the test!

At first glance, Jenga Max looked like another of those best avoided extravagant re-makes of a classic, that retail for many times the original price. I’m glad I put prejudice aside, and took a closer look at this Parker Brothers marvel, now widely available in India courtesy Funskool. The tower of wooden bricks is for another time. Instead, we have a contemporary narrow transparent tower that fits snugly into a solid base. A cunning magnetic ring is the foundation of the construction ahead, and grips below the shiny red hub that caps the tower.
The 36 Jenga blocks are in moulded plastic. With wedges and holes that have far reaching implications on load bearing, balance, and construction ambition! At the start of play, three blocks are fixed on any of the eight grooves in the ring. Playing alternately, you then draw any colour brick from the community bays built into the base, and using one hand only, start construction.
As the Tricks & Tips section in the Rules leaflet helpfully explains, hooking blocks so that they hang straight down might seem like the safest way to go, but it’s the riskiest approach. As advised, we built up, out and zig-zagged. Building an arm up-and-over the hub, evoked a hard-to-describe feeling of satisfaction, much like I’d imagine a magnificent cantilevered structure would inspire in an architect!
The game is meant to be ruthlessly competitive, where a tower topple means instant loss. The collapse is ingenious and dramatic, with the magnetic ring coming unstuck from the hub because of incorrect load balance, and all the bricks crash down in a clatter of shame. But somewhere into my second go at Jenga Max, the competitive mood gave way to collaborating to build magnificent structures on each of the arms, and to keep the tower from falling!
To ‘max out’ is idiomatic ‘to collapse the tower by your hand’, and so the name, Jenga Max! To qualify as Jenga Max Master, you need to be the player that added the 36th brick on a single arm. That would be something! For `675, experience the magic of creation!

— The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com [1]