ShiZap!, A Jenga Game That Randomly Shocks Players

Jenga: just thinking about playing it makes me anxious. Same goes for Operation. And combining those two games comes ShiZap!, a Jenga-style game that randomly shocks players via the pair of tweezers that you use to remove and replace blocks, potentially causing a topple. I can already close my eyes and see myself refusing to play when somebody suggests it at a party.

The game, developed by Amped Gamez and available on Amazon (affiliate link), is powered by three AAA lithium batteries and features a lighted base that plays ‘panic-inducing’ music and makes the plastic stacking blocks glow when the lights are out. There are also three selectable levels of shock: Zip, Zap, and ShiZap. Will getting shocked while playing on the highest level make you pee your pants? If it doesn’t I’d demand my money back if I were you.

Whoever knocks the tower over has to hold the tweezers for a full three seconds of shock as punishment for losing. Alternatively, flip the table and tell the rest of the group you never wanted to play in the first place. Remember: good sportsmanship is only easy when you win.

[via DudeIWantThat]

Jenga Master Stacks 518 Blocks on a Single Vertical Plank

When I play Jenga, I’m lucky to get maybe 10 levels high before the whole tower comes tumbling down and scattering pieces all over the floor. But there are some serious Jenga experts out there who can do much better. Take this guy going by the moniker “lamlei” who claims to have stacked more than 500 Jenga blocks all on top of a single block.

To top it off, they put a little chair on top of their creation. All it needs now is a LEGO minifig doing a handstand on top of that and I’ll consider it done. Honestly, I don’t think I could get three Jenga planks to stack on top of a single vertical plank, and this guy managed to do it with 518, which as far as Reddit is concerned, is a world record of some sort. Since Guinness probably didn’t have one of their judges standing in the room to authenticate the feat, they might have something different to say about that claim. I’m still mighty impressed, and you should be too.

I’d like to see how many pieces they could remove from the center of this structure and place back on top before it collapsed. After all, there are official Jenga rules to be followed, no?

[via reddit]

This Robot Will Beat You at Jenga

When not building robots that we kill us and take over the world, researchers at MIT are working on robots that will just demoralize us and make us feel like losers. For example, this specialized robot combines vision and touch to teach itself to play Jenga. In case you’ve been living under a rock all your life, Jenga is a game of stacked wooden blocks where you have to pull out blocks without making the tower collapse.

The robot has a soft-pronged gripper, a force-sensing wrist cuff, and an external camera that allows it to “see” and “feel” the tower and the individual blocks. It can push gently against a block as the visual and tactile feedback is assessed from the camera and cuff. These forces are compared to other measurements. It can learn in real-time if the block can be removed without making the tower collapse. There’s no way we can compete with that.

Researchers think this technology would be great for things like separating recyclable objects from a landfill, and assembling consumer products. Then they just laugh at how much this robot will kick your butt at Jenga. Really they are just using their big brains to mess with us and to point and laugh.

[via SlashGear]

Jenga might just save our oceans

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Yes, there’s a high chance it could! Experts estimate that discarded fishing nets make up for a staggering 10% of the plastic pollution in our oceans and there’s no denying that these things, literally designed to trap marine life, wreak havoc if not disposed of carefully. California based Bureo decided to turn potentially lethal waste into a resource by converting those fishing nets into plastic pellets that they could then use as a raw material. Originally started as a skateboard manufacturing company, Bureo partnered with Jenga to make their popular block-stacking game out of recycled plastic.

As a part of their Net Positiva programme in Chile, Bureo would set up multiple waste collection points to source their raw material, and each box of Jenga Ocean would comprise as much as 25 square feet of recycled netting. The Jenga pieces are made 100% from recycled fishing nets, and they even feature images of the marine life they’ve saved on the blocks! Who knew playing Jenga could be eco-friendly?!

Designer: Bureo for Jenga

BUY NOW

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BUY NOW

Sushi Stacker is Like Jenga, but with Raw Fish and Chopsticks

Do you like to play Jenga? How about spicy tuna and wasabi? Well, have I got something for you! Sushi Stacker is a fun new tabletop stacking game that comes with planks that look like sushi instead of blocks of wood.

While you can play the game just like Jenga, the set comes with ideas for nine different games, including some that include picking up the pieces with chopsticks, playing Shogi, using them as dominoes, and some sort of Russian roulette game that I don’t quite understand. But even if you just use these to play sushi Jenga, they should offer plenty of fun.

The set includes 48 sushi pieces – six pieces each in eight different styles, as well as pair of chopsticks. Sushi Stacker is available exclusively from Firebox at the moment, where you can grab it for $40. You could easily spend that much on a raw fish dinner, and it won’t last nearly as long.

iPhone Jenga Is the Most Expensive Jenga Tower Ever

The folks over at Unbox Therapy got an idea into their heads to play Jenga with a bunch of iPhone SEs. That phone costs at least $399 for each unit and their little Jenga game needed 108 of them. Do the math and that works out to over $43,000. That is one expensive game of Jenga.

For the game they unboxed all of the phones and then stacked them into a rough Jenga tower. I say rough because it lacks the smooth sides you expect in Jenga. To make the iPhones look more like Jenga pieces, they put dbrand bamboo skins on each of them to make them look like wood.

If you’re nervous that 40 grand worth of iPhones are about to land on the ground, you’ll have to watch the video to see how things turn out:

Now that the game is over, Unbox Therapy is giving away all of the phones in a contest. For your chance to win one, just follow the Unbox and dbrand instagram accounts. Winners will be posted here.

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