Jenga
It's from 1983, before you were born.
- Maker
- Leslie Scott / Hasbro
- Type
- Dexterity game
- Debuted
- 1983
- Note
- 'Jenga' is Swahili for 'to build'
As an Amazon Associate, OlderThan earns from qualifying purchases.
About
As of 2026, it's 43 years old.
Jenga was created by Leslie Scott, who grew up in East Africa playing with a set of wooden blocks her family stacked and pulled — she named the 1983 game 'jenga' from the Swahili word for 'to build.' The premise is pure escalating dread: pull a block from the tower and place it on top, again and again, until someone's shaky hand brings the whole thing crashing down.
It's less a game than a communal anxiety machine, with everyone holding their breath as the tower leans at an impossible angle. The collapse is inevitable, loud, and somehow always the fault of whoever touched it last.
Wobbly, nerve-shredding, and inevitably catastrophic, Jenga is the wooden-block tower that turned 'don't breathe' into a party game.
