J is for Junk Art

By Pretzel Games

Played this ages ago with some friends who received it as a gift. Years later I was still thinking about how much fun it was and since we didn't have a game for "J" -- The ONLY letter we couldn't fulfill with our original stash -- I went ahead and ordered it. I thought it would be a good game for playing with our kiddos when they are a bit more dexterous.

Players: 2-6

Time: 30 minutes

Ages: 8+

Theme: Modern Art

Mechanics: Dexterity (Stacking and Balancing)

This is like a super amped-up version of another well-known "J" game: Jenga. Only this one is way more fun and has more variety with 10 different scenarios to play in the 2-player base game. The premise of the game is that you, an aspiring artist, are traveling cities and making art. Out of junk. Junk art. That's it. Different cities change up the rules slightly:

• Whether you chose your pieces or your opponents choose your pieces
• Whether you each make separate works of art or you collaborate on a single piece
  
• Whether you get extra points for duplicate shapes or colors
• Whether you are eliminated when pieces fall or keep playing

Typically, the winner is the artist with the tallest tower (and they even include a cute little tape measure for close calls), but occasionally the winner is the last artist standing.

Even though the rules suggest you play only 3 scenarios per game, we just played all 10 of the standard scenarios in a row. I won 41 - 20!

We give Junk Art an 8/10. We had fun playing it and would suggest it to the right crowd, especially since we think it would be more fun with more players.