Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5661059" data-attributes="member: 8835">this reminds me of a concept James Ernest of CheapAss Games made about his designs.his games were made to be very random, but they granted a slight advantage to players who applied brains/skill.  But not overmuch.  In this way, the game outcome was still up in the air.Jenga is sort of like that.  As explained upthread, players underestimate their ability and over-estimate the difficulty of the game.    Players who have the confidence and steady hand have an easier time making pulls.When I play jenga, I always attack the bottom side pairs as often as I can, in order to make as many 1 block rows stacked as possible.  Just to increase the instability.I have also caught the tower as it was toppling and put it back right with 1 hand and then successfully made my pull.I have pulled a 1 block row by lifting the entire tower and kicking the piece I wanted out with my pinky, rotated the tower and reset it on the stack.But you don't need all that to play jenga and beat me.  While I am the least likely to knock the tower over, I bet statistically, my actual failure rate is maybe half what regular players have.and in Dread, it is in players advantage to work together to only pull center blocks and bring the tower to a dead end (26.333 rows = (54 blocks - 3 for top row)/2) +1.333)I like Jenga. Hence dread's appeal to me.  I will know tonight how Giant Jenga plays out.  Just finished the set I built today, and gifting it tonight at the birthday party.I will reply later with difficulty level comparison.  My theory is, giant jenga is easier.  If so, it might be a sufficient alternative.Question about the muscle tremor problem person.  Is the problem such that the hands shake with actual force (meaning if he rested them on a table or against a steady object would they transfer that energy) or is it a low power unsteadiness when the hands are suspended in the air?If the latter, once the person's hands make contact with the tower, that might be a steadying force, enough to make the pull.  if the former, then obviously that spasm is going to transfer in to the tower and make it knock over simply by trying to touch it.On regular jenga, some things to stabilize the arm/hand:anchor your elbow on the table, this reduces the about of arm that is likely to spasm.  Having your whole arm suspended in air is going to amplify any tremor caused by muscles firing.  next, anchor your pinky against a lower part of the tower, this againt gives your hand something relative to move against, further isolating spasms and giving you a better base to work from with your thumb and index finger to make the pull.  This pinky anchoring technique is also used by guitarists when they do lead work.  They put their pinky on their picking hand on the guitar (usually by a pickup), which steadies their hand as they play notes, rather than strum chords.</blockquote>

Verification