Two classic games: the arcade favorite Donkey Kong and the tried and true challenge of Jenga. You wouldn’t think at first that they would go together, but they actually do if you think about it. Donkey Kong is all about maneuvering through a teetering construction tower, and Jenga requires you make your wobbly tower as high as you can. So now you can do both in Donkey Kong Jenga. How high can you get?

Donkey Kong Jenga’s rules are little bit different than the normal game. Each of the four players has a little Mario playing piece (should’ve called him Jumpman), that climbs the tower. The edge of each Jenga block has a hole in it, and you stick the Mario pieces in them like pegs. I was worried that the Mario pieces wouldn’t fit in the holes right and would make it difficult to move them around and up the tower. But the pegs fit perfectly and wasn’t a problem for me. I read a few reviews on Amazon that said this was a problem, but I bet they fixed that in a different batch when they made more Donkey Kong Jengas. Maybe. I only figure it was that since Donkey Kong Jenga has actually been out a couple of years already, and I just now got it.

Anyway, to move your Mario pieces up the tower, you must first spin a spinner. The spinner is a little flimsy, though. It’s divided into sections that let you know if you need to remove one, two, or no blocks per turn. It also tells you how many spaces you can move your Mario up the tower. Ladders are one space, springboards are two, hammers are three, and barrels are zero. Whoever can make it to the top of the tower to save Pauline from Donkey Kong, or whoever is highest when the tower falls, wins. An added challenge is that whenever you remove a piece to put it on the top part of the tower, you must put the special Donkey Kong and Pauline piece on top of that. You can also strategically remove blocks to hinder other players’ progress, too.

So overall, DK Jenga is a pretty neat idea for classic game fans. I especially like how all the stickers are already on the pieces. Remember having to put the stickers on board games or model toys? I always hated that. I guess the only big problem with DK Jenga is that since the blocks are painted, they are a little rough at first and you’ll need to play the game a couple of times to break them in so they’re smoother. Plus, the black blocks are really easy to lose!

Any of you old timers like me remember when they made a board game out of every classic video game out there? Like Pac-Man, Q*bert, and Donkey Kong? They were all pretty crappy. I bet if Donkey Kong Jenga were released back then, it would’ve been a huge hit. Don’t you think so? In the comments section, tell me what YOUR favorite board game is. I think the kid in me likes “Hungry Hungry Hippos” the best, because it takes no skill to play, and makes a hellacious racket. But the adult in me favors Scattegories. I’m really good at it! Unfortunately, I’m not very good at Jenga at all!

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