- What is the premise of this game? Summarize its objectives, goals, roles of the players.
– The premise of the game is to not be the one to knock down the tower of blocks. Each player on their turn must pull a block out of a stacked tower. The players want to try their best to make it more difficult for the opponent after them, so they they knock over the tower and not themselves. Everyone wins, there is only one loser.
- What physical objects are used in the game? What are their properties? What are their behaviors?
– Wooden blocks are used in the game stacked in a tower. They are wooden. They are just blocks.
- What are the relationships between those objects?
– They are stacked in a tower 3 horizontally, 3 vertically and so on.
- What type of information structures are present? Are these structures open, hidden, mixed, dynamic?
– The only information is structure is that the objective of the game is to take out a block and put it on top. This is an open structure since everyone is clear of the objective and the one job you have to do.
- What type of cybernetic feedback loop(s) are present?
- Negative feedback loops maintain balance (i.e. as you do better, it gets harder to win)
- Positive feedback loops amplify early gains/losses (i.e. doing well in the beginning of the game makes it easier to win)
– There is no positive feedback loop in Jenga because every turn is a new turn where you have to avoid being the one to knock the tower over. The only thing that can be considered a negative feedback loop is that every turn the game technically gets harder as the tower becomes more top-heavy.