The Terrible Tower is essentially my personal modified giant Jenga set with drinking instructions, hilarious consequences, and a dark thematic design.

Giant Jenga has been a favorite pastime for my family and friends at parties and gatherings. Since I've never had my own set before, I wanted to make one for myself (I was sick of borrowing from other people). But like these things do, I ended up getting some pretty fun ideas.

I take no credit for adding drinking instructions to a Jenga game since the idea is far from new, but I wanted my set to look really cool.

So please...Join me in the following steps and see how I made this super fun, dastardly, twisted, destructible, rebuild-able, eerie, and completely modular set.........and become your own architect of suffering and misery!

Please drink responsibly. :)

Step 1: Design Inspiration and Graphic Design

When I started, I knew sharpie instructions just wouldn't do.

So I began researching. I decided text only instructions lacked character and motif for what could be a better play experience. So I chose to add an icon or illustration relating to the rule on the block.

I wanted the art to really capture the sinister maliciousness that would be sent to and fro around the circle of victims that I call my friends while playing this unfortunate silly game.

Albrecht Dürer was a popular German Renaissance printmaker who lived during a the 14th-15th century and much of his prints and linocuts have the similar dark, eerie, and sometimes unsettling artstyle that I was hoping to apply to my personal set. Heavy linework, dramatic use of lighting and shading, and motifs that depict biblical themes of violence, suffering, repentance, and duress really resonated with the feeling I got when thinking about a sinister, yet classical style for the set.

For my own needs, I was able to find a lot of similar resources online that I was able to download, scale, simplify, clean, and modify in photoshop to suit my needs. Many of the images needed to be white balanced and the contrast adjusted. Eventually, I brought each file into illustrator where I could vectorize the design for engraving.

Another source of inspiration were different designs and artwork found on Tarot cards used for cartomancy, fortune telling, and other occult practices.

For the text, I ended up using Baskerville Old Face as my typeface. The serif font reminded me of older printed materials with fables, stories with morals, and religious context and particularly unpleasant outcomes for those who break the rules.

I tested adding borders, baroque scrolling, ribbon banners, floral designs, and other motifs to help fill each block and frame my text and icons, however anything more than simple text and an icon created too much work for myself and crowded the design.

Step 2: Making the Blocks

There is a cornucopia of online resources for making a Giant Jenga sets and blocks elsewhere, but the construction of the blocks is simple.

Three 2x4's side by side make a width of 10 1/2", so each block should be 10 1/2" long. You need 54 blocks for a 'standard' set.

Once cut, each block will require sanding until smooth. I used a pad sander with 40 grit paper to clean the edges and later used a belt sander to further smooth. Follow up with 120 grit to help the blocks slide better. Sand until you no longer have a weekend anymore. Rinse and repeat until the blocks are smooth to touch.

Step 3: Lasering the Designs

I needed a way to take the designs and transfer them onto the wood blocks.

A laser cutter is helpful for this, but you could also try to transfer using other methods like ink transfer: Such as this instructable I found.

I was able to achieve high contrast engravings with the help of blue tape and spray paint to mask and fill the regions I wanted to color. You can do this by taping the block, engraving through the tape, spraying paint into the exposed wood, and removing/weeding the remaining tape.

Black paint on natural wood gave the best contrast and I used red strategically for some of the text.

Also, I chose to leave plenty of the blocks blank. It's less work and can lure players into a dangerous sense of complacency for more suspenseful gameplay!

Step 4: Waxing the Blocks

During testing, I found the blocks were still sticking despite all my sanding.

You can apply some paste floor wax and buff it to help add more slide. I used steel wool to rub the finish into the wood surface. For buffing, a paper towel works fine, but an old rag might be preferable to avoid caught fibers.

Just be careful not to fill the engraved areas with wax or caught fibers from buffing the finish. You'll never get it out. I figured the engraved areas wouldn't need wax since they're not contacting any surface anyway.

Doing this made a huge difference in the ease of play.

Step 5: The Storage Case / Play Base

Additionally I made a storage case for everything to provide for easier transport to parties and to provide a sturdy, flat surface to play on. I wanted it to look as sinister as possible.

I used 1/2" plywood and planned on the box having enough room to fit the blocks for the set with room to expand if I choose to make a few extras to swap in or out of the usable set. Everything was stained black and left unfinished.

Everything was glued and brad nailed together.

I stained some 1x4 and plywood pieces separately and added engraving art to decorate the case.

I used brass window sashes for the lid panel and added handles and casters (with brakes) to help with moving the set.

For extra flair, I chose to purchase some cast iron skull-shaped bottle openers and painted them to match the rest of the hardware. Classy.

If I were to do it again, I would make the lid lap over the sides to eliminate any seam that could interfere with the bottom blocks sliding. But it works for my needs.

Step 6: The Rules

The rules are like regular Jenga, except players can be told to drink (or make someone else drink), they can be punished for violating the rules of the blocks in the tower, and may suffer if they pull the skull block or lose the round by causing the tower to fall.

Drink

Just a typical swig from your beverage will do.

Punishment (disobeying house rules or any block with the verbage 'or Else')

Left up for the group to decide. Some ideas:

You down your drink and get another.
You lose a turn and must pull again or after the current player out of turn.
You become the bar maid and must take empties, replenish people's drinks, throw away caps, etc.
You pay a fine by donating to a charity for each offense.

Suffering (from knocking over the tower or pulling the skull)

Left up for the group to decide. Some ideas:

You take a shot.
You get to pay for the pizza and delivery!
You eat something (incredibly) spicy or unpleasant.
You pick someone in your contacts and the group dictates what to text them.

A lighter sipping drink is recommended since you may be sipping often. :)

All blocks should be face down when chosen and placed face down when making the tower.

Also in certain instances, you can find yourself drinking when another player does. Encourage them not to lose or incur any punishment (since you would share their fate!).

Rules.pdf
Download

Step 7: Time to Party!

If you've stayed with me this far, congratulations! All that remains is to unleash the misery of The Terrible Tower at the next family gathering, yard party, holiday reunion, Bar Mitzfa, birthday bash, memorial service, bachelor/bachelorette party, wedding, camping trip, class reunion, fraternity / sorority function, etc. So grab some friends, a cold brew, and let the terrible fun begin. :)

Thank you for your time and for reading this guide. I hope you enjoyed it and ask that you please consider voting for my instructable and telling your friends!

The remaining steps of this instructable are for additional accessories, add-ons, and other cool stuff I came up with later and made to make things more interesting. :)

Step 8: A Few Extra Blocks / Accessories

Three of the blocks I came up with have an accessory to accompany them! One of the blocks (The Falling Sand) has the player start a large sand timer. The sand timer will be used until the tower falls-ending the round. Anytime the sand runs out on someone's turn....they're punished and must restart the timer.

The sand timer was made from cut clear glass that I applied copper foil to and soldered together (I have some stained glass supplies) using plenty of liquid flux and a stained glass soldering iron. I needed to use some tape to hold the forms together until I could tack them at the corners. I did solder each half separately (leaving the bottom off of one of them) and soldered a square washer to the middle (for the hole). I soldered both halves together and started adding sand.

To test it, I added a bunch of black sand and started my phone timer. I stopped adding sand after I got it to run for about 3 1/2 minutes. I then was able to solder the top and check for any escaped granules-adding more solder where needed to help seal everything up.

I then made a wooden frame to surround the glass timer, stained it black, sealed it with polyurethane, and assembled it with wood screws.

The other two blocks I added go as a pair. One has a key and the other...a keyhole. The key is held in with some magnets and if a player can find the key, and also find the block with the keyhole.....they can escape the tower for the rest of the round!

I just used my router to make a recess for the key and drilled some holes to glue a few neodymium magnets. The keyhole was made using my drill and router to make a dummy keyhole for theatrics that the key can insert into. Perfect for photo ops.

Step 9: Big Dice, Big Consequences

I thought it would be fun to have the players determine their fate when they forget a rule or lose a round so I wrote up multiple consequences and made two jumbo wood dice from a piece of 4x4 I had. I chamfered the edges with my router, and stained the cubes black. The sides were laser engraved, cut into squares, painted/dyed, and tacked on to the dice. Red for punishments......gold for suffering.

I made an additional accessory for one of the punishments that I felt was on brand for the game - which is a set of literal wooden medieval wrist stocks for the player to wear while playing.

Made from a 2x4 that I cut half circles into, chamfered, stained, sealed with polyurethane, and engraved the game title / skull into using my laser and more tape/paint. I used a single hinge on one end, a hasp latch on the other, and found some decorative tacks for flavor. If you're not a sociopath (like me) and don't want to use an old padlock for the hasp, you can always use a carabiner to keep it closed.

Another fun accessory is The Well. I chose to use a Park Sherman liquor dispenser decanter that I found at a flea market. Everyone gets to 'poison the well' with a freshly opened beverage to create a junk shot.

Finally, I made a comically oversized bottle opener for when someone becomes The Bar Wench from rolling the punishment die and must take empties, get new drinks, dry them off, and open them at the beck and call of the other players.