The Fuzzies Review – When the Jenga Formula Goes Too Soft

Jenga is a near-perfect classic, a staple of family game nights everywhere. But it has one fatal flaw: the post-game cleanup. After the tower comes crashing down, you’re left chasing wooden blocks across the floor, then tediously restacking them for the next round. The Fuzzies steps in to solve this problem, replacing wooden bricks with something softer, fuzzier, and far less frustrating.

How to play

Gone are the long, rectangular blocks of Jenga. The Fuzzies introduces pompoms. Bright, fluffy balls that cling together through the magic of static electricity (or some other sort of wizardry). Setting up the game is as easy as pressing the pompoms into a cup, flipping it over, and removing the cup to reveal a precariously balanced tower.

From there, the gameplay follows familiar Jenga beats – you need to remove pompoms from the tower and place them on top. Only, before you do that, you draw a card that dictates which colour pompom you must remove from the tower and stack on top.

Failing to execute your move smoothly, you’ll face playful penalties on future turns, like using your non-dominant hand or having to attach your arm to your face like a makeshift elephant trunk.

The game continues with players carefully removing and stacking pompoms until 10 or more fuzzies fall from the tower, signalling the end of the game.

Removing the Wrong Piece

In Jenga, everything builds toward a single, dramatic moment: the crash. It’s loud, messy, and undeniably final. The sound alone announces to everyone nearby that someone has lost, while the rest of the players feel the release of knowing their turn will never come. It’s the kind of climactic payoff that defines the game.

The Fuzzies doesn’t always deliver that same sense of drama. Sometimes the tower collapses spectacularly, with pompoms scattering across the table like confetti. Other times, though, it fizzles. A small handful of fuzzies might fall – just enough to declare a loser – while the tower remains standing.

This can create awkward moments where a player gets stuck trying to restack fallen pompoms, only to have more tumble off. It becomes a frustrating loop that drags on instead of delivering excitement.

Even when The Fuzzies does end in a collapse, it lacks the impact of Jenga’s crashing blocks. Without that dramatic finish, the stakes feel lower, and so does the overall engagement. The Fuzzies ends up being a more relaxed, less intense game, that’s very quick to setup but it sacrifices the thrill that makes the original so memorable (and let’s face it: traumatising).

That said, it does offer one unique advantage: the towers you construct are often delightful, gravity-defying creations that seem to bend the rules of physics. Often leaving you with a sense of wonder that Jenga rarely matches.

Pet Owners Should Fear the Fuzzies

Pet owners should be wary, as while these fuzzies excel at sticking together, they’re even better at sticking to pet fur. After one unfortunate incident, where the tower collapsed on the floor, we spent a solid 5–10 minutes meticulously picking hair off the pompoms.

Days later, stray strands still occasionally resurfaced, clinging to the fuzzies like lovers unwilling to separate.

Otherwise, The Fuzzies is a commendable attempt to reinvent a classic. It deftly addresses Jenga’s main drawback, making setup quick and painless. However, in solving one problem, it loses some of the magic that made its predecessor so iconic. It’s a rare miss from CMYK who has published some of the best part games on the market (Monikers, Wavelength).