February 8, 2010

The Making of Pegs and Jokers

 

A few months ago, a fellow woodworker who makes large furniture pieces, asked me to make a Pegs and Jokers game for one of his larger clients. I agreed and, because it would take a fair amount of time to design it, I decided to make four games which consisted of 32 pieces (paddles) of curly maple, walnut, and cherry hardwoods. One game was for the client, one was for my fellow woodworker, one was for me, and one was for sale (and sold fairly quickly). They were actually Marbles and Jokers games, where marbles are used to move instead of pegs. I ordered 8 sets of different colored marbles online and got to work. A week later they were done. I underestimated that they would take only two days. The designing and testing on scrap wood took the better part of a day. Another day was spent cutting test pieces to be sure the round mortise and tenons join together properly and they were the correct depth so they would not cut into the marble holders.

 

Problems with the original game

After all was said and done and I was playing a 6 player game, someone bumped the board and several marbles went flying. I then realized how much better pegs are anchored than marbles.

 

Another thing I considered to be a problem was the size. Each piece was 16" long which took an awful lot of floor space (the floor was the only place it would fit!).

 

Refining the design

I redesigned the paddles to use pegs and shrunk the pieces to 9". They fit very nicely on a coffee table (or a small card table) and the pegs stay put if someone bumps the paddles. A full 8 player game only takes about 20" of table space, yet we have found that it is comfortable to play. After all, Monopoly can have up to 8 players and is only about 15" square.

Buy our Pegs and Jokers game here

Game Rules

Here is a link to the Pegs and Jokers game rules

March 21, 2011

We've had several returns of our 9 inch Pegs and Jokers in the past few months. Although the size of the games were clear in the description, many people envisioned larger paddles. So, we've discontinued the 9" game and replaced it with a 12" version. If you need replacement parts for the 9" version, let us know and we'll see what we can do.