Leslie Scott (game designer) facts for kids

Leslie Scott was born on December 18, 1955, in Tanzania. She is a British game designer, author, and businesswoman. Leslie Scott is most famous for inventing the popular game Jenga. She turned a simple family game into a worldwide success. In 1986, she licensed Jenga to Hasbro, a big toy company. Leslie Scott has received many awards for her work, including the 2010 Wonder Women of Toys Inventor/Designer Award. She also won the 2012 Tagie Award for Excellence in Game Design.

Early Life and How Jenga Began

Leslie Scott grew up in East Africa and West Africa. She finished her schooling in England. Her family loved playing games together. Her father, Robert Scott, even designed many games and toys for Leslie and her three siblings.

One special game her family played in Ghana used wooden blocks. Her younger brother found these blocks as scraps from a sawmill nearby. They called this game Takoradi Bricks, named after a close port. In 1974, Leslie moved to Oxford and brought a set of these blocks with her. She taught the game to her friends, and it became very popular. This interest led her to turn the game into Jenga.

Starting Her Own Company

Working at Intel

After high school, Leslie Scott worked at Intel UK. She became the Marketing Communications Manager there. She also designed fun team-based puzzle games for Intel's international sales meetings. These games were very successful. Her job at Intel helped her realize she wanted to start her own business.

Creating the Game Jenga

Leslie Scott then started her own company, Leslie Scott Associates. It was a small company with just one product: the wooden block game. She had no business plan or experience in the toy industry. She borrowed money with her mother's help to get started.

Leslie grew up speaking Swahili. She decided to name the game "Jenga" from the Swahili word "kujenga," which means "to build." She wanted people to think of her game whenever they heard the word Jenga. Even though some distributors didn't like the name at first, she stuck with it. The name Jenga became well-known and loved.

She also wanted the game to feel special. Each of the 64 wooden blocks needed to be slightly different, like they were handmade. No two Jenga sets would be exactly the same. A carpenter suggested a special way to sand the wood. This made each block unique. Leslie showed her game, then called Jenga The Perpetual Challenge, at toy fairs in London in 1982 and 1983. But she didn't sell any games at these shows.

A few years later, an entrepreneur named Robert Grebler discovered the game. He bought the rights to Jenga. In 1985, he gave the worldwide rights to Pokonobe Associates. They then licensed the game to Irwin Toy in 1986. Irwin Toy didn't like the long name, Jenga The Perpetual Challenge. Leslie insisted on keeping "Jenga," so the name was shortened to just Jenga.

Irwin Toy launched Jenga at the Toronto Toy Fair. They even advertised it on TV as "the great game with the strange name." In 1986, the Irwin brothers licensed Jenga to Hasbro, Inc. This made Jenga a huge success around the world.

In 1991, Leslie Scott changed Leslie Scott Associates into Oxford Games Ltd. She partnered with her friend Sara Finch. This company has published over forty different games.

Working at Oxford University

Leslie Scott is a Senior Associate at Pembroke College, Oxford. She focuses on the idea of play there. She is also a founder trustee of The Smithsonian UK Charitable Trust.

Awards and Recognition

Leslie Scott has received several important awards. In 2010, she won the Wonder Women of Toys Inventor/Designer Award. In 2012, she received the Tagie award for Excellence in Game Design.

In 2020, Jenga was added to the National Toy Hall of Fame. This museum is at The Strong National Museum of Play.

Personal Life

Leslie Scott is married to Professor Fritz Vollrath. He is a zoologist at the University of Oxford. He is known for his studies on spiders. Leslie and Fritz have two children.

Games and Books by Leslie Scott

Games

• Jenga
• Ex Libris, a game about first lines and last words
• The Hieroglyphs Game, made for the Ashmolean Museum
• The Great Western Railway Game
• Anagrams, a game about juggling words
• Tabula, an old Roman game
• Bookworm, a game about reading and remembering

Books

Leslie Scott has also written books.