Suspend is a fun, simple yet challenging game in the same family as Pick Up Sticks or Jenga, except you don't pick up and you don't remove and stack. Instead, you hang. Players divide metal grooved rods with colorful rubber tips between each other and then take turns balancing them, creating an attractive Calder-style sculpture in the process. With each hang the player must be careful not to disrupt the balance of the swaying sculpture and send rods crashing to the table, otherwise they must add all of the fallen rods to their pile. The first player to get rid of all of their rods wins the game.
After a few games everyone in my family mastered the balancing act, making the game less challenging, until we realized we were playing it the easy way, allowing each rod to hang from two of its grooves (lying across two other rods) instead of one. Once we modified this rule the game became more challenging and impossible to outsmart. Suspend comes with beginner, intermediate (uses a die) and advanced (uses die and points) rules, making Suspend an entertaining game for both kids and adults.
