Jungle Speed

[jducoeur]

[Pardon the burblage -- I'm snowed-in for now, and not having her here to talk to is one of the harder bits.]

One of the rather scary highlights of Birkacon this year was accidentally discovering the game Jungle Speed. It's rather delightful in a violent sort of way: a party game for when everyone is keyed up. (And possibly somewhat drunk.) I commend the rules to you: it's quick and easy to learn, and is almost how we played it. (Except that, this being Birka, the civilized rules about how to conduct duels went out the window -- we had people conducting tickle fights, pulling each other across the table, and pretty much any other underhanded approach we could think of to win. Ryan McWhyte wound up particularly battered by the end of the evening.)

Anyway, I've ordered a copy, and will likely bring it to some appropriate gaming occasions. It's a fine addition to the set of "games that can be played by more than six people" collection...

Comments

[jducoeur]

I'm curious: what did you find broke down? For me (and most of the table I was playing at), it was very much a potato-chips game -- very hard to stop playing game after game of it...

[laurion]

Partly it broke down because the penalties seemed wildly disproportionate at times, partly that it stopped being an interesting challenge. A bit like playing set with the person who has been playing it already for 15 years. It seemed to have a very heavy luck element, especially when given the fact that not grabbing on a match is a far better option than accidentally grabbing when it isn't a match. And it might be the case that playing with only 3 players is a degenerate case, and that it works much better with a fuller table.

[jducoeur]

I suspect the latter. We were playing with six, which seemed about the right size, and it didn't get even remotely dull for a couple of hours...