Jungo – Welcome to the Jungo!

Ladder climbing games have been around forever. But since Tichu reintroduced the mechanic to the modern age in 1991 and especially since the award-winning Scout burst on the scene six years ago, it seems these card-shedding games of rising stakes have truly stepped into the limelight.

Recently we reviewed Odin, a strategic take on this genre. Today we turn our eyes back to ladder-climbing. We’ll look at the delightfully illustrated and more family-focused entry from Happy Camper Games: Jungo. We’ll refer to our Odin review a few times here. It may be helpful to open it in a different tab or window to help you decide which game is best for you and your family.

Jungo is, as we said, a ladder-climbing game for 2-5 players age 8+. A game of Jungo can take as little as five minutes at two players, so we (and Happy Camper!) recommend playing in a best-of-three format.

Gameplay

Jungo is a small-box simple card game, and setup echoes that. Deal eight cards to each player (ten if you’re playing two players). Players may look at their hands, but they cannot rearrange their cards!

Whoever most recently ate a banana will start the game. They’ll begin by playing one or more cards from their hand. If it’s multiple cards, they must be the same number AND next to each other in the player’s hand.

Play continues to the player to their left, who can either play a higher number (one card), a higher set of numbers (multiple cards) or a higher count of cards (all the same number, but not necessarily higher than the previous card).

If the player cannot, they need to go to the Jungo! (draw a card).

They can insert this card anywhere in their hand, or discard it. If they get really lucky, though, they can Call for the Law of the Jungo! and use the new card to play a new winning combination on the table, following all normal play rules.

If a player plays a new card or set of cards to the table, they take the cards they beat from the center of the table. The player can insert these cards anywhere in their hand they like, even separating them. Or, they can just discard them.

As players play cards from their hand, the goal is to strategically keep some of the cards they beat to create stronger combinations to play later.

If play circles the table and returns to the player who played the active set of cards, discard those cards. That player plays a card or cards to begin a new round.

The first player to play all of their cards wins!

6-7?

Jungo includes eight double-number cards. These are cards that can be used for one of two different numbers. There is no six-seven card (sorry, kids) but there are two each of 1-2 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8 cards.

If another player picks up a double-number card, it becomes a double-card once again and can be reused as needed.

Impressions

We’ve played a lot of ladder-climbing games over the years from Scout to Ladder 29 to Velonimo and most recently, Odin.

Jungo is refreshing in the way it says “yes” to the player. It’s looser than some of the more strategic ladder-climbing games we’ve played in the past. This less strategic nature makes the game much more accessible for the less sophisticated gamer.

In fact, when playing ladder-climbing games together, Anitra often wins Odin. But I often win when we play Jungo. She tends to play too strategically, and I just plow ahead with my combinations.

That doesn’t make Jungo any less fun, though (especially for me). It’s just a different game with a different goal. If you’re familiar with our Room-To-Grow series on The Family Gamers Podcast, these games complement each other much like games do in that series.

Less experienced gamers will appreciate the way Jungo is light on restrictions while allowing enough flexibility through the double-numbered cards to create some truly interesting back-and-forth dynamics.

We did struggle with Jungo at two players. But in truth the ladder-climbing genre is better suited to larger groups of people. We love Jungo best at three or four.

Jungo is an entry-level ladder-climbing game with charming monkey-themed art that will draw in the entire family. In that way, it’s a perfect balance of presentation and complexity. I couldn’t more highly recommend it as a fun family activity around the dinner table.

You can get your own copy of Jungo directly from Happy Camper Games, on Amazon, or at your friendly local game store.

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Happy Camper Games provided the Family Gamers with a promotional copy of Jungo for this review.

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