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So you get this cotton bag, see, one that looks like it pimps out other cotton bags for living. Then you get a deck of square cards with some weirdo symbols on them. And you get a wooden whatchamacallit.. the totem that almost, but not quite, resembles two wooden stamps glued together after the actual stamping parts got cut off.
How do you play it you ask? Well everyone gets a portion of the deck, and then each player in turn draws and turns a top card from his deck. Whenever the symbols match, it's a "duel", and those players try to grab the totem. Whoever manages to grab it wins the duel and gives his discarded cards to the other guy. If someone grabs the totem in error mistakenly thinking the cards match, or drops the totem, or does anything unsavory - he commits a "foul" and gets to pick up ALL the discards from the table.
Aaand, that's kinda it. So can it get any more stupid?
When I got this game as a gift I genuinely felt bad for the person who gave it to me. I felt like awww.. she knows I'm into boardgames so she tried to give me something she felt I'd like, but some evil shopkeeper duped her into buying this ridiculous children's game.. if you can call this a "game" at all. A "toy" more likely. A pretty stupid toy at that. And it's not enough she wasted money on the game, she even got me the expansion. Expansion? For this crap?
(EJKemp)
Then she insisted we actually try it out, even though I did my best to save her the utter embarrassment of realizing how utterly silly and awful the gift she gave me was. And then... it was three hours later, well after midnight, and we were still playing the damn thing. And I couldn't remember when was the last time I've had that much time with an..ahem.. a boardgame.
Why does this silly thing work so well? Well first of all, it's so brilliantly designed it's borderline devilish. You see, the symbols are just similar enough to be constantly giving you a brain-freeze. Especially when you throw in extra cards from the expansion. Just look at this example:
(Terraliptar)
See what you have to put up with? Not only do you need to be constantly looking in six different directions to see if your card matches with another one somewhere, the sense of urgency is combined with constant panic that even if it totally seems the cards match, they might be just slightly different and if you grab the totem you will get to fatten your deck with tons and tons of cards.. and get laughed at. A lot. But then again you will never win if you never grab the totem when cards DO match, so you take just one more look to make sure and YES THEY DO MATCH NOW LET ME GRAB TH.. and the other guy grabs it. Damn him.
But it doesn't and here. There are special cards which change the rules of the game while they are revealed. And these cards are pure evil incarnated.
(Beezwax)
The colored arrows one makes it so matching colors create duels, instead of symbols triggering it. This sound innocent enough, but what it actually means is suddenly duels will break out all over the table, and with only four colors they will just keep on coming. What it also means that if your brain still works in "matching symbols mode" you will pretty easily make a foul, especially since a matching symbol frikkin ALWAYS appears after the colored arrows card was drawn. Then there's the grabby-grabby arrows-in card, which I guess is kinda tame since it just makes everyone try to grab the totem instantly, and whoever wins gets to put his discards in the middle. When it stops being tame is when you mix in the expansion which has exactly the same card, only there are hands instead of arrows on it, and this one makes you stack the hands on the totem. These cards are so alike your brain will totally short-circuit in telling your hand whether to go stacking or go grabbing, so you'll just probably go randomly a-slapping someone.
The arrows-out card means there's a 1-2-3 countdown and then everyone pulls a card - this one makes you learn how to watch in all directions at once, and is especially nasty since quite often it makes ANOTHER special card pop up somewhere which you have to deal with in addition to watching for symbols. Finally, there's probably the one most headache-inducing (it's not in this picture) which has rotating arrows and which makes it so the symbol on your left is considered "your" symbol while the card stays revealed - this one never fails to elicit a mutual sigh of relief when it finally gets covered up.
So yeah, it's basically a giant pile of stress, reflexes and brain-shortcircuiting. And everyone just can't get enough of it, even after their fingers hurt and their hands bleed from hundreds of tiny cuts. Not only that, everyone will keep talking about the game later on, and bug you with questions where do they buy this game for themselves and when do we gather around to play again.
Are there faults to this amazingly fun gem of a game? Well.. yes there are. It's a dexterity game after all, and as such pretty much a black sheep on a site like this. It's also a game where you *can* get slightly hurt (to which I answer - boo-frikkin-hoo, just man up and play). Then there's the pretty obvious imbalance of player drawing a card having to process HIS/HER card in addition to comparing it to five or more other cards, while other players just need to watch the one card being drawn - however the special cards offset this quite nicely, and there's actually ways around this handicap, the most obvious one being drawing your card as quickly as you can after the previous player drew his, so folks won't have time to prepare. This actually pushes the play to the whole other level when all players realize this since the game almost instantly switches gears without any conscious effort from the players. Also, the "neighbour" card is kinda broken in the sense that it very easily produces a "deadlock" - but this is easily fixed with additional rule (not in the rulebook) which just states that the card is removed from the table after the first duel. Finally, you kinda need five or more players AND the expansion for this game to really shine. Oh and finally finally - good luck in putting any other game on the table after introducing this one.
Should you get this? Hell yeah! It's cheap, it's incredibly easy to carry around, it's fun, it has no downtime, it ends pretty fast and it's perfect for larger number of players (which usual boardgames hardly ever neatly accommodate anyways). It doesn't deserve to be entertaining this much, but it really really is. I'm definitely buying this as a gift for someone, even though I just know whoever gets it will sport a GIANT look of disappointment after opening the gift. I guess it's all part of Jungle Speed initiation process.
But as I said... you just need to try it out for yourself. So... what are you waiting for? GRAB IT!
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Bruno
Ireland
Galway
Galway
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baba44713 wrote: The colored arrows one makes it so matching colors create duels, not symbols. This sound innocent enough, but what it actually means is suddenly duels will break out all over the table, and with only four colors they will just keep on coming. What it also means that if your brain still works in "matching symbols mode" you will pretty easily make a foul, especially since a matching symbol frikkin ALWAYS appears after the colored arrows card was drawn.
The colour-mode switch is really hilarious. One of the best things with it is when you're playing a colour round, and have a matching symbol with an opponent. Of course it doesn't count... yet... It goes back to the player with the coloured arrows, and once he draws, the colour-mode will be gone, covered, reverting back to symbol matching and making it a straight 1v1 speed duel for you and your matching symbol opponent. Only... the coloured-arrows players draws *another* coloured-arrows card, making the speed duel winner collapses in a nervous fit. 
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Well one of my favorites is when after a few games players realize the color-mode almost always instantly puts them in a duel so they develop a Pavlov reaction that whenever they see that card they immediately go for the totem.. even the guy who actually drew the card and is the only one "safe".
I also love when "all draw" card gets pulled and after 1-2-3 suddenly there are two "left-neighbor" cards and one "color" card. You can almost hear the collective head-explosion as folks try to figure out where they need to look at and who is at duel with whom.
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Clement Tey
Singapore
Singapore
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Where can I get sleeves for this game, please?
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Tom B
United States
Naperville
ILLINOIS
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Nice review although I must admit I can't stand playing this game for two reasons...long finger nails (I got cut one time so badly I almost bled out), and two I am terrible at the game...two year olds would destroy me. If you want to win the game, ask me to play.
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Posted Mon Nov 7, 2011 10:35 am
