Jungle Speed

• Genre: Speed Games
• Publisher: Asmodee
• Players: 88

Jungle Speed is a fun unique speed card game.  It is great for a large group of people and can play up to 88 players!  The basic game play goes like this:  The game comes with 88 square cards and a “jungle-like” totem that sits in the middle of the table and each card has a unique symbol (or shape) on it.  You divide all the cards up evenly amongst all players (any extra cards go under the totem).  Then one at a time you flip one card out in front of you, if your cards are matching then you must grab the totem in the middle before the other person with the matching card.  If you get it before they do then they have to take your cards that are in front of you and put it in their own stack in their hand.  It’s tricky though cause some cards are very very close in shape and color, and if you grab the totem by accident you have to take everyones cards that are on the table and put them into your own stack in your hand.  So be careful! Also if you accidentally knock the totem over from faking to grab you also have to take everyone’s card that are in front of them.  So you have to make sure you only grab the totem when you have a true matching card with someone else.

Now they do throw in a few cards just to mix things up.  There is a card that has arrows that all point toward the middle.  If anyone flips over that card anyone can grab the totem and if you grab the totem then you get to put your cards that have been flipped in front of you underneath the totem and the next person who loses in a matching grab has to take (of course) the winners pile AND what’s underneath the totem.

The other card is a card that has arrows that are all pointing away.  If anyone flips over that card, everyone must flip over a card at the same time after the count of 3.  If you have a large group it adds some chaos cause you have to try and look at all the new cards flipped over at once to see if there is a match.

The last different card a card that looks just like the Quick Grab one (with the arrows pointing toward the middle), but it’s colored meaning that matching shapes are no longer what you’re looking for to find a match, it’s now colors and goes into effect immediately!

You continue playing the game until someone has gotten rid of all their cards.  Once they have done that they are the winner.  The game is really fun, and get’s more fun and more challenging the more the players get familiar with the shapes and symbols on the cards to match.  We’ve had a blast playing this game and have really enjoyed playing it.

We’ve found that there is an expansion that is offered, but they don’t just sell it which is really crazy.  The only way to get it is to refer 5 people to get the game which I think is kindof silly and think that they could sell a lot of expansions to this game is they just sold it.  But anyway, I’ve also found that this game is available for the Wii, that’s right this card game is also on the Wii as WiiWare.  You don’t need to get a disk for anything, just go to the Wii Store Channel and browse WiiWare and look for Jungle Speed.  It’s the exact same game, but has some nice features.  For example the Wii version will clock how close your grabs were, and show you all sorts of statistics at the end of the game.  There’s also fun animal characters, different types of totems, and up to 8 people can play on the wii, and I think it’s actually cheaper than actually buying the card game itself.  But it’s definitely fun to just play at the table.

Anyway, this game get’s  4 stars for my rating.  It’s a great game for those that like a fast quick witted matching game with a great theme.

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