Review - Jungle Speed

I came across Esdevium Games at the Christmas in July event earlier this month and I was really happy to be asked to review a couple of their games on my blog.

The first game is called Jungle Speed and I have to say I have never laughed so much with the children than we were playing this!  We spent this afternoon in the sunshine playing and the time whizzed by.

Jungle Speed by Esdevium Games

I somehow presumed that the game would contain a playing board for some reason so when I opened the box and found....

All items store neatly away in the drawstring bag!

.... the above items I was curious.  Inside the packaging was a drawstring bag, 2 (?) sets of instructions, a pack of non-standard playing cards and a wooden 'totem'.  It is in essence a more complex version of the card game Snap but much more fun.  Great for 2 or more players of, I would say, age 7 and upwards.

The game starts by dealing an equal number of cards to all players...you are not allowed to look at your cards when dealt.

Deal all players equal number of cards

Place any cards left over from the deal under the wooden totem and then, going clockwise, each player takes it in turns to reveal a card from the top of their unseen pack making sure the other players see it first.  The next player then does the same and then ignoring colours if the designs match (called a duel) then the first player to grab the wooden totem has won and the other player must pick up any of their revealed cards.  Should a player grab the totem in error then they must take all players revealed cards.  Beware though, it's not that simple, as many designs look very similar!!

At speed these 2 cards look alike...

The cards above look identical when you are in the heat of a fast and furious game but look closely...

One is hexagonal in shape and the other is square and the amount of times we all tried to grab the totem only to then find out we were wrong was hilarious. There are also 'special' cards that can change the course of the game by forcing all players to make a grab for the totem at the same time and some that change the method of play.

These 'special' cards add to the level of difficulty of the game but to be honest we ignored them as we were having too much fun just playing the basic game of matching cards and grabbing the totem!!  Our neighbours must have heard our laughter over the fence every time we mistakenly grabbed the totem incorrectly and ended up with more cards because of it.

I played with my 9 year old and my 11 year old and we all agreed that we really liked the game and as it was so easy and quick to set up it was a great game to play when you didn't have that long to spare.  The fact that it stored easily also made it easy to take out and about with you.  Using the 'special' cards would also increase the difficulty for older players.

We would highly recommend this game and will be playing it again many times I am sure.

Seen on sale at Amazon

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