Dschungelrennen
Dschungelrennen Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Short Rules
What's the game about?
The players try to score the most points with their animal teams, thereby grabbing 1st place in the jungle.
The jungle race begins:
The animals are placed at their starting positions. The first player rolls with the special die. This shows how many steps (1 or 2) and with which animal the player must move.
One step = the next free space. Occupied spaces are not counted! When moving from a joker space a player may move any of her animals for a total of up to three steps.
The jungle race ends as soon as the first place spot on each animal's victory stand is occupied. The winner is the player who has scored the most points with her team of animals.
Goal
The goal of the game is to race your animals as fast as possible through the jungle and bring them to their respective victory stands, scoring the highest possible points. The player who scores the most overall points with her team of animals at the end of the game is the winner.
Preparation
Every player takes the five animals of a single color. Each animal is placed at the starting position where its respective picture is shown.
[see diagram at the bottom of page 3 in the original rules]
Rules
Players take turns in clockwise order. The youngest player begins by rolling the special die. The die shows how many steps and with which of her animals a player may move.
[see diagram on page 4]
One step always means that an animal moves to the next free space in the direction of the finish line. Spaces that are occupied by other animals must be jumped over. These occupied spaces are not counted!
Only one animal at a time can be on any given space, the animals can't land on each other or throw each other out of the race. The animals can only move forwards, never backwards.
The Die and Movement
[picture of tiger with a "2"] The player must move her tiger two steps forwards.
[picture of bear/monkey with a "1"] The player must move either her bear or her monkey one step forwards.
[picture of bear/monkey with a "2"] The player has three possible moves: Either she moves her monkey two steps forwards or she moves her bear two steps forwards or she moves both animals one step forwards each. She may decide in which order she does this.
[pictures of elephant/crocodile with "1" and "2"] For the animal combination "elephant and crocodile" the same rules as above (i.e. for the bear/monkey) apply.
[picture of a "3"] When a player rolls a joker she may move any of her animals for a total of three steps forwards. She may decide how to divide the steps among her animals. She has three possibilities: she can move one animal three steps forwards or she can move one animal one step forwards and another animal two steps forwards or she can move three different animals one step forwards each.
[see diagram at the bottom of page 6]
A player may only bring one new animal into the race per turn.
Example: The player rolls "elephant/crocodile 2". Both animals are still standing at the starting position. The player must choose one of the animals and move two steps with it. In this case she cannot divide the move. This also applies when a "joker" is rolled.
Joker Spaces
[see diagram at the top of page 7]
A player who lands on a joker space with one of her animals must, at the end of her turn, immediately move, with any of her animals, a total number of steps equal to the number printed on the joker space. As with the joker die roll she may distribute these steps among her animals as she sees fit. She may also move forwards with the animal that ended the turn on the joker space, although she doesn't have to do so.
Important: a player can only use the same joker space once per turn.
[see diagram at the bottom of page 7]
Example: The player rolls "tiger 2". She moves onto the Joker space with a "3". If the player now chooses, for example, to move her tiger 2 steps forwards and with her last step moves her elephant 1 step forwards onto the joker space just vacated by the tiger, the joker space no longer yields a bonus move. The player may not take another three steps.
When splitting the steps of a roll it doesn't matter if the first or the last animal moved ends up on a joker space. Only when the original move is completed may the bonus moves from the joker space be used. If an animal moves over a joker space during its turn the joker space behaves as a normal free space.
[see diagram in the middle of page 8]
An example: The player rolls "tiger 2". This means that she must move her tiger two steps forwards. She ends her movement one space past the joker space. In this case the joker space is treated as a normal free space and does not give any bonus steps.
At the Finish Line
If an animal crosses the finish line (an exact count is not necessary...extra steps are simply lost) it is placed on the highest free stump of the victory stand corresponding to the animal's type: the first animal of a type to arrive goes on 1st place, the second on 2nd place and the third on 3rd place.
After the first three animals of a type arrive all further animals of the same type that arrive are placed on the 3rd place stump along with any animals that are already there. All the animals on the 3rd place stump receive the respective 3rd place points at the end of the game.
If a player rolls an animal (or animal combination) that has already crossed the finish line then she must use the move to advance that animal of her which is furthest behind in the race.
The big numbers on the victory stand stumps show the number of points an animal on that stump has scored.
Tactics
The different animal types earn different amounts of points. The tiger, for example, is "worth more" than the other animals. For first place the tiger gets 10 points. The elephant and crocodile get only 8 points for first place, the monkey and bear get only 6 points. Therefore the players should pay special attention when rolling a joker to which animals they move forwards, moving in such a way that they score the maximum number of points for their team. It is tactically clever to begin your animals as close together as possible, arranging them in a chain without any large gaps. This way it is possible to make large jumps forwards when moving.
[see diagram on page 11]
When splitting a move the order in which a player moves her animals is especially important. The situation often arises where it is possible to fill a gap in a chain of animals and then make a large jump forwards with an animal trailing in the race.
Game End
A game round ends as soon as the first place position for each animal type has been taken (regardless of how many second and third place positions have been taken). Each player adds together the points scored by all the animals of her team. Animals that have not yet crossed the finish line don't score anything.
The winner is the player with the most points. If the players are playing several rounds in a row the points of the individual rounds are added together. The winner is then the player with the highest overall points.