Welcome to the Jungo

Solitary Quest Blog
27 minutes ago
6 min read

Jungo doesn't ask much of its players. Play card combos to beat the one on the table but don't reorder the cards in your hand. It may not be the most tactical ladder-climber but it has confident flair and just enough zest to keep me and the people I play with asking for more and more.

Jungo cards held in a hand — Example hand in *Jungo*. I would want to lay down that 5/6 so I could open up a run of three 2's.

The enthusiasm of the other players at the table to shuffle up and go again tells me a great deal about whatever game we just finished. Well, so too does an inverse lack of enthusiasm, but that’s not the case here. I find this to be especially true for compact card games where players may get the gist of the circuit of play after the first run through. Like a sommelier who just poured the table a taster from a fresh vintage, I watch with anticipation as the other players see, swirl, sniff, sip, and savor my recommended pairing this evening.

The first time I played Jungo, it came with me and my fiancé to the bar for some two player gaming. Mind you, she calls Sprawlopolis “that really hard game about the city,” but still reminds me that she bested me and the regulars in Ahoy on her first try. This is to say her taste for games can be fickle, and often inconsistent. She’ll try, and determine to either like a game, or not. And that’s no knock; the woman knows what she wants. So I knew I had found a winner with Jungo when she was keen on trying it again, and again. It remains in our date night repertoire to this day.

The game also received a warm reaction over Thanksgiving from all three of my nieces (ages 4, 7, and 9) who invariably wanted to play “that monkey game” every afternoon. For them, it was right in the slot, where the youngest could follow along with a little help from Nana and the oldest could master a strategy with keen card counting. Here is a game that has pleased those most often difficult to please. Yes, Garçon, the Jungo will do nicely.

Jungo is a ladder-climbing, card-shedding game, wherein players are trying to be the first to lose all the cards in their hand. It has frequently been compared to Scout!. And that comparison is well-earned; it’s a lot like Scout! in that the lynchpin limitation of both games is that the player cannot change the order or orientation of cards in their hand while trying to top the card combo in play. In many ways however, Jungo is the leaner, faster cousin of the beloved Scout!, shaving-off some of the predecessor’s more ambitious card manipulation mechanisms and scoring complexity in favor of more straightforward play and faster games. This means that Jungo lacks the shrewdness inherent in Scout!’s comparatively deeper design, yet doesn’t carry some of the same punishing pain points, like being forced to scoop-up unwanted cards and scoring negatively for a bad round. Depending on how lean you keep your game shelf, there can absolutely be room for both.

Jungo cards on a table — *Jungo* on the table at Thanksgiving.

The flow of play in Jungo doesn’t give you many choices. On your turn, you lay down cards of the same value that are adjacent in your hand in order to beat the cards currently on the table. You can do this either by playing the same number of cards of a higher value, or by playing a greater number of cards of any value. For example, one 7 will beat one 5, a pair of 6’s beats a pair of 4’s, and three 1s will beat two 8s. When you beat the combo on the table, you then choose to either discard those cards or pull them into your hand. This decision represents one of the few chances you have to deliberately manipulate your hand, since any cards you pick up can be inserted anywhere.

The only other time you can adjust your hand’s order is when you’re unable to beat the combo on the table. In that case, you draw a single card from the deck and may either place it anywhere in your hand or discard it. If inserting that card allows you to form a combination that beats the table, you can play it right away. This move—the Jungo, from which the game takes its name—is the game’s most thrilling moment, though it occurs only rarely. Pulling off a Jungo can dramatically swing momentum, often marking the difference between one player running the table straight and another taking the initiative.

Those decisions to either take cards into your hand or let them go to the discard are the leverage points in the game. Afterall, this is a card-shedding game; you want to run out of cards. But that counter-intuitive logic to accept more cards and slot them anywhere allows you to bolster your runs of cards of the same value to help you top whatever combo is on the table next time it comes around. These decisions are important, if not facile. Afterall, Jungo is not a game where you need to discern the odds of a particular suit appearing alongside the odds of a certain value card coming next in the draw deck. Often it’s just asking “do I have any of these already?”

In this way, the bottom line of Jungo really is leaner than Scout!. Plays should be ordered by trying to play the closest possible combo to what is on the table, while trying to shed cards, especially singles, that separate cards of the same value in your hand. Likewise, take any chance to pick-up cards that you already have in your hand to build stronger melds for the late game.

Jungo feels very different across player counts, especially at 2 players. In fact, there is some discrepancy about whether Jungo is a 2 player game. My copy lists the player count at 2-5 while others have claimed in the BoardGameGeek forums that their copies list only 3-5 players. As a duet card-shedder, sequencing your plays has far more potency. The ladder climbs slower each time play comes back to you, so there are more chances to potentially ditch singles and lower two of a kinds. It also means play can be far more swingy. If your combo makes it all the way around the table, it’s discarded and you get to start the next ladder. This is basically like going twice in a row while your opponent only gets to look at a single card. That slight opportunity to pull a Jungo is just not common enough to break the running initiative then held by the other player, especially in the late game when they likely have larger melds and the other player is stuck with a fractured hand. Ultimately, 2 player Jungo really rewards the better starting hand and is very unforgiving of a misplay.

Gameplay at higher player counts solve these issues. The ladder climbs further up before play comes back to you, which means there are fewer chances to shed singles that may be fracturing runs in your hand. This generally results in a longer game that’s way less swingy and far more forgiving of bad hands since, on average, you have more chances to pick-up cards from the draw pile.

Jungo is a reimplementation of Hachi Train and the third publication from Happy Camper Games. It follows 2021’s Trio, itself a reimplementation of the elusive nana, and similarly emphasizes hand management by forbidding players from rearranging their cards once their hand is drawn. Like Jungo, Trio also shows some unevenness across different player counts, a recurring wrinkle in an otherwise elegant design lineage from this emergent, energetic publisher.

In the end, Jungo succeeds not by asking players to master complexity, but by inviting them to return—to test a slightly different line, to nurse a better hand, to chase the rare thrill of a perfectly timed Jungo. Its unevenness across player counts is real, but so too is its ability to meet players where they are, whether that’s a bar-top date night or a Thanksgiving table crowded with eager hands. Lean, accessible, and quietly clever, Jungo earns its place not through flash, but through repetition—the kind that only happens when everyone at the table is already reaching for the deck.