Jungle (board game)

Jungle or Dou Shou Qi (Chinese: 鬥獸棋; pinyin: dòushòuqí; lit.: 'fighting animal game') is a modern Chinese board game with an obscure history.[2][3] The game is played on a 7×9 board and is popular with children in the Far East.[1] The game is also known as The Jungle Game, Children's Chess, Oriental Chess, and Animal Chess.[4]

Jungle
鬥獸棋 (Dou Shou Qi)
A typical and inexpensive Jungle set with paper board, purchased at a Chinese stationery shop
Genre(s)Board game
Abstract strategy game
Players2
Setup time1–2 minutes
Playing time5–30 minutes
Random chanceNone[1]
Skill(s) requiredStrategy, tactics, counting
Synonym(s)Dou Shou Qi
The Jungle Game
Children's Chess
Oriental Chess
Animal Chess

Jungle is a two-player strategy game and has been cited as resembling the Western game Stratego,[5] but Stratego actually has more in common with another Chinese board game known as Jun Qi (Chinese: 軍棋; pinyin: jūnqí; lit.: 'army game').

Overview

The Jungle gameboard represents a jungle terrain with dens, traps "set" around dens,[6] and rivers.[7] Each player controls eight game pieces representing different animals of various rank. Stronger-ranked animals can capture ("eat") animals of weaker or equal rank. The player who is first to maneuver any one of their pieces into the opponent's den wins the game.[7] An alternative way to win is to capture all the opponent's pieces.

Board

The Jungle gameboard, usually made of paper,[1] consists of seven columns and nine rows of squares (7×9 rectangle = 63 squares). Pieces move on the squares as in chess, not on the grid lines as in xiangqi. Pictures of eight animals and their names appear on each side of the board to indicate initial placement of the game pieces. After initial setup, these designated squares have no special meaning in the gameplay.

There are several special squares and areas of the Jungle board:

  • Each player has one den (Chinese: 獸穴; pinyin: shòuxuè; lit.: 'lair') square located in the centre of their first row of the board and labeled as such in Chinese.
  • Three traps (Chinese: 陷阱; pinyin: xiànjǐng; lit.: 'snare') border each den, to each side and in front. These are also labeled in Chinese.
  • Two water areas or rivers (Chinese: 小河; pinyin: xiǎohé; lit.: 'river') are located in the centre of the board, each comprising 6 squares in a 2×3 rectangle, and labeled with the Chinese characters for "river". There are single columns of ordinary land squares on the edges of the board, and down the middle between the rivers.


The den highlighted in green
A typical Jungle board labelling the starting squares, the den, the traps, and the rivers
The traps highlighted in yellow
One of the rivers

Pieces

Each player has eight game pieces representing different animals, each with a different rank, and in their own colour (blue versus red).[8][1][7] The animal ranking, from strongest to weakest, is:

Rank Piece
8ElephantChinese: 象; pinyin: xiàng
7LionChinese: 獅; pinyin: shī
6TigerChinese: 虎; pinyin: hǔ
5Leopard or Panther[8]Chinese: 豹; pinyin: bào
4Dog[8]Chinese: 狗; pinyin: gǒu
3Wolf[8]Chinese: 狼; pinyin: láng
2CatChinese: 貓; pinyin: māo
1RatChinese: 鼠; pinyin: shǔ

Pieces start on squares with pictures corresponding to their animal, which are invariably shown on the Jungle board.

Rules

Movement

Players alternate moves with Blue moving first.[6] During their turn, a player must move. All pieces can move one square horizontally or vertically (not diagonally). A piece may not move into its own den. Animals of either side can move into and out of any trap square.[9]

There are special rules related to the water squares:

  • The rat is the only animal that may go onto a water square.
  • The lion and tiger can jump over a river horizontally or vertically. They jump from a square on one edge of the river to the next non-water square on the other side. If that square contains an enemy piece of equal or lower rank, the lion or tiger capture it as part of their jump. A jumping move is blocked (not permitted) if a rat of either color currently occupies any of the intervening water squares.

Capturing

Animals capture opponent pieces by "killing/eating" them (the attacking piece replaces the captured piece on its square; the captured piece is removed from the game). A piece can capture any enemy piece that has the same or lower rank, with the following exceptions:

  • The rat can "kill" (capture) an elephant, but only from a land square, not from a water square.
    Many published versions of the game say the rat kills the elephant by "running into its ear and gnawing into its brain".[6]
  • A rat in the water is invulnerable to capture by any piece on land. (Therefore a rat in the water can only be killed by another rat in the water.)
  • A piece that enters one of the opponent's trap squares is reduced in rank to 0. Thus the trapped piece may be captured by the defending side with any piece, regardless of rank. A trapped piece has its normal rank restored when it exits an opponent's trap square.

Variations

There are some commonly played ruleset variations, as follows:

  • The elephant may not kill the rat under any circumstances.
  • Some play the game with the lion and tiger being equally strong, whereby they can kill each other. This is the more modern version.
  • Some versions have the tiger outranking the lion.
  • The leopard may jump over the river horizontally but not vertically (due to its lesser strength than the tiger or lion). It cannot jump over a rat in the river, however.
  • All traps are universal. If an animal goes into a trap in its own region, an opponent animal is able to capture it regardless of rank difference if it is beside the trapped animal. The rules for being on one's own trap do vary.
  • A variant has the wolf stronger than the dog. Also the wolf replaced by the fox, in which case the dog is stronger than the fox.
  • There are variations in which the lion is not able to jump across the river horizontally.
  • The rules for the rat to capture either the elephant or rat from or into the water do vary.
  • There is a simplified version called Animal Checkers, which has no traps or rivers, and only the rat, dog, tiger and elephant.[10]
  • Amongst the many examples shown on BoardGameGeek there is at least one where the pieces are designed so that they are no longer visible by the opponent (mounted as a card on a stand like Stratego pieces). This change alters the game from one of stochastic 'full-knowledge' to one of partial-knowledge.
  • There is a version of the game that limits which animals (rankings 1–4) can move onto the trap squares.
  • Some players prefer allowing the dog to move onto water squares.

See also

References
  1. Pritchard (1994), p. 163.
  2. Parlett (1999), pp. 142–43, "R. C. Bell describes this contemporary Chinese game sent him in the 1960s by a correspondent in Hong Kong, but knows nothing of its ancestry. The board design suggests some influence of Chinese Chess, and the perfection of the game—it 'plays well'—suggests a solid period of experimentation and refinement; yet the concept as a whole appears too sophisticated to have much of a history behind it."
  3. Pritchard (2007), p. 292, "Origins obscure; in the opinion of Bell, possibly a development of xiangqi."
  4. Pritchard (2007), p. 292.
  5. Freeman, Jon. (1979). The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games. New York: Playboy Press. ISBN 0-87216-562-0. Retrieved January 29, 2007 from "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2008-02-04. Retrieved 2008-01-29.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. Bell (1983), p. 119.
  7. Parlett (1999), p. 143.
  8. Bell (1979), p. 69.
  9. Bell (1979), p. 70.
  10. Animal Checkers. (2007). Retrieved May 20, 2007 from http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs3411/07s1/hw3/.

Bibliography

Further reading
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