Jungle (board game)

The Jungle gameboard represents a jungle terrain with dens, traps "set" around dens,[8] and rivers.[9] 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.[9] An alternative way to win is to capture all the opponent's pieces.

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

Each player has eight game pieces representing different animals, each with a different rank, and in their own colour (blue versus red).[10][1][9] The animal ranking, from strongest to weakest, is:

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

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.
• 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 can jump over a rat in the river.
• 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 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.[12]
• 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.

Improve variances to reduce drawing games:

1. Can jump vertical: Lion, tiger, no blocking rule
2. Can jump horizontal: lion, tiger, leopard
3. Can swim: wolf, dog, rat
4. Only rat, cat, and dog can move to home trap squares
5. No piece can stay in water for more than 3 turns, on turn 4, if the piece cannot or does not move to land, it is drowned
6. Limited food in den: if the home den is occupied by any piece for total of 30 turns in one game, the player the den belongs to loses.

• Jun Qi
• Chinese chess
• Stratego

Bibliography

• Bell, R. C. (1979). Board and Table Games From Many Civilizations. Vol. I (Revised ed.). Dover Publications Inc. pp. 69–70. ISBN 0-671-06030-9.
• Bell, R. C. (1983). The Boardgame Book. Exeter Books. pp. 118–19. ISBN 0-671-06030-9.
• Parlett, David (1999). The Oxford History of Board Games. Oxford University Press Inc. pp. 142–44. ISBN 0-19-212998-8.
• Pritchard, David (1994). The Family Book of Games. Brockhampton Press. p. 163. ISBN 1-86019-021-9.
• Pritchard, D. B. (2007). Beasley, John (ed.). The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants. John Beasley. p. 292. ISBN 978-0-9555168-0-1.

• Beasley, John D. (Summer 2002). Byway, Paul V. (ed.). "Some Thoughts on The Jungle Game". Variant Chess. Vol. 5, no. 40. British Chess Variants Society. p. 127. ISSN 0958-8248.
• van Rijn, J.N.; Vis, J.K. (7–8 November 2013). Complexity and Retrograde Analysis of the Game Dou Shou Qi (PDF). 25th Benelux Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Delft. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2014-06-16. Retrieved 2014-01-17.

• Dou Shou Qi: The Battle of Animals by Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages
• Ancient Chess.com rules and video demonstration
• Dou Shou Qi at BoardGameGeek