Jungle (2026) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Preparation
• Goal
• Rules
• Movement Rules
• Game End
• Variant Rules
  • 1. Random Animal Setup
  • 2. Chameleon
  • 3. Random Leaf Setup
  • 4. Special Leafs

Components

• Leaf tiles ×4
• Animal meeples ×14
• Rulesheets ×2 (English, Mandarin)

Preparation

1. Place the 4 leaf tiles as shown in the figure. The blue circles indicate the bases of each player.
2. Each player chooses one set of 6 animals and arranges them as shown in the figure. (Chameleons are for Variant rules.)
3. The player who has most recently touched leaves is the start player. You are ready to play!

Note: For your first game, you can treat the central hole as if it is covered by the leaf tile. Animals can move into the space normally.

Goal

Meet one of the two conditions to win:

1. Be the first to move one of your animals into your opponent's base.
2. Your opponent can't move any of their animals on their turn.

Rules

1. Players take turns to move their animals.

2. When moving, follow these steps:

   • i. Choose one of your animals A.
   • ii. Then, choose one orthogonally adjacent animal B, and mimic its movement.
   • iii. Move your animal A based on animal B's movement rules. (Details below)

3. The moved animal must occupy an empty space on the leaf tile, or stack on another animal.

   Caution: There can be at most 2 animals stacked on a given space.

4. After your movement, your opponent takes their turn. Play continues until one player reaches the winning condition.

Movement Rules

Animals don't move by their own rules. Instead, they have to mimic the movement rules of adjacent animals. In other words, if there are no other animals adjacent to it, the animal can't move at all.

• Monkey: Move 1 or 2 spaces in vertical or horizontal lines.
• Toucan: Move 1 or 2 spaces in diagonal lines.
• Snake: Move in a L-shape manner. (Like the Knight in Chess)

Example 1: The snake is adjacent to a monkey, so the snake can mimic the monkey's movement rules and move to spaces 1-5.

Example 2: The monkey is adjacent to a toucan, so the monkey can mimic the toucan's movement rules and move to spaces 1 or 2. It can't move to the space marked with an X because there are already 2 animals stacked there. Optionally, the monkey can choose to mimic the adjacent monkey's movement rules to move to spaces A-D.

Example 3: The monkey is adjacent to the snake(s), so the monkey can mimic the snake's movement rules and move to spaces 1-4.

Game End

You alternate to take turns until one of you wins the game if:

1. One of your animals moves into your opponent's base, OR
2. Your opponent can't move any of their animals.

Variant Rules

You can mix and match the following variant rules to spice up your Jungle experience!

1. Random Animal Setup

During preparation, you can randomize the initial placement of your animals (in the defined area). Or, you can secretly deploy your animals facedown before revealing them to start the game.

2. Chameleon

During preparation, you can replace one of your animals with your chameleon (two players can choose different animals to be replaced). The chameleon's movement rule is Mirror: when an animal mimics a chameleon, the animal will move by its own rules, like looking at a mirror.

Example 4: The toucan is adjacent to the chameleon, so the toucan can move by its own rules and move to spaces 1-4.

3. Random Leaf Setup

During preparation, you can arrange the leaf tiles to make a different game map. But it's suggested to keep the map and animal setup symmetrical. And you have to assign the base location for each side. The rulesheet shows suggested variant maps.

4. Special Leafs

There are special effect icons on the back of the leaf tiles. During preparation, you can randomly flip 2 or 4 leaf tiles to play with the special effects.

• i. If an animal is adjacent to the icon (bug), it can mimic the bug and move 1 space in the direction pointed by the arrow. If this icon is covered by an animal, the effect is temporarily unavailable.
• ii. This space (snail) can accommodate only 1 animal. No stacking is allowed.