Giveaway and Review: Jungle Speed

Yay for board games! Especially brain games. Recent research shows that board games positively impact kids’ cognitive development skills and brain motor function. Game play also helps kids develop patience, cooperation, concentration and teamwork.

I love board games, except the ones that take a million years (think RISK, Monopoly and Life). I also love card games. But it’s tough to find games that my 7yo can master that aren’t ho-hum for the older, more competitive members of the family.

The good folks at Freeman sent us over a new game called Jungle Speed to try out. A card game/board game hybrid, Jungle Speed is apparently the most popular game in Europe, with more than two million sold. It was just released here in the US of A in July.

Game play is simple. The object is to get rid of all your cards. The cards, which have abstract images on them, get divvied up evenly between your players and placed facedown. The totem gets put in the middle, preferably equidistant or however you need to handicap it to ward off cries of “No fair! His arms are longer!”

One at a time, each player flips over the card on top of their pile. If any two players have identical cards, they have to make a grab for the totem; the victor gets to dump all his revealed cards off on the slowbie. But if someone grabs the totem by mistake– whoops! They have to take the cards.

There are more rules involving special cards that temporarily change the rules to complicate the game; we generally ignore those cards to make it easier for Cass.

Maverick, our undisputed master of brain games, KILLS on this game. Some of the images on the cards look very much alike, and he is so freaking good at making like he’s going for the totem, tricking other people into falsely grabbing it. It doesn’t help that we tend to break this game out when the power is out (which happens a lot, these days). Flickering candlelight doesn’t distinguishing between shapes any easier.

I’m going to say we average about 10 minutes per game, which I think is about perfect. It definitely is more fun with more people.

Jungle Speed is for 2 to 10 players and recommended for ages 8 and up. It retails for $19.99 at Toy’R’Us, Target, Walmart, and your other usual suspects for toys and games. (Actually, it’s on sale at Amazon right now for $15.55 but you know how their prices fluctuate.)

But you know what?

Yeah, you guessed it. We have one to give away. Play it at family game night now, or save it for under the Christmas tree!

Just follow the directions below– leaving a comment is your mandatory method of entry. The others are optional, extra chances to win.

Game on! Good luck!

It’s a week full of giveaways!
Enter to win a Zhu Zhu baby or a Fyrflyz light up yo-yo toy.

We received a Jungle Speed game for review purposes. No compensation was received, opinions came straight from my own brain.