Jungle Treasure (aka Dschungelschatz)

About.com Rating

Robert Fraga is a little nutty about speed/reaction games -- this is the same guy who designed Squad Seven, Dancing Eggs (Eiertanz), Gamewright's Pounce!, Time is Money, and Trotofant. Jungle Treasure packs all of this kind of silliness into a small box for your enjoyment... and the enjoyment of your kids.

Exploring the Jungle

The theme of Jungle Treasure is pretty simple - the players are jungle explorers, searching for treasure in Mayan temples.

Fighting through the jungle involves a variety of tasks: rebuilding ancient ruins, finding needed supplies and/or dangers, reassembling jeweled masks, and rushing to the help of other adventurers. (There's also a "throw a gem in the air and catch it" task that I just can't come up with a thematic reason for... but who cares?)

On your turn, another player flips the (roughly) one-minute timer over and hides it behind his hand as you pick a gem out of the bag -- they come in three colors: red, green and yellow.

• If you draw a red, you must complete two tasks.
• If you draw a green, you must complete one task.
• If you draw a yellow, you don't have to do anything.

Stop Before It's Too Late

Once you finish your assigned tasks, you can pull another gem or call "Stop!" -- of course, if you don't call "Stop!" before the time runs out, you get no treasure (points) for this turn. (Ouch.)

The tasks in Jungle Treasure are a variety of speed, dexterity and recognition "games":

• Flipping one tile at a time, find a specific item shown on the card (worth two treasure).

• Throw a gem up in the air and catch it with one hand (worth one treasure).
• Build a building out of six wooden blocks as shown on the card (worth two treasure).
• Complete a jeweled mask as shown on the card using gems from the bag (worth three treasure).
• Grab the adventurer figure first (worth one treasure, but can be grabbed by non-active players during your turn!).

Each player gets three turns, and the person with the most treasure at the end of the game wins.
Frenetic Activity with a Mystery Timer

Sounds simple, eh? It is, and that's part of what makes it such a good little game. It's blindingly simple to teach -- once you explain the timer, you take the first turn and they'll figure most of the game out.

Kids love the frenetic activity and the mystery timer mechanic (borrowed from his earlier game, Time Is Money -- this, by the way, is the better game), but don't count adults out. I've tried this with numerous groups of adults only, always with success.

Fraga recently released Treasure, Ready, Go! (also published by Haba), which is very similar to this game with a slightly younger (ages 5 and up) range, a larger box / component size, and sillier art. I haven't had the chance to play it yet, but I want to.

Details

Jungle Treasure is for 2 to 4 players, ages 6 and up. It was designed by Robert Fraga and published by Haba.