The Jungle Game

Alternate Names

Dou Shou Qi (Chinese, “Game of Fighting Animals), Jungle, Jungle Chess, Animals Chess, Oriental Chess, Children’s Chess, Bagan.

No. of Players

Two

Equipment

History

The Jungle Game is a traditional Chinese Children’s game.

Objective

The objective of both player’s is either to move a counter onto a special square called the den on the opponent's side of the board, or to capture all of the opponent's counters.

Play

The game commences with all of the animal counters placed on cells with their corresponding image on it. After the initial placement the cells labeled with animal images serve no other purpose different than the other blank “land” cells. With white moving first, alternating turns entail the movement of a single friendly counter to an orthogonally adjacent and vacant cell. There are several special rules that govern the movement of the counters on the board and these rules often vary across versions of the game, so be sure to read the variations below.

• Any counter may not move into its own den.

• The rat is the only counter that is allowed to enter the twelve squares of the river.

• The rat may not capture the elephant or another rat on land by moving directly from a river cell.

• A rat on land may not make a direct attack to a rat in the water.

• The rat may attack the opponent rat if both counters are already in the water.

• The lion and tiger counters may jump over the river both horizontally and vertically. From a land square on the edge of the water, they jump across the water to the cell adjacent to the water on the opposite side. This move is not allowed if there is a rat (or other counter used in the variations described below), friendly or opposing, on any of the intervening water cells. If there is an opposing counter of equal or lesser rank in the cell that the lion or tiger lands in, that counter becomes captured and removed from the board.

All animals capture opposing counters by replacement: landing on them and “eating” them. A captured counter is removed from the board and the game. Animals may only capture opposing animals of equal or lesser rank. The only exception is that the rat may capture and eat the elephant. Any counter may capture an opposing counter of any rank that is on any trap cell.

Strategy

Variations

All of the following are variations that are sometimes applied to the game:

• The dog is allowed to enter the water cells (in addition to the rat). This can be useful to capture a rat trying to hide out in the water. If this is allowed, the same rules that govern the rat in the water also apply to the dog. The dog may not capture on the first move moving into or out of the water. The dog in water may attack an opposing rat or dog counter that is already in the water.

• The elephant may not capture the rat.

• The lion and tiger are equally strong, so here a tiger may also capture a lion.

• The leopard may jump over the river horizontally but not vertically (over two water cells is allowed but not over three).

• The lion may jump over the river vertically but not horizontally (over three water cells is allowed but not over two). This rule is usually given in addition to the one regarding the leopard above, so as to give the lion and the leopard different moving powers.

• Only animals of ranks 1-4 may move onto the trap squares.

• Animals are as safe as they would normally be on one of their own trap cells, the danger of trap cells is only on their opponent's side of the board.

Simpler versions, probably for younger children, have been devised using less counters. One of these is called Animal Checkers in English and it only uses the rat, dog, tiger and elephant as well as eliminating the water and trap cells.

In some versions the wolf is replaced by a fox. The fox, however, is a lower rank than the dog. This means that the dog is rank #4 and the fox is #3.

Sources