Jungle (board game)

This article is about Jungle, the board game. For alternate usages: see Jungle (disambiguation).

Jungle or Dou Shou Qi (鬥獸棋) is a traditional Chinese board game. It is a two player, abstract board game played on a 7x9 board.

Rules

The goal of the game is to move a piece to a special square on the opponent's part of the board - den.

Board and pieces

The game's board and initial setup of pieces is shown on the picture at right. There are several special squares:

Den (shown in black color) - white's den on d1 and black's on d9.
Trap (shown in magenta) - white's traps on c1,d2,e1 and black's on c9,d8 and e9.
Water (shown in blue) - in the middle of the board.

Each side have 8 different pieces, each piece has a different rank. The larger is the number, the stronger is the piece:

Mouse
Cat
Wolf
Dog
Leopard
Tiger
Lion
Elephant

White pieces are setup in the following way:

Mouse - g3
Cat - b2
Wolf - c3
Dog - f2
Leopard - e3
Tiger - a1
Lion - g1
Elephant - a3

Black pieces are setup symmetrically relatively to the center of the board.

Movement

Players alternate moves with White moving first. During their turn, a player must move. Each piece moves one square horizontally or vertically (not diagonally). A piece may not move to its own den.

There are special rules related to the water squares:

The Mouse is the only animal that is allowed to go to a water square.
The Mouse may not capture the Elephant from a water square.
Lion and Tiger pieces may jump the water moving horizontally or vertically. They move from a square on one edge of the lake to the next non-water square on the other side. Such move is not allowed if there is a Mouse on any of the crossed water squares. It is allowed to capture enemy pieces by such jumping move.

Capturing

Pieces capture by replacement. The piece can capture any enemy piece, which has the same or lower rank, with the following exceptions:

The Mouse can capture the Elephant when attacking.
The Elephant can capture the Mouse.
You may capture any enemy piece in one of your trap squares regardless of rank.
Any pieces in their own trap squares achieve higher rank.

Land Battle Chess and Stratego

Jungle is considered to be the ancestor of the modern Chinese board game known as Land Battle Chess (Te Zhi Lu Zhan Qi) or Army Chess (Lu Zhan Jun Qi), as well as the Western board game Stratego.

External links

Shou Dou Qi, The Battle of Animals by Hans L. Bodlaender.
What is wrong with Shou Dou Qi? - commentary on the rules of the game and its possible shortcomings.
BrainKing.com - game server, which allows to play Jungle with other people

Abstract strategy games