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Statistics of won games
white	5499 (48.54 %)
black	5278 (46.59 %)
Draws	551 (4.86 %)

Jungle

Jungle is an old Indian game, also known as Jungle Chess (however, due to many differences it is not included in Chess category). It is played on 7 x 9 board which contains water fields (blue), player lairs (black) and traps (magenta).

Start position and game object

Each player starts a game with 8 pieces representing eight kinds of animals - elephant, lion, tiger, leopard, dog, wolf, cat and mouse (sorted by their strength). The pieces are located at their initial positions:



The game object is to conquer opponent's lair or eat all enemy animals.

Movement and capturing of pieces

The basic move options of all pieces are one space horizontally or vertically to a square which is empty or occupied by an enemy animal (if it is possible to capture it, see detailed rules in the next section). The common rule of capturing is that each animal can eat the same or weaker opponent's animal (there are special rules for elephant and mouse, see below).

Elephant: Elephant is the strongest animal and can capture all other animals except a mouse.

Lion: Lion can make (as an addition to its normal moves) jumps over a water. It means that if it stands next to a blue square (for example B3) and the corresponding target square behind the water (B7 in this case) is empty or occupied by an animal it can eat, the lion is allowed to perform a jump move. There is one exception - it is not possible to jump if a mouse (player's or opponent's) is blocking the jump path.

Tiger: Tiger has the same jumping abilities as lion. Several typical situations are displayed in the next picture:



In this position, white lion can make a B3-B7 jump, white tiger cannot jump from A5 to D5 because the target square is occupied by a stronger enemy, black lion cannot jump to E3 (there is a mouse on E4, blocking the way) and black tiger may jump to D6, eating opponent's wolf.

Leopard: Leopard has no extra moves or abilities.

Dog: Dog has no extra moves or abilities.

Wolf: Wolf has no extra moves or abilities.

Cat: Cat has no extra moves or abilities.

Mouse: Mouse is the most interesting piece in this game. Although it is the smallest and weakest one, it can kill an elephant (there was a myth that a mouse can get in an elephant's ear and eat his brain). Mouse is also the only animal which can go to a water (blue squares) and block lion's or tiger's jumps. However, a mouse in a water cannot capture enemy elephant by jumping out of the water, it must make another move and get out of the water first. A mouse jumping from a water can eat only another mouse.


How to finish the game

The game is finished if one of the following conditions is fulfilled:

• Any player's animal steps in opponent's lair (black square). This player wins the game.
• A player cannot make a valid move. This player loses the game.

Other important rules

• No animal can go into its own lair.
• Any player's animal standing in opponent's traps (magenta squares) can be eaten by any enemy animal, even by a mouse.

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See also: Tablut, Tank Battle, Halma 8x8, Halma 10x10, Amazons, Jarmo, Froglet, Jungle, Anti Froglet, Sphere Froglet, Ludo, Breakthrough, Assimilation, Ataxx, Cheversi, Dice Poker, Triple Dice Poker, Frog Finder, Logik, Mancala, Frog Legs, Dice Poker 6D, Triple Dice Poker 6D, Big Jungle, Knight Fight, Camelot, Cam