Forbidden Jungle: Playthrough Review

Our very first playthrough of Forbidden Jungle led us into a false sense of security. In fact, we sped through the jungle and escaped so easily that I was left with a deflated sense of dissatisfaction.

We did play on the easiest setting, and being old hats of the Forbidden franchise, we knew a bit about how to optimise our characters and work together. Maybe it was time to take the challenge level up.

We have now survived the jungle countless times yet we still go back for more! Moving the challenge gauge up each time we succeed means that we are now beginning our game on Legendary mode: we have yet to succeed in this challenge.

So, join us as we attempt, yet again, to escape the Legendary Forbidden Jungle!

We are still playing through the standard tile layout, “The Sinkhole” - which, it’s worth noting, is reminiscent to Forbidden Island’s base diamond layout - and are looking forward to taking our challenge level up (once we conquer this pesky Legendary level) by using one of the other, harder tile layout cards. For now, we are sticking with the familiar.

We have shuffled the threat deck and the equipment deck, and drawn our character cards. Simon and I are a two-member team of adventurers and, being risk-takers, love that we select our character cards at random (bit more fun that way, isn’t it?)

Simon has drawn Biologist - perfect for clearing hatchlings and adult alien creatures - and I am the Spelunker, able to traverse to any tile anywhere, but only if I’m on a tunnel tile. Thankfully there are a few tunnels but they’re only useful once they are uncovered. Simon is definitely the power player in this playthrough!

The biologist’s meeple is blue, and spelunker is black: it doesn’t bode well, starting off black and blue…

First player is decided, quite randomly, by identifying who last touched a tree. Simon just dashed outside and touched the holly tree in the garden to settle the argument! Biologists, eh? Obsessed with nature!

The aim of Forbidden Jungle is to uncover a portal, and activate 4 working crystals, which must surround the portal. Here’s where the game gets tricky. There are 6 crystal tiles, of which 2 are duds. You only discover which is which by flipping the tile as an action. You must also relocate the crystals to surround a portal, whose location is also unknown until flipped. You must also all be present on the portal tile, which much be alien-free in order to activate. That’s a lot of steps, so let the games begin!

Simon, eager tree-beaver, goes first. He can take up to 4 actions and starts strong, stepping forward and flipping our first tile: it’s the compeller, allowing us to draw creatures from one tile to a neighbouring tile. It also bears the cog symbol, meaning Simon can draw an equipment card. He’s got the Time Throttle, giving him 3 extra actions when he chooses to spend the card. He then uses the compeller to move two of the spider-like aliens onto the same tile as a hatchling - setting himself up for a win when he uses his biologist perk later in the game!

Starting on legendary mode means we draw 3 cards from the threat deck each turn. We’ve now just gone from 3 adults to six, who have cluttered the board with their webs! Oh, and those adults have just laid an egg each. Great.

I’m keen on moving around unveiling as much of the board as I can so I move straight onto a crystal tile and flip it. It’s a dud. Darn! It does have a cog symbol though, so it’s not a complete waste. I’ve got myself a nice little explosive, which I’ll use to rid the board of that overladen tile containing three adults, three eggs, and three webs - as long as the adults don’t move before I can get over there!

But they didn’t listen. They spun three more webs before scuttling off to a different tile, leaving their eggs behind!

We’ve now uncovered two dud crystals, but thankfully also a configurator - this handy tile allows us to move other tiles horizontally and vertically, so long as they aren’t blocked in by another tile! This’ll come in handy once we have uncovered a portal, especially since we now know the rest of the crystals are live.

We’ve drawn our first Threat Rises card, but it’s ok, we are still on 3-card-draw. We also have an overwhelming 9 webs on one tile. Not to worry, configurator to the rescue! I move swiftly to it and using its power, slide the web-tangled tile down one space, breaking the threads and freeing it. The webs float off back to the stockpile! We don’t want to run out, or it’ll be game over!

Unfortunately, all those eggs just hatched, leaving only 6 maggoty hatchlings left in our stockpile: we need to act fast! Simon uses two of his equipment cards now: his three extra turns, and his jetpack. He hops over to the compeller, moves a bunch of alien beasties together, jet-packs to them and pulls out his good ole biologist trick. Bam! They’re all dead. We still have a few more to kill but we have definitely averted a crisis.

We’ve just drawn our second Threat Rises card, this time with instructions to shuffle the discard pile and place it under the draw pile. I’m not sure what this adds to the game, since the draw pile is perpetually shuffled when depleted anyway, unlike

Leacock’s iconic Pandemic, which requires the shuffled discard pile to be placed on top of the draw pile, thereby increasing the threat. Simon claims, mathematically, there is a slightly increased chance of drawing a threat card sooner, but I’ve not felt it.

Simon’s biologist is coming in quite handy, taking out 7 beasties in one magnificent blow, while my spelunker hasn’t really done much other than gal-lump around looking for tunnels. We’ve now uncovered three configurators, lost one, and still don’t know where any of the portals are. I’ve also just taken my first wound, taking me down to 2 lives. Thankfully Simon hasn’t, because his biologist, for all its brains, is a pathetic weakling with only 2 lives to begin with!

The threat has now risen enough to require 4 cards to be drawn. The jungle is pretty clear though, so apart from being miles away from our goal, we aren’t in much danger.

We finally have a portal, placed very nicely near three live crystals. Hopefully a little shuffle-shuffle of tiles and we will be positioned for a win! Could you, fine friends, be witness to our finally conquering Legendary mode?

Simon just moved three of the unflipped crystal tiles around the portal, and if we can keep this up, in as little as 4 more turns we could have this in the bag.

Ok, we now have all crystals in position, so Simon needs to start heading my way so we can flip these crystals and get out of here!

Wait… oh dear… the portal tile just collapsed! Thankfully we did find another portal, just next to a crystal, so with a little jiggle of the configurator, we could be back in business before teatime!

Ok, our portal is starting to get a bit cluttered with beasties, and we can’t activate it until it’s clear. Hopefully they’ll all trot off somewhere else. Trouble is, we only have 3 hatchlings left in our stockpile.

I think we got a bit cocky there, because now we have all twelve spidery aliens wandering around the jungle, with none in the stockpile, should any decide they want to emerge from the portal it’ll be game over! I still have three cards to draw…

Oh dear. We just lost our second portal. So much for being close to end game!

Well, we just reached threat level of 5-card-draw, which we’ve never done before, so - gulp - we are either doing better than ever or tragically worse!

We are yet to uncover a new portal, and for a minute there we were overrun by adult beasts, but thankfully that’s a little more under control now. The electrifier helped with that one, killing any beast that crossed its path!

Oh dear… I spoke to soon. All our eggs just hatched, and immediately grew up into adults, outnumbering the adults left in the stockpile. It’s game over for this brave biologist and spunky spelunker! We really have been beaten black and blue.

We will defeat Legendary mode one day. These adventurers are not giving up!

Forbidden Jungle really keeps you on your toes. It’s incredible how quickly the board gets overrun when drawing five cards per turn.

Now that we are familiar with the tiles and cards, we can anticipate what might be coming, and attempt to avert potential crises but as you can see, it doesn’t always help. Legendary mode really is the most difficult, but no less enjoyable. Defeat is only defeat if it makes you give up, and we aren’t giving up yet!

SCORES

We give this game a rating of 95%

Artwork: 4/5

Complexity: 3.5/5

Replayability: 5/5

Player Interaction: 5/5

Component Quality: 4/5

What we love about Forbidden Jungle:

· The challenge level in this game is superb, with a good success rate balanced with difficulties and escalation.

· It is familiar, if you’ve played any of the other Forbidden games.

· The tiles and components are well-made and durable.

· Co-operative element is excellent.

· It’s simple enough to learn, yet complex enough to master.

What we don’t love about Forbidden Jungle:

· The spidery legs of the adult alien are together too tight, meaning they can’t stand up properly: they spend much of the game falling over or lying on their sides.

This game is reminiscent of Nemesis, with its eggs, hatchling and adult aliens running rampant on a spaceship, also giving co-operative fun as we try to escape certain death. If you enjoy hunting down aliens in the Forbidden Jungle, then you’ll love Nemesis too.

Tell us your thoughts on Forbidden Jungle by heading over to our Instagram!