Jungle Speed

A wooden totem stands in the middle and the cards are dealt out face down. In turn, each player flips their top card. The moment two face-up cards show the same symbol, those two players grab for the totem, and the slower one takes the faster one's pile. Be the first to empty your hand and you win. Grab the totem when you should not have, and you collect everyone's cards. The trap is the artwork: many symbols are near-identical twists and knots, so a jumpy player grabs on a false match again and again. A few special cards change the rules mid-game, making everyone grab at once or matching by colour instead of shape. Ten minutes, no reading, and louder than anything else on our shelves. Bring it for a big table of eight to ten who want to move, and keep drinks well away from the totem.