If you’re looking for a fun and adventurous board game to play with your family, you might want to check out Jumanji The Next Level from Spin Master. This game is based on the movie of the same name and lets you explore different levels and challenges as you try to escape Jumanji. However, when we played it for the first time with the kids, we found the game rules a bit confusing, so we’ve put together this guide on how to play Jumanji The Next Level board game to help you enjoy it to the fullest.

Jumanji The Next Level game is for up to four players and aimed at kids over 8 years old. It is a strategy game that involves using dice rolls and cards to battle the enemies and win.

How to Set Up

The board is easy to set up, you place the smaller board on top of the larger board. You get three green plastic bits to hold the boards together and to be fair the picture on the instructions is a good visual aid, see below.

Each player takes a Character Card, this is what it looks like

There are six spaces on the card and the winner of the game is the person that manages to fill all six spaces first.

Each player places 3 tokens on the life space on the bottom larger board, see below

Each player takes a white die and place the orange die in the middle of the board ready for when it will be used.

When you first get the game, you will see the tokens need to be pushed out of the card, before they are ready to use.

Give all the cards a really good shuffle, then turn 3 cards face up for everyone to see and the rest of the pack next to them face down so you can’t see them and your all set to go.

The Different Cards Explained 

This is where we feel the instructions really lets you down as not enough detail goes into explaining the different cards. There are six different types of cards and here is a clear break down of them and what they look like and how to play them.

This is the Marauder Card

When you play this card, it allows you to steal a token from another players character card

This is the Quicksand Card

When you play this card, you can make another player lose a turn

This is the Falcon Jewel Card 

When you pick this card, it means you get the additional orange die to use in the next battle of your choice, increasing your chance of winning a battle. You hold onto this card and orange die until you use it or until another player chooses a Falcon Jewel Card and you then have to give them the orange die. Top Tip: don’t hold onto this for too long as you might lose it before getting the chance to use it.

This is the Extra Life Card

When you pick this card, it means you can receive an extra life. This card can be held and used when you need to, however you are only allowed to have one of them at a time.

This is the Berry Card

When you play this card, it means you must spin the board, so everyone changes the character that they are. It’s worth noting that the spinning element is not the best on this board, although the card board is nice and sturdy a Top Tip when it comes to spinning is don’t hold the standing up figure to spin, hold the actual circle part of the board to spin.

These are the Enemy Cards

There are four different types of Enemy cards, they are all the animal cards, including a hippo, monkey, rhino and bird. Each of these animals then have six versions. So, there are 24 Enemy cards all together.

When you pick an Enemy card, you must battle and if won then all the players that took part in the battle gets a token.

How to Battle

If a player picks a battle card from the three cards that are laid out, they also must pick which players they want to battle with.

On every enemy card you will see in the top corner a number e.g x3 or x2 this tells you how many players should take part in the battle.  So, if x4 then everyone must take part, if x3 then it’s up to the person that picked the battle card to decide which other players should join them in the battle.

Then under the animal image you will see a HP (health points) number e.g HP12

To win the battle everyone must collectively roll higher or equal to the HP number on the card. So each player gets one die to roll, everyone rolls at the same time and then you add up what has been rolled.

If you manage to get higher or equal to HP number, then you win and all the players that rolled gets a token to place on their tracker card.

If you do not manage to get higher or equal to the HP number, then the player that picked the Enemy card to play must then lose a life and the character board must be spun by the player who lost.

There are two additional ways you can win in a battle. One way is if someone has picked a Falcon Jewel Card as with that, they get the extra orange die to roll, increasing your chance of rolling over the HP number.

The other way you can win at a battle is by using your characters special abilities, more about this below, so keep reading.

Jumanji Characters Explained

The gameboard has four quadrants on the small circle part of it and each quadrant has a character from the movie Jumanji on it.

Similar to in the movie, each character has their own unique special abilities, which in this game gives advantages when in a battle.

There are special abilities that a character can have, and they include:

+1 which allows you to add an extra 1 point onto the dice roll

+2 which allows you to add an extra 2 points onto the dice roll

Reroll which allows you to reroll the die if you feel the number you had rolled was too low and you think you can do better.

When can you use the special abilities is dependent on how many tokens you have on your tracker card. So, for example, looking at the image below, if you have 3 tokens on your tracker card then you can use the special ability that is in the corresponding number 3 space on the character quadrant. This will obviously change depending on what character you have and how many tokens you have on your tracker card.

Top Tip, if you are the player that has decided to play an Enemy Card then look carefully at other players special abilities before you pick which players will roll with you in the battle as their special abilities could help you win the battle and save you losing a life.

How to Start the Game 

So, now you know all about the board, the cards and what you have to do to win, it’s time we get the game started.

Everyone should roll their die and the person that rolls the highest will start the game.

The player starts the game by picking one of the cards from the three that are face up. Once that card is played, replace it from the pack of cards so there are once again three cards facing up.

Play then moves clockwise and the next player picks a card.

You keep going until someone gets six tokens on their tracker and they are the Winner.

And there you have it, now you’re a pro at playing Jumanji the Next Level Board Game, a cool game that’s now a firm favourite to our family games night as all the kids loved playing it, when we put it to the test. We hope this guide has been useful and easy to follow. If you’re looking for more awesome toys and games to have fun with and treat the kids to, then why not head over to our toys review page, where you’ll read more honest thoughts on new and classic toys that we’ve played, tested and reviewed.