Bungle in the Jungle

Ok, I was driving yesterday and this song was on the radio (Bungle in the Jungle by Jethro Tull) and I thought "There needs to be a game called Bungle in the Jungle!"

So just now I thought "what could that be?" Here's what I came up with:

It's a bidding/set collection game, like I'm sure there are many others. Each player gets a card with a tiger on one side and a snake on the other (both on the face, all the backs would be identical and symetric). Things will come up for auction, and each player places their card face down with either the tiger forward or the snake. Then players bid normally with their supply of 'money' or whatever resource they might have- not sure what that should be just yet.

The catch is that at the end of the auction players reveal their cards... players that were snakes actually dropped out of the auction att he beginning and their bids were just bluffs. Players that were tigers were actually bidding for the lot. "I'm a tiger when I want stuff, I'm a snake when I disagree" - get it? I amuse myself...

Anyway, I think that could lead to an interesting decsion... is he bidding me up because he really wants this lot? or is he just bluffing so that I'll bid more?

[brainstorm]
The lots for auction could be anything, I was thinking something along the llines of Taj Mahal (since I just found out about that wonderful game and started playing it), or what it sounds like Amazonas will be like. Lots of cards come up for auction- let's use a standard playing card deck for example- and when you win the bid you get the cards. After you win a bid you can take any of the cards you have and 'lock them in', and the rest are still waiting to be 'melded' or whatever t should be called. Once locked in or melded, that set cannot be added to or taken away from. Scoring will come from poker hands that have been locked in. So if you lock in a set of cards which is a 3 of a kind then it'll be worth some points. If you lock in a full house it'll be worth more points, etc.

If you win a lot that includes a wild card, then you immediately discard the wild and take a card from any other player that has not already been locked in.

Now, for the cards I was thinking the suits could be changed to different animals, and the numbers could be adjusted so that a 'suit' could have several 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's and maybe 5's rather than 1 each of 1-13. You would score by having sets of the same number (3, 4, or 5 1's) or runs in the same suit, like Rummy I guess, and/or poker hands like I mentioned before. Oh, and of course there could be more than 4 suits... maybe 5?

Finally, there needs to be some kind of resource, and therefore some kind of income. I guess when you meld a set you could get paid for it. Obviously a bigger, higher scoring set woul be worth more than a smaller one, but you might need to sell the smaller set to get money to keep playing. The money could be the VP determiner... players start with some, spend some on cards, make some by selling sets, and whoever has the most at the end wins..

Selling sets could get you SOME of the points worth in money, but there could be bonuses at the endgame as well- so putting together a killer set doesn't make you super strong in the game, but will score you a lot of points at the end. Presumably that would make the game difficult for you and keep the winner from running away with the game.
[/brainstorm]

So what do you think?

[Alternate to snake/tiger cards]
Another idea I had about the Tiger/Snake card is this... Players get 1 Tiger card and a set number of Snake cards (or vice versa), and the one you have one of you can use over and over, but the one you have several of you lose... eventually everyone will be out.

The game could go on until everyone has used all of their limited cards-
For example, if I have 1 Tiger and 3 Snakes, then I can only bluff in 3 Auctions, the rest I actually have to participate in for real. And if people pay attention, they'll know if I'm out of bluffs or not. This might be good because if I want to I can be in on every auction, however the game may not end fast enough.

Alternatively if I have 1 Snake and 3 Tigers then I can only ever get 3 Auctions (maybe it'd be more than 3 for this case). There's also a possibility that the game will go on forever if everyone always plays the snake, so an additional rule would be needed- if all players play their snake, the game ends. This would also be interesting because if you're not winning and you play your snake, there's a chance the game will end and you will lose. With few players I think this might prematurely end the game too often though.

If this 'everyone plays their unlimited card = game over' is applied to when the Tiger is unlimited, could work the same way, but is it more or less likely that veryone will want a lot than everyone won't? I think this case sounds like the worst of all of them.

- Seth