I was recently introduced to a game called Jungle Jam. If you’ve ever played Egyptian Rat-Screw (ERS), you’ll be familiar with the concept; this game makes some very nice refinements, though, which make the game playable even without dangerous levels of caffeine in the bloodstream. Here are the differences and why I think they make the game better:

• Instead of slapping the cards, there’s a “totem” you grab, which is just a piece of wood in an easy-to-grab shape. Since you can grab this and pull it away, it hurts a lot less than having many people try to slap a stack of cards. It’s also shaped to make it difficult for more than one person to grab it cleanly, so there’s less chance of an inconclusive grab (it still happens, though).
• Instead of a communal card pile, everyone lays their cards in a stack in front of them. When a match is revealed, only the two players who are involved in the may grab for the totem. This is good for two reasons. First, it prevents one player from dominating the entire game. Slower players will be matched against each other sometimes, and nobody feels like they’re losing all the time. Second, since only two people are usually grabbing for the totem, the chaos/injury potential is reduced.
• The cards are designed so that the shapes of many of the cards are deceptively similar, so it’s easy to mis-grab. (Two bones crossed under a third bone, vs. over; identically-shaped masks with a vertical mouth grill vs. a horizontal one; etc.) This is maddening at first, but adds an equalizing element to the game later on because everyone has to hesitate before grabbing at full speed. It also adds a feeling of accomplishment as you learn to distinguish the subtle differences.
• Instead of trying to gather all the cards, the object is to be the first player to get rid of all your cards. This makes the game much faster and keeps everyone playing until the end, instead of watching the last people show down for ten or fifteen minutes.

If you don’t want an intensive test of both your visual acuity and reflexes, Jungle Jam isn’t the game for you. If you like twitchy games, though, this is the most elegant and fun one that I’ve played.

(By the way, like the Forehead Game, this game is good and manageable with four or five people but gets real chaotic real fast as you get up past six.)