Ultimate Board Games List - J-

I assembled the "Ultimate Board Games" list, and we are currently working our way through it! So here are the Js.

(Visit the 0-9, & As, Bs, Cs, Ds, Es, Fs, Gs, Hs, Is)

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Janggi
Janggi, sometimes called Korean chess, is a strategy board game popular in Korea. The game derived from xiangqi (Chinese chess) and is very similar to it, including the starting position of the pieces, and the 9×10 gameboard, but without the xiangqi "river" dividing the board horizontally at the middle.

Janggi is played on a board nine lines wide by ten lines long. The game is sometimes fast-paced due to the jumping cannons and the long-range elephants, but professional games most often last over 150 moves and so are typically slower than those of Western chess.

In 2009, the first world janggi tournament was held in Harbin, People's Republic of China.

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Jenga

Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill created by Leslie Scott. During the game, players take turns removing one block at a time from a tower constructed of 54 blocks.

Each block removed is then balanced on top of the tower, creating a progressively taller but less stable structure. The name jenga is derived from a Swahili word meaning "to build."

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Journey Through Europe

Journey through Europe is a family board game published by Ravensburger. The board is a map of Europe with various major cities marked, for example, Athens, Amsterdam and London. The players are given a home city from which they will begin and are then dealt a number of cards with various other cities on them. They must plan a route between each of the cities in their hand of cards. On each turn they throw a die and move between the cities. The winner is the first player to visit each of their cities and then return to their home base.

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Junta

Junta is a board game designed by Vincent Tsao originally published by Capri in 1975, and later published, as of 1985, by West End Games. Players compete as the corrupt power elite families of a fictional parody of a stereotypical banana republic (specifically Republica de los Bananas) trying to get as much money as possible into their Swiss bank accounts before the foreign aid money runs out. Fighting in the republic's capital during recurrent coup attempts encompasses most of the game's equipment, rules and playtime. This game-within-the-game is however actually tangential to the players' main goal.

The length of the game depends on how often coups are declared, but can often exceed six hours. Perhaps as a result of this, the game never achieved broad-based popularity, although it still retains a cult following of fans. Since West End Games filed for bankruptcy in 1998, copies of the game became hard to find until the 3rd edition was released in 2005.

The game's title is taken from the Spanish term "Junta" which originally referred to the executive bodies that frequently came to power after a military coup in 20th century Latin America (the Spanish version is called Golpe, which means coup d'état). In the game, the term refers to the players who declare "Rebel" at the beginning of the coup phase, and—if the coup is victorious—to the players who declare "pro-Junta" at the end of the coup phase to elect a new president.

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