BASICS

REQUIREMENTS

• 3 - 7 players.
• A normal deck of 52 playing cards + 1 or 2 jokers (optional, but recommended).
• And with Heartless Monkey Hat extension an obtrusive / demeaning hat.

BASIC IDEA (and story)

In an ancient bamboo forest, a campfire burns in the evening dark and a few gibbons are gathered around it to play a fire game.

• Each gibbon starts with 4 bamboo spots which are all kept further back in the dark (as hand cards).
• On their turn, each gibbon pole vaults over the fire leaving the bamboo pole onto the fire feeding the flames. The number of the card represents bamboo length: The longer the bamboo, the higher the jump, and the more it fuels the fire.
• Roughly speaking, their jumps fall into two main categories (face up and face down):
  • When a card is played face up (= jump with hands), the bamboo ends up in the center of the fire and burns up fully (flames rise according to the pole length).
  • Hand cards can also be played face down - these foot jumps leave the pole further from the fire pointing towards the origin (fire grows +1 in height).
    • However, these sticking out bamboos can be doubted by others: If they are too short, the gibbon must have cheated (and jumped from a tree in the dark).
• Whenever a gibbon wins a doubt, or raises the flames so high that another gibbon tumbles, the reward is a new fire spot (= table card slot).
  • The first gibbon to get a fire spot for all 4 bamboos wins and becomes the Braveheart. (Traditionally, he's allowed to wear a mask on the next time around.)

LAYOUT & START UP

All the cards (52 + jokers) are shuffled and each player dealt 4 hand cards (or only 3 cards with 7 players).

• The player on the dealer's left starts the first fire by playing any card into the center face up. The turn moves clockwise from there on.
  • The face up cards in the fire are kept in one clean pile (= rising flame), while the face down cards stick out towards their owner.
• When the deck (= bamboos) runs out, the gibbons move to a new spot: It's reshuffled from the discarded cards by the player who next needs a card.
  • In case there's very few discarded cards to shuffle from (= all/most are in the fire), each player's topmost card is kept while the fire below is reshuffled.

PLAYING

ON YOUR TURN

The turn always moves clockwise, and before your turn ends you must always play one card onto the fire (see the 3 options below).

• Before playing a card, the player may also doubt another card (see further below). If correct, he gets to start a new fire (otherwise plays on the current one).
• After playing a card, the player must draw a new hand card from the deck (unless played random) so that he always has 4 hand + table cards in total.

A NEW FIRE

A new fire is always started by a face up card - any card is fine (hand / table / random). Otherwise the player must play to the existing fire (see below).

• Note. It's customary that the player who was guilty of crashing the old fire cleans it up (= turns the face up cards face down and puts all away).

1. PLAYING HAND CARDS (chest ups, side flips & front flips)

Hand cards can always be played face down (except when starting a fire), but can also be played face up with certain conditions.

• FACE DOWN: Playing face down (= front flip) promises the card to be a higher number and non-heart (♥) - be it true or not. (Can optionally mumble: "higher".)
  • The card raises the flames by 1, and can be doubted by anyone on their turn, until it's your turn again (or a new fire is started).
• FACE UP: You can only play face up if 1) starting a fire, 2) playing the same number (of any suit, "side flip"), or 3) playing a higher number heart ("chest up").
  • In other words, you never want to play your hearts face down, as it's always cheating. (Gibbons have vowed to burn heart bamboos fully for their lovely flames.)

2. PLAYING TABLE CARDS (face ups)

Table cards can only be played face up, and playing them is only allowed if they are the same or higher number than the fire (or there's no fire).

• After playing a table card, it's immediately replaced by a new card from the deck or a hand card (and drawing a new one). The flames rise to the number.

3. PLAYING A RANDOM CARD (panic jumps)

Each gibbon can always resort to a panic jump: play the topmost card of the deck face up against the fire.

• If the card is of the same number or higher (or there is no fire), the jump succeeds and the flames rise accordingly.
• Otherwise (= lower number) the gibbon tumbles onto the fire, and the one who last raised the flame height (= played higher) is rewarded with a fire spot.
• In either case, the turn moves to the next player (who either continues on the fire, or starts a new one after a crash).

SPECIALITIES

ACES & JOKERS (special bamboos)

The numbers are in their normal order (representing bamboo length) face cards being their number equivalent (J = 11, Q = 12, K = 13).

• However, aces (A) are number 14 when played, but number 1 afterwards. (These wet bamboo poles nearly exinguish the fire.)
• Jokers are flexible bamboos that are always the lowest number that fits the usage (number 1 if used to start a new fire).
  • So as hand cards, jokers can be played face up or face down. When played face up, they are typically placed overlappingly (to also show the previous number).

DOUBTING

If there are doubtable face down cards in the fire, you can choose to doubt one of them (max. 1 doubt per turn).

• Only the latest card of each player (except your own) can be doubted, and only if it's face down. The face down cards should always point towards their source, so it's clear which belongs to whom.
• A doubt is made by turning the doubted card face up (= the bamboo pole is brought near the fire and measured).
  • If the bamboo was too short (= not what promised) the doubter is rewarded with a fire spot, and gets to start a new fire (by playing any card face up).
  • If the card was true, it's put back into the same spot (face down), while the doubted gibbon is rewarded. The doubter must then play a card to the same fire.
• Note. If needed, you can count the required number from the fire: from the last (non-joker) face up card + 1 for each face down card above.

FIRE SPOTS AND BRAVEHEART

Whenever a gibbon is rewarded, the reward is to receive a fire spot (= table card slot).

• The happy gibbon simply decides which hand card to put face up as a table card. From there on, he will have 1 hand card fewer (and 1 table card more).
  • Note. While the first fire spot is not that bad (maybe even good), many spots will eventually make using front flips (= playing face down) more difficult.
• The game ends when one of the gibbons gets his 4th fire spot (= no hand cards) and becomes the Braveheart.
  • If playing for multiple rounds, the Braveheart gets to choose which player to swap places with, who then becomes the first dealer of the next round.
  • If you want more complex scoring (than win = 1 point), you can reward each player by how many table cards they have, and play until, say, 10 points.

EXTENSIONS

extension: CHEAP MONKEY HAT (recommended)

Following the Gibbon tradition there's a Monkey Hat punishment, but this time it's about cheap promises - promises of number 9 and lower.

• The rule is simple: You get hat by making a cheap promise and getting caught cheating, and while wearing it you cannot make cheap promises.
  • GETTING THE HAT: In other words, if you play face down when the flame height is under 9, it's a cheap promise. Cheat and get caught, the hat is yours. If you play face down on number 9 (or higher), it promises number 10 (or higher), which is not cheap. (So cheating becomes safe when the flames reach 8/13 = 62%.)
  • WEARING THE HAT: Accordingly while wearing the hat, you are not allowed to play face down when the flame height is under 9 (-> cheap promise), but must instead play face up: either a 1. fitting heart from hand, 2. fitting table card, or a 3. random card. (So get some fire spots before cheating cheaply.)
• There's only one hat, so you're relieved of the burden only if another player gets the hat, or otherwise when the round ends.

STRATEGY

GLOSSARY

The types of bamboos.

• The number of the card represents bamboo length. The longer the bamboo, the higher the jumps, and the more the flames are raised.
• Aces are the longest bamboos but they are wet and nearly extinguish the fire. Jokers are special flexible bamboos (telescope-like).
• Hearts are bamboos with lovely flames when played face up, so the gibbons have vowed to always play them face up.

Jumping and doubting.

• When a card is played face up, the bamboo ends up in the center of the fire and burns up fully (flames rise depending on the bamboo length).
• Hand cards can be used to do front flips (face down) - leaving the pole further from the fire pointing towards the origin (fire grows +1).
• Table cards are special fire spots. Their next bamboo is visible and jumping always burns the pole fully - it's impossible to use them for front flips.
• Random cards represent panicky jumps, where the gibbon picks up a random bamboo while running towards the fire - likewise the pole burns up fully with this style. If the jump fails, the gibbon who last raised the flames is rewarded with a fire spot.
• Doubting represents checking out a sticking out bamboo (from a front flip) for validity: If not long enough, the gibbon must have jumped from a tree. The winner of the doubt gets a fire spot.

RANDOM WORDS OF WISDOM

• As the scoring is reward based (there's no penalties), the player who can best catch cheaters and make others doubt him falsely tends to win. Relatively speaking you could say that each reward to someone else is 1 / number-of-players penalty to you (so the more there are players the cheaper failing is).
• When playing face up, you might at times be tempted to raise up the tempo by playing very high. However, playing too high (in relation to the number of players) often results in someone else gaining a reward. And as there's no punishments, you're just helping others to make easier doubts.
• Following the point above, when choosing which card to choose as a table card:
  • NORMAL SUITS: It's often best to not put the very highest numbers there - especially never an ace (as it would lose its true power).
  • HEARTS: For hearts it's the opposite: you want the high ones on the table as they'd be played face up anyway. The low hearts you try to cheat away (or wait).
• In regards to aces, their true power is when playing face down as if some very high card but below ace (to not reset): so playing it for K, Q or J.
• The most dubious moment to play face down is when promising the card to be an ace. This is for two reasons: 1. There's very few truthful cards (only aces and jokers), and 2. it such a puppy face move, as it makes it very easy for the following players to play low cards away (and forget about doubting).
• If you can't play truthfully and think you'll be doubted, consider using random (even when flames are high) if it would reward a player not close to winning.
• Accordingly, if you're the only one close to winning (= 1 hand card left), others will not use random if it benefits you, and are more unlikely to doubt you. At those times, it's actually best to doubt others aggressively (especially the ones far away from winning) before they catch up with you.

HISTORY

v3 - Fire Gibbon (2023)

• v3.0.1 - only extensions (2024-03-09)
  • Changed the Heartless Monkey Hat extension to Cheap Monkey Hat: It was about hearts (♥), but now it's about cheap promises (2 - 10).
• v3.0 (2023-10-17)
  • Reorganized the basic gameplay mechanics. Main changes are: 1. no more moulting, 2. hand cards harder to play face up, 3. fire spots & Braveheart.

v2 - Naked Gibbon (2023)

• v2.4 (2023-03-13): Changed the game to end when the first gibbon drops out (= Losing Touch), and added extensions (Survival of the Fittest and Never My Tail).
• v2.3 (2023-03-01):
  • Burnmarks now mean safe spots (not losing a card) useful for spot moulting, whereas other table spots are vulnerable.
  • Table cards must be higher number (same is not enough), and can spot moult same or lower number. A face up joker (= random / table) is lowest that fits.
  • Getting a burnmark lifts the burden of the Heartless Monkey Hat. (Also added Losing Touch and the Veterans extensions.)
  • Refined the layout, and changed the story to be about jumping over the fire and losing your tail (from sorcerer gibbons).
• v2.2 (2023-02-27)
  • Added another way to moult hand cards: now you can also put one unplayable hand card face up and refresh the remaining hand cards (if any).
  • Refined who starts after the punishment (so that the turn always moves clockwise, no jumps - again) and added a related Let Me Start extension.
• v2.1 (2023-02-16)
  • Refined a few details for smoother gameplay and enhancing the Gibbon spirit (1. the winner of the doubt starts a new fire, 2. joker can also be a higher heart, 3. hearts cannot be blessed as the same number, 4. when losing a card can keep some hand cards).
  • Added Heartless Monkey Hat extension in the spirit of the Gibbon series.
• v2.0 (2023-01-31)
  • Revised and reorganized the original Naked Gibbon concept. The game became much simpler, and required no bookkeeping nor 2-player specialities.

v1 - Naked Gibbon (2016)

• The game was very complex (especially 2-player-game). It used random cards extensively (giving free randoms under various circumstances).

THANKS

FOR IDEAS, HELP WITH DEVELOPMENT & PLAYING

Johannes Aho, Ville Viitala, Rosanna Viitala, Emmi Viitala, Jyri Mäkelä, Antti Mannila, Johan Rautio and Tomi Laine.