Jumanji, the Board Game UX We Should All Be Aiming For

I’ll say it. Mechanically speaking Jumanji is a terrible board game. It is literally “roll fast enough to reach the center before the game kills you”. If the game didn’t spawn IRL threats Jumanji would be extremely boring to play. But from a user/player experience perspective Jumanji is the design we all should strive for.

Okay, so we have to start with the elephant in the room. Jumanji can literally put elephants in to the room, making Jumanji an extremely immersive experience. The players don’t have to use the theater of the mind or some stand in miniature to picture the scene. No, the scene is stomping through your living room captivating you with its presence. Player engagement is damn near given at this point because you can’t ignore the Venus flytrap devouring the town. Even though each turn is terrifying, players still play because Jumanji is that immersive.

Jumanji also serves up information to the player only when they need it. The players don’t need to go to some rule book to reference what each spot on its windy paths mean. Jumanji tells players in the center of the board what a spot means when they land on it. This is classic don’t-make-me-think. Instead of having to weigh all the pros and cons of landing on this spot vs that spot, Jumanji takes that process off you’re hands. Now you can focus on the most important aspects of the game: rolling high numbers and not getting eaten alive.

The game pieces move themselves, y’all! There is no confusion on which piece is mine, or if I can make this move our not. The game is making the move for you. As a player this prevents me from forgetting to move my piece or miscounting the number of spaces I can go. And because the pieces can’t be moved by anything, my progress is persevered even if the game is abducted by a pelican and floats off in a river.

But probably my favorite part about it all is that Jumanji cleans itself up when the game is over. My biggest peeves in board games are set up & clean up, and Jumanji makes the latter part a breeze by sucking up all it spawned into a whirlwind capable of resetting time. All of which makes the game so easy and inviting to play again.

Again, Jumanji is not a perfect game, but its immersive experience and quality of life features make it the pinnacle of user excellence for board gamers.

Thanks for reading. Speaking of movies and games, you should check out my game Movie Cues. It’s a movie-based reaction game where players try to collect cue cards triggered by the movie. Whoever has the most at the end of the film is The Champ. Cheers!