Jungo is the third version of a game that has previously been published in Japan as Hachi Train and Nanatoridori, with very slight changes to the rules each time. It is very much SCOUT lite, with simpler rules, but ultimately much less strategy and decision-making because your moves are usually going to be pretty straightforward. (It’s on Amazon right now, but not Miniature Market.)
Jungo is a “card-shedding” game, like SCOUT or UNO, meaning that the goal is to get rid of all of your cards before anyone else does. You’re dealt a hand of cards from the deck, which has cards numbered 1 through 12 in various colors, and you may not rearrange your hand. On your turn, you must play either a single card or a set of cards of the same number to the table, beating whatever is on the table at that moment. If you’re playing the same number of cards, you must play a higher value. Otherwise, you must play at least one more card than is there already. If you can’t or don’t want to do either of these things, you must pass and draw a card … but if that card allows you to make a legal play, then you can do so immediately. You can also keep the card and put it anywhere in your hand that you’d like, or discard it.
When you play a card or a set to the table, you have the option to take the cards were there into your hand, placing them wherever you want; if not, you must discard them. If all players pass and play returns to whoever played the cards on the table, they discard whatever’s there and begin a new trick. Play continues until someone has no cards remaining in their hand. You can just play a single round, or you can play multiple rounds until someone wins twice for a longer game.
I just don’t see any scenario where I’d choose to play Jungo over SCOUT. Jungo is just too simple – there’s really very little strategy here from turn to turn, as the optimal move is obvious every time. You want to play the strongest set you can to try to get cards out of your hand, both to move closer to having zero cards and to potentially create a new set within your hand for a future play. Because the game only allows sets of cards, and not runs of consecutive numbers, you don’t have as many possibilities within your hand, so picking up cards is less likely to be useful.
I could see an argument that Jungo is easier to teach than SCOUT, since it probably has half the rules of the older game, but I’ve had success teaching SCOUT to non-gamers and to kids, so simplifying it doesn’t have a lot of appeal for me. Your mileage may vary, but Jungo wasn’t for me.