Kangaruse

Kangaruse is a quick game with extremely simple rules about jumping around (as a kangaroo) and collecting points.

It’s a One Paper Game: to play, you only need to print one paper and grab some pens. I’ve made a lot of these, but it’s still worth mentioning every time, just because of how convenient and unique it is.

Numbers and arrows are shown around the board. Every turn, you jump to a new square. You must follow one of the commands (either the direction or how far you can jump), but may pick the other property of your jump freely.

With this simple jumping rule, players try to visit the most useful squares (and score the most points), while avoiding bad squares (or routes that would leave you stranded with nowhere to go).

What’s special?

The rules for the game—both the base explanation and what each unique animal does—are completely on the board! This wasn’t really possible before, because I’ve never made a game this simple before.

The jumping mechanic is something so useful that I’ll probably re-use it in many other games. With one simple rule, it allows a plethora of options on every turn, creating strategy and forcing you to look ahead.

Finally, this is one of the first games in which I heavily used generative AI, and could therefore really practice and experiment with the visual design of these games.