I’ve previously blogged a story by the name Barrel of Monkeys, but not the actual game… which struck me as an oversight, so guess what I’m talking about this week?
Barrel of Monkeys isn’t as old as Jacks, but it’s definitely another classic. Your container is – surprise – a barrel, and the contents are a set of monkeys*, each with arms curling in opposite directions. To play the game, you hold one monkey by its upper arm (Pick a side. Congratulations, that is now the upper side) and hook another monkey’s arm through the first one’s lower. Continue to make a chain in this fashion until something drops! It’s not at all complicated, but for young ones it practices fine motors skills, and even older players may find their arms protesting the static hold. That, and if you have cats they will definitely contribute their own Challenge Mode. If you don’t have cats – or they’re not interested – you can make it harder yourself by combining multiple sets!
While the amount of monkeys in a set varies, the official scoring for multiplayer is has each monkey worth a certain amount of points. When you stop (either because someone fell or because you ran out of monkeys), you score however many monkeys are still on your chain, and the first player to reach the victory condition (points equivalent to completing the full chain) wins. Though as kids, we always just went for “whoever can make the full chain first.” It’s your choice by which rules you play! The objective for single-player is more along the latter lines, as you time yourself making the whole chain and try to be progressively faster.
*Monkeys are not required to play this game. You may alternatively utilize a Barrel of Pterodactyls!
