The game board is placed in the middle of the table.

Each player receives the five kangaroo figures of one colour. The black "referee kangaroo" is placed in the "Billabong". The starting player can be determined in any way.

In turn, each player places one of their kangaroos, one at a time, on any unoccupied space behind the start-finish line (see the area marked in green in the illustration).

Once the players have placed all their kangaroos on the board, the actual game begins with the first player who placed one of his kangaroos. In turn, each player moves one of their kangaroos.

For this, there are two options:

Either: The kangaroo WALKS onto an adjacent unoccupied space (vertically, horizontally or diagonally - like a chess king). This ends the player's turn.

Or: The kangaroo JUMPS (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) over another kangaroo of any colour.

To do this, the other kangaroo must stand in the same line (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) as the jumping kangaroo. The jumping kangaroo must be able to land at the same distance beyond the other kangaroo as from his starting place to that kangaroo (see illustration).

Note: the longest possible single jump is 14 spaces.

In addition, the following rules apply: The kangaroo may not

• jump over more than one kangaroo
• land on another kangaroo; the landing space always needs to be empty
• jump beyond the edge of the game board
• jump over the "Billabong"

Jumping over a corner of the "Billabong", however, is allowed (see illustration).

A kangaroo can make any number of consecutive jumps on one turn!

With each of these jumps, the kangaroo has to jump over exactly one other kangaroo and then land on a space that is exactly the same distance from the jumped-over kangaroo as was the starting space of the jump.

It doesn't matter who owns the jumped-over kangaroo; they can be owned by the jumping player as well as the opponents. Even the black "referee kangaroo" can be jumped over (see more details below).

IMPORTANT: The possibility of a chain move applies only to JUMPS!

A walking kangaroo always moves only one space, and combinations of the two move types are not allowed either.

One of the most exciting moments during the BILLABONG game is when you figure out a chain jump that moves a kangaroo particularly far.

Such a series of jumps can consist of a whole lot of individual jumps, sometimes even multiple jumps over the same kangaroos!

Mistakes can easily happen during the execution of such a chaining move, which is why there is the black "referee kangaroo".

At the beginning of each chain jump, the "referee kangaroo" is placed on the starting space of the jumping kangaroo. If things get muddled up at some point during the execution of the move, you just need to put the kangaroo back on its starting space (that's where the "referee" is) and try the move again.

But if you realize that - due to an oversight - the intended series of jumps is not possible at all, you have to make a different, legitimate move with the same kangaroo!

When you have finally completed your series of jumps correctly, the "referee kangaroo" is placed back into the "Billabong", where it will wait for the next player's move.

Besides this, the "referee kangaroo" has another benefit as well: After all, it is a kangaroo and as such may also be jumped over, of course! This can sometimes give you unexpected additional possibilities, as can be seen in the following example.

The "Billabong" must be circumnavigated clockwise.

Example: Fan block for red.

As soon as a kangaroo has crossed the start-finish line again after a complete circuit of the "Billabong" - that means, lands on a space behind this line after a legitimate move - it is placed in its fan block (see illustration).

The first player to get all five kangaroos of their team across the finish line wins.

At Yucata there isn't only one single winner but all players are assigned a ranking:
The more kangaroos a player could bring across the finish line, the higher their rank.
If two players could bring the same number of kangaroos across the finish line, the player who had that number of kangaroos over the finish line first, gets the higher rank.

This allows the players to undo the selection of a kangaroo for movement in order to move another kangaroo. This makes it possible to try out which kangaroo can jump where.

Reminder: According to the standard rules (that is without this play variant) you may not undo the selection. Instead, you have to move the kangaroo you selected first. (However, the movements of the kangaroo can still be undone.)

At the beginning of the game, the kangaroos of a different colour are randomly distributed on the game board.

These kangaroos do not move, but can be jumped over.

All other rules remain the same.

After the first player has got all his kangaroos over the finish line, the remaining players keep on playing until only one player has kangaroos in play that have not yet crossed the finish line.

The players' rank then corresponds to the order they got their kangaroos over the finish line.

Reminder: According to the standard rules (that is without this play variant) the game ends immediately after one player has brought all 5 of his kangaroos across the finish line.

This variant accelerates the placement of the kangaroos at the start of the game. One kangaroo of each player is automatically and randomly placed in each of the 4 quadrants behind the start-finish line (I-IV in the illustration below). Afterwards the players place their fifth kangaroo on one of the remaining free spaces behind the start-finish line (see the area marked in dark green in the illustration below). The game then continues according to the standard rules.