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Bananagrams is a quick, light word game for 2 to 8 players. It is in the same genre as popular word games like Scrabble and Quiddler, but adds an element of speed that these games lack. While many vocabulary games can suffer from long, boring waits while other players struggle to come up with a word, Bananagrams' simultaneous play makes for a rapid pace as players rush to complete their crossword first.
The only game components are a set of bakelite tiles with letters printed on them, much in the same style as Scrabble tiles. These come in a yellow, banana-shaped pouch with a zipper. It also comes with the instructions for the basic game outlined below and for several variants, including a very playable solitaire version.
At the start of the game, each player is dealt a face-down starting hand of tiles. The size of the starting hand depends on the number of players: 21 for up to 4 players, 15 for 5-6 players, or 11 for 7-8. The rest of the tiles are placed face-down in the center of the table; this is called the "bunch." One of the players yells "SPLIT" to start the game.
All the players flip over their own tiles, and begin forming them into a crossword. All the words must intersect another word, and read either left to right or top to bottom. Players can rearrange the tiles at any time. There are no turns; everyone plays on their own crossword at the same time.
Any time that a player has used all his or her tiles, they say "PEEL!" This is a signal for all players to draw an additional tile from the bunch in the middle.
An unwanted tile can be exchanged for three face-down tiles from the bunch at any time. This must be announced by saying "DUMP". This is a very useful mechanic for things like getting rid of q's that you don't have any u's for.
The game continues until there are fewer tiles left in the bunch than there are players. The first player to use all their tiles in a complete crossword after this occurs says "BANANAS!" The other players may then inspect the crossword to make sure that all the words used are valid. If they are all valid, then this player is the winner. If not, that player is declared a "rotten banana." All his or her tiles are returned to the bunch, and he or she is out of the game. The remaining players resume the game.
A game of Bananagrams only takes a few minutes, so it is usually played in a series of hands. For this reason, it makes a good game to play while waiting for something; I've broken it out for a quick play while waiting for another game to finish, and while waiting in line for a movie (though Bananagrams does take up a lot of room; the roped off area for the line was fairly wide). The size of play area needed is really my only complaint about the game; generally at least two square feet per player, plus space for the bunch. That's fine if you're only playing with four or so, but I've yet to encounter a table that has enough room for eight and still allows everyone to easily reach the bunch.
There is not a great deal of interaction between the players, since they're all dealing only with their own crossword. The only way I've found to really affect other players is by returning your difficult-to-place dumped letters to the area of the bunch someone else tends to draw from.
This game is a good one to introduce to non-gamers or casual gamers; the mechanics are easy to explain, and it feels familiar to anyone who's played Scrabble or solved a crossword, and the time commitment is only five minutes or so. It also has the advantage of being extremely portable. The zippered pouch will fit into a purse, backpack, or cargo-pants pocket easily, and the components will not be damaged by squishing, so it's easy to have on hand if an opportunity to play presents itself.
I would recommend Bananagrams as a very fun lightweight game for people who can spell.
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Posted Fri Jul 13,2007 06:00 pm
