80
Bananagrams
$15.00
Released January, 2006
The Pros:Fast game that doesn't rely on people's turns. Develops language skills. More fun and engrossing than stressful. If you subscribe to "word a day" lists or World Wide Words.
The Cons:The speed can be stressful.
The name came from the saying " The anagram game that will drive you bananas!" - hence BANANAGRAMS!! This game is meant to be fun as well as educational. Bananagrams comes with 144 letter tiles, a set of rules and a banana pouch to keep them in.
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Similar to Scrabble but quicker and easier to play. Bananagrams requires no paper, pencil or board. This game is great for spelling and vocabulary. It also encourages children to use a dictionary.
Rules of Play
At the beginning of the game all the letter tiles are placed upside down on a table where each player proceeds to take a number of tiles for their own use. After all the players have the proper number of tiles the game begins where each player creates words in a crossword manner in the central area of the board, similar to Scrabble. Unlike Scrabble there is no set order, players can place words at any time, the player that ultimately uses up all of his/her tiles first wins.
User Reviews (4)
Pros & Cons
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3
Fast game that doesn't rely on people's turns
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3
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1
More fun and engrossing than stressful. If you subscribe to "word a day" lists or World Wide Words
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1
Can be played with lots of people (8+) or as a solitaire game
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2
The speed can be stressful
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Comments (1)
Howlsthunder:
#bananagrams A friend of mine taught a group of us to play "speed scrabble" which is identical to Bananagrams except you use the tiles from a Scrabble game. Even with WAY fewer tiles we still managed to play with 10 people using Scrabble tiles. I haven't tried to see how many people can play with Bananagrams but I bet you could get as high as 15.
The game itself is fast-paced: everyone starts with a 'hand' of tiles and proceeds to build their own personal 'scrabble' board, as seen in the photo for this entry. You can re-arrange at will. Once a player has used up all their tiles, they yell "peel" and everyone has to draw two more tiles and continue on. Working in the new tiles means re-arranging the words constantly so the game really keeps you on your toes - especially with Q, X, Z, J, and K words. Its great brain exercise but if the speed is too competitive or "stressful", there are variations of the game (included in the instructions) that make it a more laid back experience or to even play it as a solitaire game.
And you can make up your own variations as well. At Christmas time, we left the game out on the coffee table and over the course of the week took turns drawing a set amount of tiles and adding to the group puzzle, sometimes keeping the words to a theme (like "animals"). Kinda like Scrabble but without the competition and with the ability to re-arrange the tiles as needed.
My only complaint is the letter proportions are awkward; I wrote down the frequency of each letter just to see and it is very skewed toward the most common letters used in English but in such a way that it is VERY common to draw three "U"s in one hand or have a whole hand of vowels. In comparison, Scrabble was designed to take letter frequency of the English language into account, so even with fewer tiles it is much easier to spell common words. You can work around this by playing this game with Scrabble tiles or just 'get over it' and learn a lot of fun words with lots of U's in them. ;)
As to the physical aspects of the game itself: the tiles are hefty and durable, similar to whatever they make dominoes out of. The pouch is a sturdy cloth material held shut with a zipper and the tiles come inside a ziplock plastic bag inside the 'peel', reducing the chance of tile loss. The tiles really pack in there tight so its a very compact, portable game.
Feb 11, 10
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