Review: Bananagrams

As part of the Asmodee UK Blogger Board Game Club we received Bananagrams to review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

Description

The anagram game that drives you bananas!

Contents

In the cloth banana shaped bag you receive:

• 144 tiles
• Instructions

How to Play

Ages: 7-107

Players: 1 to 8

Lay the tiles face down and then each player picks a number of tiles. The number of tiles depends on how many players there are: 21 tiles for 2-4 players, 15 tiles for 5-6 players, and 11 tiles for 7-8 players.

All together everyone flips over their tiles and starts making words.

The winner is whoever manages to use all their letters and shouts out ‘Bananas’. Once the words are checked and if there are no spelling mistakes then they are declared the winner. However if there are any mistakes they are disqualified and the other players continue.

During game play, if a player decides a letter cannot be used, they can discard that tile but in replacement must take 3 more tiles.

What did we think?

The game isn’t social in the sense that you are playing with others and taking turns. Rather you are focusing on your own letters and your own crossword. Although the game is recommended for ages 7+, Bee of course wanted to have a go even though she is 5. And we kept being asked if the spelling of a word was correct! That did make me realise that it is a good way for the children to focus on letters and spellings and could in fact help Bee with her spellings.

Bee seems to be enjoying making words (even if she is spelling them wrong at times) and has been playing the game alone often when we can’t play with her.

Bananagrams is a game that I can see being played by the family regularly.

Bananagrams is available from most good toy stores and Amazon: Bananagrams Word Game (affiliate link).