| How to Play Bananagrams Feb 3rd 2013, 22:00 Bananagrams is a fast-paced, competitive game with similarities to both Scrabble and Boggle. The game progresses without turns as in Boggle, while each player builds their own interlocking, Scrabble-type crossword. - Unzip the banana-shaped pouch and dump out all of the tiles onto a flat surface such as the floor or a table.
- Flip all of the tiles face down, so no letters are visible.
- Decide how many tiles each player should draw and do so. Players can draw anywhere from 11 to 21 tiles. A good rule of thumb is to play with 14 tiles with more than four players and with 11 for more than seven players, but it's ultimately of little consequence in game play. Group the leftover tiles into a middle pile or "bunch".
- Once everyone has counted out their tiles, say, "Split!" This is the signal for everyone to flip over their tiles.
- Arrange your tiles into an interlocking crossword. Tiles may connect vertically or horizontally, but not diagonally. Your goal is to create complete words out of all your tiles.
- Note: If you have a tile you do not wish to use, not enough vowels, too many constants, etc., try "dumping". Place the single tile you are dumping back in the bunch, exclaim, "Dump!", and draw out three new tiles.
- Once you have finished making words with all of your tiles, yell, "Peel!" (It's always a good idea to double-check first.) Everyone must draw one tile from the bunch.
- Work in the new tiles. Tiles can be moved, rearranged, completely discombobulated, rotated, etc. In the example to the right, the player has a newly drawn T. By replaced the D in FOOD with T and creating FOOT they were able to place the D in TIE to make TIED, effectively using all their tiles.
- Continue playing in this manner until all the tiles in the bunch have been used up or the number left is less than the amount of players. At this point the player with a finished crossword, proclaims, "Bananas!" They are the winner!
- Flip the tiles over and play again, and again, and again...
- You can also play Bananagrams with Scrabble tiles. The banana sack provides a colorful, compact way to carry around the game however.
- With an exceptionally large group of people (more than eight) it's fun to use two bananas worth of grams in order to avoid overly short games. Of course you will get all your tiles mixed up if you choose to do so. (It's probably wise to sort them back out.) There are 144 tiles in each banana distributed like so:
- 2: J, K, Q, X, Z
- 3: B, C, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y
- 4: G
- 5: L
- 6: D, S, U
- 8: N
- 9: R, T
- 11: O
- 12: I
- 13: A
- 18: E
- Be sure to "dump" your letter far away in the pile so you don't pick it up immediately when you "peel".
- Bananagrams is a great game for all ages since it focuses on arranging all the letter tiles as opposed to use of the rarer letters or word length.
- Try creating a crossword with all the tiles!
- You can also play themed Bananagrams, in which all the words played must relate to a central idea.
- Two letter words like "qi", "it", and "oe" are useful placeholders for letters until you can work them into a larger word.
- While it is easier to think up smaller words, longer words leave more space to build off of.
- An effectively strategy is to "peel" at the highest velocity possible. An influx of new tiles may stymie even the wordiest player.
Edit Warnings - Players are not allowed to trade tiles, no matter how much they would like to.
- "Dumping" towards the end of the game is not advised as you are likely to get a very nasty set of tiles that others have gone and dumped before you.
- Projectile shooting of other people's crosswords with tiles is also not allowed in traditional Bananagrams.
Edit Things You'll Need - Table
- Two players
- Bananagrams or Scrabble tiles
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