Bananagrams

Bananagrams (2006) is a brain game where you arrange and rearrange letters to make words. You play by taking Letter tiles from a shared pile and organising them into a crossword grid. It is a game of speed, quick adaptation and that glorious feeling of joy when you finally fit your tiles into place.

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You play by taking Letter tiles from the shared pile and organising them into words joined correctly. As soon as you've done this you shout "Peel" and everyone takes two more tiles - whether they are ready for them or not. You then use the new Letter tiles with any leftover to add another word to your grid.

As you play, you continue taking letters and adding them to your increasingly complicated grid. You first try to fit them into the words that you already have in place, but often you need to disassemble words and rearrange them to free up letters or to make longer words so that you have space to add in your new words. This continues until all the letters in the pile are used up and the first player to finish is the winner.

It's a game that delivers equal amounts of joy and frustration. No sooner have you felt the joy of completing a word, than you are forced to begin the process of rearranging all over again. Combine this with being forced to take tiles by other players when you aren't ready for them and you have a speedy thinking game for those who like adapting, re-doing and fighting to finish first.

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Our examiner, Rob Prior, first checked Bananagrams 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 4 months ago.