Bananagrams | A Review by Tabletop Meeple

 Bananagrams

a review by Tabletop Meeple

Info:

• For 1-8 players
• For ages 7 and up
• 5-10 minutes to play
• BGG Weight: 1.31

Game Overview

    This may surprise some of the people reading this. Bananagrams? Really? Well, I'm here to tell you that this simple family word-building game (from 2006) is actually pretty good. Designed by Rena and Abe Nathanson, and published by Bananagrams, Inc., this game is a surprisingly solid speed word game. I tend to dislike speed games, but this is one that I actually enjoy. Enough with my praise, let's get into the actual review.

The game bag. This whole setup makes the game much easier to take around portably. 

Theme

    Don't be ridiculous. This game's theme isn't really there. The game has a few elements of 'banana'-ness, but otherwise there's nothing really there. It isn't a bad theme however, which is worse than no theme at all.

TM Score: 8/20

Components

    This game actually has really nice components. The game ships with 144 tiles (in the English edition) all of which were made practically without imperfection and feel really nice to touch and slide around your board. The game also comes in a fabric bag that resembles a banana which makes set-up, take-down, and play much easier. A stellar job in this department.

TM Score: 17/20

144 brilliant tiles all in a nice fabric bag. Sometimes, you see things like this in the board-gaming industry, and you wonder why it isn't like this everywhere. This was definitely one of those moments.

Gameplay

    In Bananagrams, players race to sort 21 letter tiles into words, all connected like in Scrabble, on their own personal section of the board. However, there are no turns, as this is a speed game, and it is a race to the finish as you throw away 1 letter to draw 4 more, as well as rearranging your rapidly-evolving word landscape. Can you tell I like this a lot? I already prefaced this review by stating that speed games aren't my favorite. I can do dexterity games, those are fine, but speed games typically aren't my, well, speed. (Pun both not intended and also intended at the same time). 

    However, Bananagrams managed to not only sustain me through the four or so rounds we played of it, it also managed to make me want to play more and more of it. I learned this game about 4 days ago and have since played 11 rounds of it. That is a new record for me, and also is testament to the fact that this game is pretty darn good, because I tend to shy away from playing games back-to-back. Really solid game with really solid replay value.

TM Score: 19/20

One of my finished solo rounds. I came up with some pretty clever words, or at least I thought so.

Overall

    I really ended up enjoying Bananagrams. The satisfying feeling of your own little Scrabble-esque board expanding, the equally disappointing feeling of realizing that one of your words is illegal and you have to reform your board to make it work. It all ties together in a way I truly never expected. This is the best speed game I have played to date. 

PROS:

• easy-to-learn
• very accessible
• really nice tiles
• very satisfying to play
• very quick rounds

CONS:

• I can't find one.

FINAL TM SCORE: 16.3/20

    And that's it!

    I really enjoy this game, and I really enjoy writing these reviews, and I hope you enjoy reading them as well. Playing games is a great way to spend time, and I hope my reviews make an impact on whether or not you decide to purchase the games covered in them. If you are a publisher or a designer and want to send a game my way for review, contact me! My contact info will be at the bottom of the page. See you next time!

Contact Info:

Email: tabletopmeeple@gmail.com