You can also see the 101 words listed in the next step. Check out my article on mastering the two-letter words, which lists every words, with inflections and definitions. If you decide you do want to play with them, make sure to memorize all of the 101 acceptable two-letter words (124 outside of North America). Like I said before, I'm not much for playing two-letter words in Bananagrams. If outside of North America, you should use the Collins Official Scrabble Words, Third Edition (CSW3 or CSW2012).
If you live in North America, use The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, Fourth Edition (OSPD4) or the Official Tournament and Word List, Second Edition (OWL2). Obviously, a Scrabble-specific dictionary or word list is preferred. But for the sake of this article, you should be using a dictionary, just as you would in Scrabble. You could simply use a majority vote system where the opposing players decide your fate on any suspicious words, voting yae or nae. In order to decide if the winner is actually the winner, you need to agree on a dictionary. you can design any game you want.īut no matter if you're playing the classic Bananagrams or one of the alternative or homespun versions, the basic gameplay of building words still exists, so here are a few tips to help you be the first one done-and done right.
There are additional games in the rules called Banana Smoothie, Banana Café, and Banana Solitaire (for lonesome play), but really. The rules are much more flexible than Scrabble, and it's all about who you're playing and how fast you want to play. Also, during the so-called last peel of the game, if there are less letters than there are players, those who finish there crossword before the others must each take one of the remaining letters, until the bunch is extinguished. And to speed up the game, try drawing multiple tiles during a "peel" instead of just one. I never play using two-letter words, because it's then too easy. Please enable JavaScript to watch this video. If you have illegal words, you're now a "ROTTEN BANANA" and you must return all of you letters face down into the bunch area, so that the rest of the players can use them to finish the game and determine the real winner.įor those of you who didn't feel like reading all of the above instructions, check out the video. The rest of the players then inspect your Bananagram for legitimacy (no proper nouns, acronyms, abbreviations, or hyphenated words, just like in Scrabble). When there are less letters in the bunch than there are total players, and you've completed your Bananagram, scream "BANANAS" and you've just won the game, unless somebody beat you to it. If at anytime you get stuck with difficult-to-use letter, you can "DUMP" it back into the bunch, but you must take three letters back instead of one. Afterwards, you yell "PEEL" and you and your opponents draw another face down letter from the "BUNCH" and try to incorporate them into your Bananagram. You then turns the tiles over and form words in crossword fashion, connecting them together until you've used all your letters.
Once everyone has their tiles, the game begins when someone says "SPLIT". Each player draws a set number of letter tiles, which is as follows (though it could really be anything you want). To get started, just grab the banana-shaped pouch of letters and dump all 144 of them on an empty table face down. There's no board to get into the way, no score pad to distract you from building words, and the layout structure is very similar to Scrabble, where you build words from left to right horizontally, and top to bottom vertically. I usually use Bananagrams as a pregame warmup for Scrabble, to get the brain juices flowing. Even if you're in love with Scrabble, Bananagrams is worth a try because it's all about speed. Now, take away time restrictions and add two other players and you've got a game that could take up to 2 hours! It all really depends on who the competition is.įor those who don't have the patience for Scrabble, there's another word game out there that better suits you- Bananagrams. Even in clubs and tournaments where the standard time limit is 25 minutes per person for a two-player game. Without the use of a timer, Scrabble can be a pretty slow game. Let's face it, not every logophile is addicted to Scrabble.