|
|
Fun Game Bananagrams Will Drive You Bananas!
Rena Nathansan and three generations of her family went into creating a fun new origional game. Every summer family members from ages 7 to 75 would meet on the east coast of the United States. Some of them would travel all the way from the UK to meet and engage in their love of word games. They loved the classic word games but wanted some thing a little more fluid that the whole family could play regardless of their age. They loved to travel as well and wanted a good portable game that they could take with them.
They played around and experimented with different word game variations for hours on end and finally came up with an exciting anagram letter tile game. It was so fast paced and fun, that they thought it would drive a person bananas. So they ended up naming it Bananagrams. Renas father was the one who actually came up with that name.
They did not initially have any plans to market or sell the game. However after they gave copies of to a few friends, these friends incouraged them to market it because they loved the game so much. After they displayed the game in 2006 at a toy fair in London, the game just took off. Well maybe "Sky Rocketed" is a better term for it has been awarded many times including:
The Good Toy Guide in 2006 gave it the Gold Award
Right Start Magazine in 2006 gave it Best Toy Bronze Award
Creative Child Magazine in 2007 gave it Top Toy of the Year Award
Parenthood dot com gave it the NAPPA Honors Award
The object of the game is to arrange one's tiles faster than opponents and be the first to cause the pool of unused tiles to be exhausted. Players have an identical number of tiles when they start out this number varies depending on the number of players. These letter tiles are placed face-down so that all the tiles appear look the same. The remaining tiles referred to as the "Bunch" remain in the center. When one of the players yells "split" all the players turn their tiles over and proceed to arrange them into words.
When a player uses up all of his or her tiles, he or she calls out "peel" and each player then has to pick must a new tile from the "Bunch". This will cause the players to have to again rearrange their tiles to form new words. The words may be placed horizontally or vertically, They can be read from left to right or top to bottom. Players may at any time, and as often as desired, return a difficult-to-use letter back to the "Bunch", face down, but must in return take 3 more letter tiles. A player who does this has to shout out "Dump".
It is a constant fast paced game and players are in constant play with no waiting to take turns. All players are playing at the same time independently of each other. A hand will continues until there are fewer tiles in the BUNCH than there are players. The player who is first with with no remaining letters will shout "BANANAS" and is the winner of that hand. Then the game is restarted.
There are variations of the game also that can be played to make it more interesting. For instance a hand can take as little as 5 minutes so players might play Best Of where who is best of 5 hands, or 10 hands. Or a less hectic version called the "Banana Smoothie" where there is no peeling or dumping. Players who travel play "Banana Cafe" while they are waiting for their service.
Other variations include "Banana Solitaire" where one player plays by their selves. There is also "Banana Challenge, where you play by the regular rules but words must be three letters or longer. And if you really think you are smart, try limiting your words to specific categories, like animals or food or just nouns or verbs.
Parents can share happy times with very young children as well by just helping them sound out and spell words they may be learning in Pre-K, Kindergarten or First Grade. Young kids love to form words with the letter tiles, and will often just do it on their own. In that respect you could say Bananagrams as well as fun, is a very educational game as well.
If you are a word game enthusiast who loves games such as scrabble, you would probably love Bananagrams. In fact, Bananagrams has been compared to playing Scrabble, but you do not need a board to play on. You do not need a pencil or a paper either. You just need a flat surface like a table. This has just been one persons oppinion of a fun new game. You will have to play it yourself to see how you feel about it.
About the Author Bananagrams is a Rising New Star in the world of games. Please visit Bananagrams Now to learn more.
|
 |
Please Rate: |
|
Rating: |
 Processing ... |
(Average: Not rated) |
| Views: | 28 | |
|
| More Articles from Arts and Entertainment | | |
| Top Articles in Arts and Entertainment | | |
|
